Meta-ethical foundation for utilitarianism?

[Loki]

I've been thinking about meta-ethical issues lately. What I wonder is, what is the meta-ethical foundation for the principle of utility? How can it be proven to be correct? Can it be proven? Why should it be adopted?

[utilitymonster]

Here are two plausible ways. First, say that morality has a contractualist foundation. Then, argue that utilitarianism is what an impartial contractor would go for. Harsanyi argues this way.

Here's a more vague way. Appeal to three broad assumptions: Bayesianism, a pareto principle, and an impartiality assumption. Claim that Bayesianism is a minimal commitment of rationality. Say that the Pareto principle is a minimal way of respecting the idea that "morality is made for man (or sentient beings), and not man for morality". We could be rationally required to prefer things that benefit no one. Then, appeal to an impartiality assumption that says that if A and B are mere permutations of each other with respect to individuals, then we must be indifferent between them. These normative commitments, along with a few weaker and less important normative commitments, entail utilitarianism (See Broome's _Weighing Goods_ and _Weighing Lives_. Utilitarianism can then be seen to be the necessary consequence of rationality, the idea that morality is here for us and not the other way around, and an attractive impartiality/universalizability claim.

Gibbard makes a somewhat similar argument in _Reconciling Our Aims_. All of that was kinda "meta-ethical" sounding. Does that do it for you?

[RyanCarey]

I find meta-ethics is harder than it looks. It has been apparent to me for a long time that if we are ever to tell good and evil apart, we'll need evidence. Furthermore, it seems to me that wellbeing should be admitted as evidence, and that this will lead us to utilitarianism. However, it's hard for me to explain why wellbeing should be granted such importance. I can only think of indirect ways to support my position.

In my free time, I often search for good characterisations and arguments for my position. Peter Railton and John McDowell are the best I've found so far. I'd recommend "Red, Bitter Good", published in Railton's "Facts, values and Norms: Essays Toward a Morality of Consequence" and McDowell's "Values and Secondary Qualities" published in his book "Mind, Value and Reality". You can find these two articles and others by the same authors in philosophy databases and metaethical compilation-books.

[Arepo]

I would like to write a proper essay on this sometime, since I've never seen anyone describe a position I find similar to mine or convincing (I'm sure it's out there, but if I can't find it then presumably others won't either).

The potted version of my view is that the distinction we draw between metaethics and epistemology is spurious, because the distinction between 'knowing' and 'acting' is, too. Both are just arrangements of and/or interactions between particles/waves. Ie just as lying down and doing nothing is a form of action, so is 'knowing' something.

Given that, what we sometimes call a priori principles are really just propositions whose truth our behaviour relies upon to achieve its intended effect. And since any kind of conscious behaviour entails a goal, our beliefs aren't accurate or inaccurate, they're just more or less conducive ways of achieving said goals. But when you accept that, you can pare down the fundamental belief-behaviours to a relative few, which we all necessarily share, and observe that some of the principles each other ethical system claims are unnecessary and contradictory with some of our fundamental ones (while also observing that one of our necessary belief-behaviours is that it's false/difficult and unproductive to believe-follow a contradiction).

That pretty much eliminates everything except nihilism and a weak form of utilitarianism (where there're no norms to speak of, but you have equal a priori reason to seek the wellbeing of everyone), and I'd then argue that nihilism is ultimately incoherent.

[Loki]

Hmm, there seems to be rather different ways of justifying it. One thing I've noticed is that sometimes people justify by their intuitions, to then criticize the view that utilitarianism would be a codification of these intuitions. I.e double-standards.

It seems like Peter Singer's view is that an airtight foundation is not necessary. But then, how does he justify it?

[sethbaum]

For what it's worth, my own meta-ethical views seem to correspond with the "moral fictionalism" developed by Richard Joyce in "The Myth of Morality". I haven't read this book closely, but there's a nice review here:
http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=1301
The basic idea is along the lines of: morality probably does not actually exist, but it's "nice" to pretend it does anyways. I would be surprised if morality was anything more than a figment of our imaginations. What else would it be? Technically this means e.g. nihilism is not actually wrong. But we might as well make up some sort of morality. This is the "fictionalism": supporting a morality that we are pretty sure is a fiction. A good argument for utilitarianism can be found here: if nothing actually is right or wrong, then we might as well have enjoyable lives. Utilitarianism is then just the maximization of enjoyable lives.

[RyanCarey]

Seth, this last phrase of yours seems in my opinion to be a very strong foundation for utilitarianism "if nothing actually is right or wrong, then we might as well have enjoyable lives."
However, it seems vulnerable to one criticism: Rather than say we might as well have enjoyable lives, why not say we might as well treat each other with dignity, or we might as well permit each other freedom, or follow some arbitrary deontological principle?

[DanielLC]

Well, the traditional response is "I might as well do what I want". From there, it's only logical to generalize to everyone doing what they want.

This reminds me of hearing the idea that people become atheist so that there's no morality, and they can do whatever they want. It seems pretty silly after finding someone who believes there's no morality, so he decides to follow the most demanding moral code in existence.

[sethbaum]

Ryan: A question here is why would one's intuition favor utilitarianism? (I'm really curious what you all have to say on this.) For me the enjoyment is all that seems ultimately worthwhile. If some deontological principle or so would deteriorate our lives, then I feel like we're fooling ourselves. But I find this hard to convey and also not very persuasive, so I don't proselytize utilitarianism much and instead focus more on maximizing utility given the existing distribution of intuitions that people have.

Daniel: Yes, we can be selfish, and in some sense I might not say that's wrong. A simple response to selfishness is in the existence of collective action problems (such as the prisoner's dilemma). Here when everyone is selfish, everyone is worse off than if everyone cooperates. On the other hand, sometimes we can selfishly hurt others without repercussions. For example, livestock animals can't retaliate for how we treat them. Here only an appeal to some sort of care for others would work, such as seeing things from their perspective or the Golden Rule. Fortunately, a lot of people are not actually totally selfish, even if they're not totally egalitarian either.

These two responses here are not particularly satisfying for me, but that's what I've got, and I still go about my business.

[RyanCarey]

Sure, I'll let you in on my intuitions about utilitarianism, but first I'll disclaim: I don't believe intuitions deserves the final say on matters of ethics and I'm not quite able to prove why the following is true:

Imagine a world without consciousness. Can you see any way that any event could have value? I certainly can't. Without any theological or cosmic kind of good and evil, none can exist without consciousness. Furthermore, in so far as events in our world are unconscious, they can surely not be said to be good or bad.

Now, imagine a world with a sole conscious being. It seems to me that all that we can demand of him is that he increase his own happiness. This will make the world the best place that it can be. For the world to be good, it must be good for someone (cf Mill's proof) because value is something that exists only in our head. I'll expand on that, but my main point is that a lone conscious being in a universe should demand of himself the maximisation of his happiness. He should try to ignore mental impulses to the contrary.

What is happiness then? They are surely a type of experience. Experience is a conscious model of the outside world. Experiences happen in our brains. Experiences aren't observable from the outside world, but in a sense, they are very much observable. For everything that we know about the outside world, we know from our conscious experience. You could go further than that and say that the world that you live in - your world - is the world of experience. Is it right to refer to experience as a fiction? To describe it like that is probably too negative. Although experience is a mental phenomenon, that does not diminish the fact that it is real. Happiness (and sadness too) is a layer of value that is projected onto experience. We notice that things in the world are good or bad and our emotions are modulated accordingly. If, in these experiences in which we live, we can find value anywhere, it'll be in happiness and suffering.

I doubt whether these kinds of intuitions can forever stand unsupported. I think that just as experiences are the basis of evidence in science (even if e.g. you are using some sophisticate measuring tool, you'll still take a reading from it visually), happiness and suffering should be the basis of evidence in ethics.

[LadyMorgana]

I always think it's better to explain to someone why you believe something, rather than to try to persuade them of your belief (a subtle, important difference there). With this issue I think it's particularly fitting for me to just say why I believe that utilitarianism is correct, firstly because I've never actually studied metaethics so I'm not exactly an authority on the subject, and secondly because your 'intuitions' might not match my own.

I think about happiness. And I see that it's good. I think about unhappiness. And I can see that it's bad. (The more extreme the emotion the easier it is to apprehend the moral value.) That is really all there is to it for me. Logically, I think this leads to total, hedonistic utilitarianism, unless another moral principle is added to it and no suggested additional principles have yet convinced me.

A less direct way of thinking about it, but probably one that will gain wider agreement is what Ryan said, but substituting 'emotion' for 'consciousness':

Imagine a world without consciousness. Can you see any way that any event could have value? I certainly can't.

Also, Seth:

Seth Baum says: A question here is why would one's intuition favor utilitarianism? (I'm really curious what you all have to say on this.) For me the enjoyment is all that seems ultimately worthwhile.

Yes. Exactly. You have an 'intuition', or whatever you want to call it, (which might not be too different in nature from apprehensions of simple logical truths or mathematical axioms) that enjoyment is worthwhile, or, to use different wording, that happiness is good.

And Ryan, you missed something important about what Seth said:

Ryan Carey says: Seth, this last phrase of yours seems in my opinion to be a very strong foundation for utilitarianism "if nothing actually is right or wrong, then we might as well have enjoyable lives."
However, it seems vulnerable to one criticism: Rather than say we might as well have enjoyable lives, why not say we might as well treat each other with dignity, or we might as well permit each other freedom, or follow some arbitrary deontological principle?

...Why not say we may as well torture ourselves? Anyone who denies the existence of an objective morality (and who does not then go on to act in a very random way) commits themselves to the opinion that they have next to no free will and that their behaviour, which is very likely to be extremely conducive to their own happiness in comparison with all the possible courses of action they could take, can almost entirely be explained in a causal manner. (This is because they cannot explain such consistently happiness-promoting behaviour by reference to pure chance or the fact that happiness is good for themselves - happiness is no more good than pain.) I would find this very hard to accept, since I fail to see any reason from an evolutionary, genetic or memetic, perspective why our behaviour should be so largely and clearly directed towards promoting our own happiness. Surely every time that I choose happiness over the extension of my life/passing on of my genes it cannot just be an unfortunate offshoot of something more evolutionarily useful?

[Arepo]

the most demanding moral code in existence.

I'd never really thought of it in quite that sense. I can't help but feel that there're certain types of people who we could actually entice towards util by presenting it as such a challenge

[RyanCarey]

Lady Morgana, I agree with your initial comment about explaining why we believe what we do, rather than immediately trying to impose our beliefs on others. I agree with more of what you've said too. One aspect of what you've said, I think I disagree with, or at least needs clarification.

Why not say we may as well torture ourselves? Anyone who denies the existence of an objective morality (and who does not then go on to act in a very random way) commits themselves to the opinion that they have next to no free will and that their behaviour, which is very likely to be extremely conducive to their own happiness in comparison with all the possible courses of action they could take, can almost entirely be explained in a causal manner.

You seem to have assumed that causation and free will exclude each other. But surely a modern understanding of ethics must be compatible with psychology? Whatever happiness is, it seems to be created by neurons that obey the laws of physics. People pursue their own happiness, then, because that's the arrangement of their neural networks. So I don't see how we can exempt happiness from causation...

To me, consciousness doesn't seem to be necessary to explain behaviour. It seems like physics would work compeltely fine without consciousness. It's some sort of extra layer. That's what I find so mysterious about it.

[LadyMorgana]

Hi Ryan,

Yes, in my thinking I assume free will and causation exclude each other. I hear there are theories of alternatives and combinations but I've never read anything on it (probably should soon) so I don't know a lot about them. Do you believe you can have both? How?

Whatever happiness is, it seems to be created by neurons that obey the laws of physics. People pursue their own happiness, then, because that's the arrangement of their neural networks. So I don't see how we can exempt happiness from causation...

Fair enough, I don't think that happiness should be exempt from causation. There's nothing inherently implausible about the idea of our bodies being determined in such a way as to pursue happiness. I just think it's odd that we do to such an extent given the evolutionary causal explanation of our bodies. So I think there must be an explanation that doesn't solely depend on the evolutionary benefits of happiness and such an explanation could be that happiness is good and we can recognise that.

The whole concept of 'cause' is not very straightforward. In one category we seem to have e.g.The yellow ball is caused to move by the white ball; My angry behaviour is caused by a release of hormones. In another we might have such things as: my belief that 1 + 1 = 2 is caused by the fact that 1 + 1 = 2; my pursual of happiness is caised by the fact that happiness is good. Another causal link is: my use of the term 'consciousness' when trying to describe parts of myself is caused by the fact that I do have 'consciouness' of which I am aware. This last example's important. I only realised it recently but I don't see how anyone can still maintain that consciousness doesn't cause anything after hearing it.

To me, consciousness doesn't seem to be necessary to explain behaviour. It seems like physics would work compeltely fine without consciousness.

What about my behaviour when I am trying to refer to this extra 'something' beyond the mere physical matter that makes up 'me'? The existence of consciousness seems necessary to explain that behaviour. You know that it plays a casual role when you yourself aretrying to describe it - you know that if it didn't exist, and you weren't aware of it, then you wouldn't be telling people that it existed.

Consciousness is still damn mysterious though

[RyanCarey]

Hi again Lady Morgana. I've mentioned free will in this thread. I've clearly linked to Daniel Dennett's opening chapter of Elbow Room, my favourite piece on the topic.

To highlight a point where we disagree, you said
"What about my behaviour when I am trying to refer to this extra 'something' beyond the mere physical matter that makes up 'me'? The existence of consciousness seems necessary to explain that behaviour. You know that it plays a casual role when you yourself aretrying to describe it - you know that if it didn't exist, and you weren't aware of it, then you wouldn't be telling people that it existed."

It doesn't seem to me obvious that describing consciousness requires consciousness. For example, representing consciousness by smiling doesn't require happiness. We can explain smiling by the presence of a complex pattern in the brain stimulating a nerve that causes facial muscles to move. Same goes for reporting and describing happiness right?

Sure, it does get spooky when you wonder why the reported consciousness correlates so well with the experienced consciousness. I say that I'm happy when I feel happy, and so on.

Could we pursue a particular brain state without actually experiencing happiness? Sure we could! Particular events e.g. a promotion, winning the lottery, causes particular neural pathways to be reinforced. Then, similar behaviours will be more likely to happen again.

It's often said that we have evolved experiences so that we could tell good and bad apart. But it seems to me that we've got it all upside down. We've evolved the capacity to change our behaviour sure. But slugs can change their behaviour. Bacteria can change their behaviour e.g. by mutating. Atoms can change their behaviour e.g. by colliding. So it's not at all obvious that consciousness has emerged over the course of evolution.

[sethbaum]

Scanning through the conversation here, it's interesting that it has focused on the idea of (intrinsically) valuing utility, instead of valuing other things, or even valuing nothing. (Intrinsic value = that which is valuable for its own sake.) But utilitarianism generally also includes the claim that all utility should be valued equality: we should not favor some utility (even our own) over other utility (even that of complete strangers, or non-humans, etc.). I think there's some interesting meta-ethical intuitions underlying the egalitarianism.

So, I'm curious: what meta-ethical foundations (if any) would you suggest for the egalitarianism?

For me, it's again related to the moral fictionalism. Nothing actually has value, but I might as well pretend that it does. If I'm pretending to value utility, why would I value some instances of utility more than others? I enjoy my own utility, but other individuals enjoy their own utility, and I wouldn't want them to favor themselves over me.

[RyanCarey]

I don't think that egalitarianism has many meta-ethical difficulties. If we can demonstrate that pleasant conscious experience is intrinsically valuable then it egalitarianism seems to follow from that.

From my own conscious experience, I can infer by analogy that other individuals are also conscious. Surely, then, if I can recognise my own positive conscious experience as valuable, the I can infer that yours is valuable in the same way.

The metaethics of egalitarianism seems to me to be the easy part: i can't see any difficulties here that are unique to ethics, as opposed to science. However, demonstrating egalitarianism is not so useful. You can believe in egalitarianism and still not be very utilitarian at all. You could even be nihilist and be egalitarian i.e. all conscious experience is equally meaningless...

[biznor]

So, I'm curious: what meta-ethical foundations (if any) would you suggest for the egalitarianism?

This is something I've wondered about, too. Aristotle thought that the plebeians should serve as slaves to the educated classes. He's wrong... but what is it that makes him wrong, exactly?

Maybe it's that he would be unwilling to submit to the rule of philosophers more intelligent and knowledgeable than himself?