Singerian moral reasoning: difficulty 2
It's no picnic for animals out there in the wild. It seems that we do no real harm to animals if we treat them no worse than what they would suffer if they were out in the wild because we are then not making the situation any worse for them. This seems morally more important than trying to maximise the 'goodness' of the situation. I think that the intuitions of 'leave well enough alone' are probably at play here too. I think that one central fallacy of utilitarianism is this notion of 'maximising' utility. Even if I believe that the morality of actions is based on its utility, I still do not need to believe that that utility should be maximised. I might believe the Benthamic notion that pleasure and pain are the legitimate units of utility and disutility respectively and still not thereby commit myself to believing that I have a duty to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. Duty need not extend so far. I might decide that I have a duty to meet a minimum standard of contentment by providing a balance between pleasure and pain, and beyond that, more pleasure might be nice but I have no further duty to promote it.
See, the problem with the principle of utility as it is often construed is that it does not take into account past history. It only takes into account possible future states from present states. I can illustrate this fact through the classical principle of maximisation of pleasure. This principle is only taking into account possible future states (of pleasure) from present states (what one can do right now to maximise that pleasure). But intuitively, past history counts for something too, not only for not leaving well enough alone, but also for not initiating harm--that is, a principle of non-maleficence. It seems to me that we can cash out non-maleficence in utilitarian terms easily enough without resorting to a maximisation principle. We do this by taking into account prior states of affairs, or default hypothetical states of affairs. In this case, the default state of animals is to exist in the wild. There is a certain amount of pain and suffering that they will experience out in the wild, which must be considered to be simply natural for them. Now suppose that we come and put them on a range instead of out in the wild, and that they don't suffer any more on our range than they did when they were out in the wild. We have not harmed them because we have not made their situation any worse! In abstract terms, this utility principle would impose a duty not to increase pain from the initial state of the distribution of pain.
See, the problem with the principle of utility as it is often construed is that it does not take into account past history. It only takes into account possible future states from present states. I can illustrate this fact through the classical principle of maximisation of pleasure. This principle is only taking into account possible future states (of pleasure) from present states (what one can do right now to maximise that pleasure). But intuitively, past history counts for something too, not only for not leaving well enough alone, but also for not initiating harm--that is, a principle of non-maleficence. It seems to me that we can cash out non-maleficence in utilitarian terms easily enough without resorting to a maximisation principle. We do this by taking into account prior states of affairs, or default hypothetical states of affairs. In this case, the default state of animals is to exist in the wild. There is a certain amount of pain and suffering that they will experience out in the wild, which must be considered to be simply natural for them. Now suppose that we come and put them on a range instead of out in the wild, and that they don't suffer any more on our range than they did when they were out in the wild. We have not harmed them because we have not made their situation any worse! In abstract terms, this utility principle would impose a duty not to increase pain from the initial state of the distribution of pain.
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