The act-utilitarian: a means or an end?

“Act-utilitarianism makes close relationships and true friendship impossible.”

In this paper, I will argue that the traditional act-utilitarian, as well as those that follow more contemporary versions of the theory, are compatible with friendship only so far as they are engaging in “means” relationships with instrumental value, meaning they exist mainly for their usefulness. However, I will distinguish that the act-utilitarian remains wholly incompatible with “end” relationships, which are non-instrumental because they are valued in themselves.

Utilitarianism refers to a consequentialist moral theory involving an ‘agent-neutral’ criterion of rightness (comparative to a decision procedure) whereby “an act is right if and only if it results in at least as much overall well-being as any act the agent could have performed”. As such, it differs from rule-utilitarianism in that it is concerned with the morality of individual actions as opposed to the effects of certain types of actions. Most simply, the theory is concerned with “maximising utility” (where the agent is following a maximising rather than satisficing theory) in terms of total wellbeing. This may be through proponent Jeremy Bentham’s “hedonistic” sense, involving the net maximisation of the number of hedons of pleasure and concurrent minimisation of dolors of pain, or perhaps through John Stuart Mill’s extended distinction of “higher” and “lower” order pleasures. Most broadly, the theory holds that only well-being, irrespective of motive or intention, is important to determining the moral quality of an act. Further, it states that “all well-being — experienced by any being (human or otherwise), in any place (near or far), at any time (whether in the present or the remote future) — matters to the moral value of any individual act”.

As such, subsequent issues arise (in line with popular objections of the theory’s percieved demandingness). Namely, we can discuss the narrower “friendship objection” that an act-utilitarian will prioritise the greatest well-being over their individual relationship, rendering close relationships and true friendships impossible, a notion popularised by Bernard Williams and Micheal Stoker. This objection posits that since act-utilitarian positions require moral agents to choose the available action with the best possible circumstances so as to maximise social good in an “impersonal utility-calculus”, the maintenance of intimate relationships (in accordance with our commonsense partiality), becomes prima facie wholly incompatible. This is because, in numerous contexts, friendship requires the agent to be partial to maximise the good of their friend, rather than the abstract good, and further, that engaging in genuine friendships generally requires a deeper personal motivation than simply the maximisation of the total good. Proposing a thought experiment, in a case where you are required to save your child or a team of researchers (who would find the cure to cancer), an agent would undisputably feel the attraction of partiality to save their child. Thus, whilst saving the researchers would be required satisfy the criterion of rightness, it does not fulfil our commonsense understandings of morality and relationships, where we are obligated to take care of our children at all costs.

In response to this objection the classical act-utilitarian may propose a larger question: are we more obligated to our friends than we are to strangers? And further: are we continually required to treat friends with the care we have in the past? Whilst a friendship may have been formed on the basis of value maximisation, if at a later time contingent circumstances shift and well-being is not longer maximised, the act-utilitarian would say that we are morally required to shift our resources elsewhere. Proposing a thought experiment: suppose your friend Charlotte (whose relationship initially brought great well-being) asks you to commit a crime. Not only would comitting the crime fail to maximise value, resulting in immorality in terms of act-utilitarian principles, but our commonsense judgement would implore us to end the friendship as well. Though, the act-utilitarian may go on to suggest that a situation, like above, does not occur often in everyday life — and therefore the utilitarian must only sacrifice friendship in a minimal amount of cases.

Moreover, an argument could be made that the agent engaging in an act-utilitarian’s friendship would have some commonsense understanding of self-sacrifice and the importance of maximisation for the greater good. Take a friendship between two act-utilitarians for example, would there not be a mutual understanding allowing them to depart from a focus on each other’s wellbeing in contingent circumstances where there is the potential to maximise value further?

Contemporary proponents of act-utilitarianism have slightly diverged from traditional assertions to instead present a view commonly known as “indirect utilitarianism” which affirms the existence of a criterion of rightness but proposes the correlating decision procedure to be any one that maximises overall good accounting for the agent’s values. As such, it aims to avoid the friendship objection by not justifying acts in terms of their direct consequences, but instead “in terms of their conformity to maximising rules or dispositions” hence allowing nonmaximising acts aligned with justified dispositions to be considered moral. Other proponents, most prominently Peter Railton, have suggested the theory of “sophisticated consequentialism”, where agents remain committed to the criterion of rightness but act where agents remain committed to the criterion of rightness but act “by whatever motives, aversions, dispositions and deeply internalized character traits are most likely to maximize goodness over time”, allowing sustained friendships because these “pro-friendship dispositions” “are part of an overall life that, ex hypothesi, will best promote the good”. However, both theories still hold a “counterfactual condition” where if these motivations consistently failed to maximise good, the agent would be required to change them. Thus, the statement remains one of: “As a consequentialist friend, I place a special value on you so long, but only so long, as valuing you thus promotes the overall good”.

Thus, whilst these proposed defences justify engaging in “means” relationships, they fail to display compatibility with “end” relationships since agents are only allowed to value friendship where it is a mere convenience to do so. The progression of moral theories by contemporary proponents and their “indirect utilitarianism” or “sophisticated consequentialism” moral theories better stand up to objections by allowing for justified pro-frienship dispositions, enabling acts of friendship in a greater variety of circumstances than those permitted by traditional act-utilitarians. However, due to their conterfacutual condition, they remain incompatible with “ends” friendships because their motivations are still to maximise utility, and not simply to appreciate non-instrumental value.

NOTES

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