GuidanceUtilitarianism Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart MillUti.docx

Guidance
Utilitarianism: Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill
Utilitarianism associates the notion of “good” in relation to
“happiness” or “pleasure,” if we can understand these words in
the widest possible sense. See below for Bentham's appeal to
"pain and pleasure" as the "masters" of humankind. This view of
what is “good” is referred to as “hedonism.” Hedonism is a
word which some may be familiar with in a negative, pejorative
sense. This is not surprising, since the idea of “hedonism” have
long been used disparagingly as a charge against people who
seem to seek their own pleasure, without concern for the
welfare or interests of others. Concern for happiness or pleasure
does not need to be taken in such a narrow way. Many religious
traditions from Buddhism, Christianity (particularly the
“Puritans” who immigrated to the Americas from England) and
Islam, amongst others, have emphasized denial of bodily
pleasure and enjoyment, preferring sacrifice of self and denial
of the body as ideals, making the idea of “hedonism” as source
for ethical judgment seem contradictory to many people. These
religious traditions tend to portray the pursuit of pleasure as
“sinful,” distracting from what they take to be more important
pursuits like worshiping of a God, or preparation for death. But
even many versions of these religious traditions also seek or
promise some form of “happiness” or “pleasure” to those who
follow their ways (though, such happiness is often supposedly
found in another realm after death.)
The joys or pleasures we seek are not always the immediate
product of our actions. We may in fact choose to do less than
pleasant things for the sake of achieving some sought goal,
which will then bring about happiness. We might consider the
example of going to the dentist and getting our teeth drilled as
one such activity. *(Note, I would like to contend from my own
experience that if one uses local anesthesia and has a competent
dentist, there shouldn't really be pain involved.)

The following excerpt from the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy adds some important, general considerations
regarding the philosophy of utilitarianism:
"utilitarianism is generally held to be the view that the morally
right action is the action that produces the most good. There are
many ways to spell out this general claim. One thing to note is
that the theory is a form of consequentialism: the right action is
understood entirely in terms of consequences produced. What
distinguishes utilitarianism from egoism has to do with the
scope of the relevant consequences. On the utilitarian view one
ought to maximize the overall good — that is, consider the good
of others as well as one's own good.
The classical utilitarians, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill,
identified the good with pleasure, so, like Epicurus, were
hedonists about value. They also held that we ought to
maximize the good, that is, bring about ‘the greatest amount of
good for the greatest number’.
Utilitarianism is also distinguished by impartiality and agent-
neutrality. Everyone's happiness counts the same. When one
maximizes the good, it is the good impartially considered. My
good counts for no more than anyone else's good. Further, the
reason I have to promote the overall good is the same reason
anyone else has to so promote the good. It is not peculiar to
me."[1]
As the basis for the theory, consider also these opening
declarations from Jeremy Bentham's foundational utilitarian
text, An Introduction to the Principles of Morality and
Legislation:
"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two
sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to
point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we
shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on
the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their
throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we

think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection,
will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man
may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain
subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes
this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that
system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by
the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to
question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of
reason, in darkness instead of light."[2]
Mill explicitly situates his 1861 treatise on Utilitarianism in
contra-distinction to Kant’s focus on intention and duty. He
writes of Kant that:
“This remarkable man, whose system of thought will long
remain one of the landmarks in the history of philosophical
speculation, does, in [Groundwork for the Metaphysics of
Morals], lay down a universal first principle as the origin and
ground of moral obligation; it is this: ‘So act that the rule on
which tough actest would admit of being adopted as a law by all
rational beings.’ But when he begins to deduce from this
precept any of the actual duties of morality, he fails, almost
grotesquely, to show that there would be any contradiction, any
logical (not to say physical) impossibility, in the adoption by all
rational beings of the most outrageously immoral rules of
conduct. All he shows is that the consequences of their
universal adoption would be such that no one would choose to
incur.”[4]
Certainly, we can challenge Mill’s contention about Kant’s
principle allowing for “outrageously immoral rules of conduct.”
(What does Mill mean by “outrageously immoral” anyhow? Is
he heeding Kant’s insistence on treating each other as ends?).
Putting this aside for the moment, the major claim that Mill is
advancing is that all of this talk of principle and obligation
must be rooted in analysis of the actual consequences of our
choices. Kant claims that morality is grounded in intent, for
Mill (and Bentham) it is explicitly in the outcomes of each
choice that the morality must be judged. The basis for judging

consequences, again, is rooted in the claims from Bentham cited
above. We can judge whether the outcomes of our acts will
likely produce greater pleasure, or harm, for those impacted.
Yet we need to cast a wide net in considering the
consequences. We cannot only look at short term effects, or the
effects intended. We must also take into account other
consequences of the means we employ, the likely longer-term
effects, and the interests of those who may be impacted
indirectly. Situational factors can be complex, and utilitarian
calculus may not always be a simple matter of judging personal
pleasure or pain.
[1] Driver, Julia, "The History of Utilitarianism", The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N.
Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/utilitarianis
m-history/>.
[2] Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of
Morals and Legislation. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1907. Library
of Economics and Liberty [Online] available from
http://www.econlib.org/library/Bentham/bnthPML.html;
accessed 7 June 2016; Internet.
[3] Bentham had willed his body to be preserved and displayed
in this box, but in recent decades his real head was replaced
with this cast of his likeness. The real head is no longer on
public display with the rest of his corpse. University College
London. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/who/autoicon
[4] Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. ed. Oskar Piest. (NY:
Prentice Hall, 1957), 6.
All Animals Are Equal*

PETER SINGER
In recent years a number of oppressed groups have campaigned
vigorously for equality. The
classic instance is the Black Liberation movement, which
demands an end to the prejudice and
discrimination that has made blacks second-class citizens. The
immediate appeal of the black
liberation movement and its initial, if limited, success made it a
model for other oppressed
groups to follow. We became familiar with liberation
movements for Spanish-Americans, gay
people, and a variety of other minorities. When a majority
group—women—began their
campaign, some thought we had come to the end of the road.
Discrimination on the basis of
sex, it has been said, is the last universally accepted form of
discrimination, practiced without
secrecy or pretense even in those liberal circles that have long
prided themselves on their
freedom from prejudice against racial minorities.
One should always be wary of talking of "the last remaining
form of discrimination." If we have
learnt anything from the liberation movements, we should have
learnt how difficult it is to be
aware of latent prejudice in our attitudes to particular groups
until this prejudice is forcefully
pointed out.
A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral
horizons and an extension or
reinterpretation of the basic moral principle of equality.

Practices that were previously
regarded as natural and inevitable come to be seen as the result
of an unjustifiable prejudice.
Who can say with confidence that all his or her attitudes and
practices are beyond criticism? If
we wish to avoid being numbered amongst the oppressors, we
must be prepared to re-think
even our most fundamental attitudes. We need to consider them
from the point of view of
those most disadvantaged by our attitudes, and the practices that
follow from these attitudes.
If we can make this unaccustomed mental switch we may
discover a pattern in our attitudes
and practices that consistently operates so as to benefit one
group—usually the one to which
we ourselves belong—at the expense of another. In this way we
may come to see that there is a
case for a new liberation movement. My aim is to advocate that
we make this mental switch in
respect of our attitudes and practices towards a very large group
of beings: members of species
other than our own—or, as we popularly though misleadingly
call them, animals. In other
words, I am urging that we extend to other species the basic
principle of equality that most of
us recognize should be extended to all members of our own
species.
All this may sound a little far-fetched, more like a parody of
other liberation movements than a
serious objective. In fact, in the past the idea of "The Rights of
Animals" really has been used
to parody the case for women's rights. When Mary
Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of later
feminists, published her Vindication of the Rights of Women in
1792, her ideas were widely

regarded as absurd, and they were satirized in an anonymous
publication entitled A Vindication
of the Rights of Brutes. The author of this satire (actually
Thomas Taylor, a distinguished
Cambridge philosopher) tried to refute Wollstonecraft's
reasonings by showing that they could
be carried one stage further. If sound when applied to women,
why should the arguments not
be applied to dogs, cats, and horses? They seemed to hold
equally well for these "brutes"; yet
to hold that brutes had rights was manifestly absurd; therefore
the reasoning by which this
conclusion had been reached must be unsound, and if unsound
when applied to brutes, it must
also be unsound when applied to women, since the very same
arguments had been used in each
case.
One way in which we might reply to this argument is by saying
that the case for equality
between men and women cannot validly be extended to
nonhuman animals. Women have a
right to vote, for instance, because they are just as capable of
making rational decisions as
* In TOM REGAN & PETER SINGER (eds.), Animal Rights
and Human Obligations. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1989, pp.
148-
162
men are; dogs, on the other hand, are incapable of
understanding the significance of voting, so
they cannot have the right to vote. There are many other
obvious ways in which men and

women resemble each other closely, while humans and other
animals differ greatly. So, it
might be said, men and women are similar beings and should
have equal rights, while humans
and nonhumans are different and should not have equal rights.
The thought behind this reply to Taylor's analogy is correct up
to a point, but it does not go far
enough. There are important differences between humans and
other animals, and these
differences must give rise to some differences in the rights that
each have. Recognizing this
obvious fact, however, is no barrier to the case for extending
the basic principle of equality to
nonhuman animals. The differences that exist between men and
women are equally
undeniable, and the supporters of Women's Liberation are aware
that these differences may
give rise to different rights. Many feminists hold that women
have the right to an abortion on
request. It does not follow that since these same people are
campaigning for equality between
men and women they must support the right of men to have
abortions too. Since a man cannot
have an abortion, it is meaningless to talk of his right to have
one. Since a pig can't vote, it is
meaningless to talk of its right to vote. There is no reason why
either Women's Liberation or
Animal Liberation should get involved in such nonsense. The
extension of the basic principle of
equality from one group to another does not imply that we must
treat both groups in exactly
the same way, or grant exactly the same rights to both groups.
Whether we should do so will
depend on the nature of the members of the two groups. The
basic principle of equality, I shall

argue, is equality of consideration; and equal consideration for
different beings may lead to
different treatment and different rights.
So there is a different way of replying to Taylor's attempt to
parody Wollstonecraft's
arguments, a way which does not deny the differences between
humans and nonhumans, but
goes more deeply into the question of equality and concludes by
finding nothing absurd in the
idea that the basic principle of equality applies to so-called
"brutes." I believe that we reach
this conclusion if we examine the basis on which our opposition
to discrimination on grounds of
race or sex ultimately rests. We will then see that we would be
on shaky ground if we were to
demand equality for blacks, women, and other groups of
oppressed humans while denying
equal consideration to nonhumans.
When we say that all human beings, whatever their race, creed,
or sex, are equal, what is it
that we are asserting? Those who wish to defend a hierarchical,
inegalitarian society have often
pointed out that by whatever test we choose, it simply is not
true that all humans are equal.
Like it or not, we must face the fact that humans come in
different shapes and sizes; they
come with differing moral capacities, differing intellectual
abilities, differing amounts of
benevolent feeling and sensitivity to the needs of others,
differing abilities to communicate
effectively, and differing capacities to experience pleasure and
pain. In short, if the demand
for equality were based on the actual equality of all human
beings, we would have to stop

demanding equality. It would be an unjustifiable demand.
Still, one might cling to the view that the demand for equality
among human beings is based on
the actual equality of the different races and sexes. Although
humans differ as individuals in
various ways, there are no differences between the races and
sexes as such. From the mere
fact that a person is black, or a woman, we cannot infer
anything else about that person. This,
it may be said, is what is wrong with racism and sexism. The
white racist claims that whites are
superior to blacks, but this is false—although there are
differences between individuals, some
blacks are superior to some whites in all of the capacities and
abilities that could conceivably
be relevant. The opponent of sexism would say the same: a
person's sex is no guide to his or
her abilities, and this is why it is unjustifiable to discriminate
on the basis of sex.
This is a possible line of objection to racial and sexual
discrimination. It is not, however, the
way that someone really concerned about equality would
choose, because taking this line
could, in some circumstances, force one to accept a most
inegalitarian society. The fact that
humans differ as individuals, rather than as races or sexes, is a
valid reply to someone who
defends a hierarchical society like, say, South Africa, in which
all whites are superior in status
to all blacks. The existence of individual variations that cut
across the lines of race or sex,

however, provides us with no defense at all against a more
sophisticated opponent of equality,
one who proposes that, say, the interests of those with I.Q.
ratings above 100 be preferred to
the interests of those with I.Q.s below 100. Would a
hierarchical society of this sort really be so
much better than one based on race or sex? I think not. But if
we tie the moral principle of
equality to the factual equality of the different races or sexes,
taken as a whole, our
opposition to racism and sexism does not provide us with any
basis for objecting to this kind of
inegalitarianism.
There is a second important reason why we ought not to base
our opposition to racism and
sexism on any kind of factual equality, even the limited kind
which asserts that variations in
capacities and abilities are spread evenly between the different
races and sexes: we can have
no absolute guarantee that these abilities and capacities really
are distributed evenly, without
regard to race or sex, among human beings. So far as actual
abilities are concerned, there do
seem to be certain measurable differences between both races
and sexes. These differences do
not, of course, appear in each case, but only when averages are
taken. More important still,
we do not yet know how much of these differences is really due
to the different genetic
endowments of the various races and sexes, and how much is
due to environmental differences
that are the result of past and continuing discrimination.
Perhaps all of the important
differences will eventually prove to be environmental rather
than genetic. Anyone opposed to

racism and sexism will certainly hope that this will be so, for it
will make the task of ending
discrimination a lot easier; nevertheless it would be dangerous
to rest the case against racism
and sexism on the belief that all significant differences are
environmental in origin. The
opponent of, say, racism who takes this line will be unable to
avoid conceding that if
differences in ability did after all prove to have some genetic
connection with race, racism
would in some way be defensible.
It would be folly for the opponent of racism to stake his whole
case on a dogmatic commitment
to one particular outcome of a difficult scientific issue which is
still a long way from being
settled. While attempts to prove that differences in certain
selected abilities between races
and sexes are primarily genetic in origin have certainly not been
conclusive, the same must be
said of attempts to prove that these differences are largely the
result of environment. At this
stage of the investigation we cannot be certain which view is
correct, however much we may
hope it is the latter.
Fortunately, there is no need to pin the case for equality to one
particular outcome of this
scientific investigation. The appropriate response to those who
claim to have found evidence of
genetically-based differences in ability between the races or
sexes is not to stick to the belief
that the genetic explanation must be wrong, whatever evidence
to the contrary may turn up:
instead we should make it quite clear that the claim to equality
does not depend on

intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or similar
matters of fact. Equality is a moral
ideal, not a simple assertion of fact. There is no logically
compelling reason for assuming that a
factual difference in ability between two people justifies any
difference in the amount of
consideration we give to satisfying their needs and interests.
The principle of the equality of
human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality
among humans: it is a
prescription of how we should treat humans.
Jeremy Bentham incorporated the essential basis of moral
equality into his utilitarian system of
ethics in the formula: "Each to count for one and none for more
than one." In other words, the
interests of every being affected by an action are to be taken
into account and given the same
weight as the like interests of any other being. A later
utilitarian, Henry Sidgwick, put the
point in this way: "The good of any one individual is of no more
importance, from the point of
view (if I may say so) of the Universe, than the good of any
other.''1 More recently, the leading
figures in contemporary moral philosophy have shown a great
deal of agreement in specifying
as a fundamental presupposition of their moral theories some
similar requirement which
operates so as to give everyone's interests equal consideration—
although they cannot agree on
how this requirement is best formulated.2
It is an implication of this principle of equality that our concern

for others ought not to depend
on what they are like, or what abilities they possess—although
precisely what this concern
requires us to do may vary according to the characteristics of
those affected by what we do. It
is on this basis that the case against racism and the case against
sexism must both ultimately
rest; and it is in accordance with this principle that speciesism
is also to be condemned. If
possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one
human to use another for his
own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit nonhumans?
Many philosophers have proposed the principle of equal
consideration of interests, in some
form or other, as a basic moral principle; but, as we shall see in
more detail shortly, not many
of them have recognized that this principle applies to members
of other species as well as to
our own. Bentham was one of the few who did realize this. In a
forward-looking passage,
written at a time when black slaves in the British dominions
were still being treated much as
we now treat nonhuman animals, Bentham wrote:
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may
acquire those rights which never
could have been witholden from them but by the hand of
tyranny. The French have already
discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a
human being should be abandoned
without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day
come to be recognized that the
number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination
of the os sacrum, are reasons
equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the

same fate. What else is it that
should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or
perhaps the faculty of
discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison
a more rational, as well as a
more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or
even a month, old. But
suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question
is not, Can they reason? nor,
Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?3
In this passage Bentham points to the capacity for suffering as
the vital characteristic that
gives a being the right to equal consideration. The capacity for
suffering—or more strictly, for
suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness—is not just another
characteristic like the capacity
for language, or for higher mathematics. Bentham is not saying
that those who try to mark "the
insuperable line" that determines whether the interests of a
being should be considered happen
to have selected the wrong characteristic. The capacity for
suffering and enjoying things is a
prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be
satisfied before we can speak
of interests in any meaningful way. It would be nonsense to say
that it was not in the interests
of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone
does not have interests because
it cannot suffer. Nothing that we can do to it could possibly
make any difference to its welfare.
A mouse, on the other hand, does have an interest in not being
tormented, because it will
suffer if it is.
If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for

refusing to take that suffering into
consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the
principle of equality requires that
its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering—in so
far as rough comparisons can be
made—of any other being. If a being is not capable of suffering,
or of experiencing enjoyment
or happiness, there is nothing to be taken into account. This is
why the limit of sentience
1 The Methods of Ethics (7th Ed.), p. 382.
2 For example, R. M. Hare, Freedom and Reason (Oxford, 1963)
and J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Harvard, 1972); for a
brief account of the essential agreement on this issue between
these and other positions, see R. M. Hare, "Rules of War
and Moral Reasoning," Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1,
no. 2 (1972).
3 Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch.
XVII.
(using the term as a convenient, if not strictly accurate,
shorthand for the capacity to suffer or
experience enjoyment or happiness) is the only defensible
boundary of concern for the
interests of others. To mark this boundary by some
characteristic like intelligence or rationality
would be to mark it in an arbitrary way. Why not choose some
other characteristic, like skin
color?
The racist violates the principle of equality by giving greater
weight to the interests of
members of his own race, when there is a clash between their

interests and the interests of
those of another race. Similarly the speciesist allows the
interests of his own species to
override the greater interests of members of other species.4 The
pattern is the same in each
case. Most human beings are speciesists. l shall now very
briefly describe some of the practices
that show this.
For the great majority of human beings, especially in urban,
industrialized societies, the most
direct form of contact with members of other species is at
mealtimes: we eat them. In doing so
we treat them purely as means to our ends. We regard their life
and well-being as subordinate
to our taste for a particular kind of dish. l say "taste"
deliberately—this is purely a matter of
pleasing our palate. There can be no defense of eating flesh in
terms of satisfying nutritional
needs, since it has been established beyond doubt that we could
satisfy our need for protein
and other essential nutrients far more efficiently with a diet that
replaced animal flesh by soy
beans, or products derived from soy beans, and other high-
protein vegetable products.5
It is not merely the act of killing that indicates what we are
ready to do to other species in
order to gratify our tastes. The suffering we inflict on the
animals while they are alive is
perhaps an even clearer indication of our speciesism than the
fact that we are prepared to kill
them.6 In order to have meat on the table at a price that people
can afford, our society
tolerates methods of meat production that confine sentient
animals in cramped, unsuitable

conditions for the entire durations of their lives. Animals are
treated like machines that
convert fodder into flesh, and any innovation that results in a
higher "conversion ratio" is liable
to be adopted. As one authority on the subject has said, "cruelty
is acknowledged only when
profitability ceases."7. . .
Since, as l have said, none of these practices cater for anything
more than our pleasures of
taste, our practice of rearing and killing other animals in order
to eat them is a clear instance
of the sacrifice of the most important interests of other beings
in order to satisfy trivial
interests of our own. To avoid speciesism we must stop this
practice, and each of us has a
moral obligation to cease supporting the practice. Our custom is
all the support that the meat-
industry needs. The decision to cease giving it that support may
be difficult, but it is no more
difficult than it would have been for a white Southerner to go
against the traditions of his
society and free his slaves: if we do not change our dietary
habits, how can we censure those
slaveholders who would not change their own way of living?
4 I owe the term speciesism to Richard Ryder.
5 In order to produce 1 lb. of protein in the form of beef or
veal, we must feed 21 Ibs. of protein to the animal. Other
forms of livestock are slightly less inefficient, but the average
ratio in the United States is still 1:8. It has been
estimated that the amount of protein lost to humans in this way
is equivalent to 90 percent of the annual world protein
deficit. For a brief account, see Frances Moore Lappe, Diet for
a Small Planet (Friends of The Earth/Ballantine, New

York 1971), pp. 4—11.
6 Although one might think that killing a being is obviously the
ultimate wrong one can do to it, l think that the
infliction of suffering is a clearer indication of speciesism
because it might be argued that at least part of what is
wrong with killing a human is that most humans are conscious
of their existence over time and have desires and
purposes that extend into the future see, for instance, M.
Tooley, "Abortion and Infanticide," Philosophy and Public
Affairs, vol . 2, no. I (1972). Of course, if one took this view
one would have to hold—as Tooley does—that killing a
human infant or mental defective is not in itself wrong and is
less serious than killing certain higher mammals that
probably do have a sense of their own existence over time.
7 Ruth Harrison, Animal Machines (Stuart, London, 1964). For
an account of farming conditions, see my Animal
Liberation (New York Review Company, 1975) from which
"Down on the Factory Farm," is reprinted in this volume
[Animal Rights and Human Obligations].
The same form of discrimination may be observed in the
widespread practice of experimenting
on other species in order to see if certain substances are safe for
human beings, or to test
some psychological theory about the effect of severe
punishment on learning, or to try out
various new compounds just in case something turns up....
In the past, argument about vivisection has often missed the
point, because it has been put in
absolutist terms: Would the abolitionist be prepared to let
thousands die if they could be saved
by experimenting on a single animal? The way to reply to this
purely hypothetical question is to

pose another: Would the experimenter be prepared to perform
his experiment on an orphaned
human infant, if that were the only way to save many lives? (I
say "orphan" to avoid the
complication of parental feelings, although in doing so l am
being overfair to the experimenter,
since the nonhuman subjects of experiments are not orphans.) If
the experimenter is not
prepared to use an orphaned human infant, then his readiness to
use nonhumans is simple
discrimination, since adult apes, cats, mice, and other mammals
are more aware of what is
happening to them, more self-directing and, so far as we can
tell, at least as sensitive to pain,
as any human infant. There seems to be no relevant
characteristic that human infants possess
that adult mammals do not have to the same or a higher degree.
(Someone might try to argue
that what makes it wrong to experiment on a human infant is
that the infant will, in time and
if left alone, develop into more than the nonhuman, but one
would then, to be consistent,
have to oppose abortion, since the fetus has the same potential
as the infant—indeed, even
contraception and abstinence might be wrong on this ground,
since the egg and sperm,
considered jointly, also have the same potential. In any case,
this argument still gives us no
reason for selecting a nonhuman, rather than a human with
severe and irreversible brain
damage, as the subject for our experiments).
The experimenter, then, shows a bias in favor of his own
species whenever he carries out an
experiment on a nonhuman for a purpose that he would not
think justified him in using a

human being at an equal or lower level of sentience, awareness,
ability to be self-directing,
etc. No one familiar with the kind of results yielded by most
experiments on animals can have
the slightest doubt that if this bias were eliminated the number
of experiments performed
would be a minute fraction of the number performed today.
Experimenting on animals, and eating their flesh, are perhaps
the two major forms of
speciesism in our society. By comparison, the third and last
form of speciesism is so minor as to
be insignificant, but it is perhaps of some special interest to
those for whom this article was
written. I am referring to speciesism in contemporary
philosophy.
Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age.
Thinking through, critically and
carefully, what most people take for granted is, I believe, the
chief task of philosophy, and it is
this task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity.
Regrettably, philosophy does not always
live up to its historic role. Philosophers are human beings, and
they are subject to all the
preconceptions of the society to which they belong. Sometimes
they succeed in breaking free
of the prevailing ideology: more often they become its most
sophisticated defenders. So, in
this case, philosophy as practiced in the universities today does
not challenge anyone's
preconceptions about our relations with other species. By their
writings, those philosophers
who tackle problems that touch upon the issue reveal that they
make the same unquestioned
assumptions as most other humans, and what they say tends to

confirm the reader in his or her
comfortable speciesist habits.
I could illustrate this claim by referring to the writings of
philosophers in various fields—for
instance, the attempts that have been made by those interested
in rights to draw the boundary
of the sphere of rights so that it runs parallel to the biological
boundaries of the species homo
sapiens, including infants and even mental defectives, but
excluding those other beings of
equal or greater capacity who are so useful to us at mealtimes
and in our laboratories. l think
it would be a more appropriate conclusion to this article,
however, if I concentrated on the
problem with which we have been centrally concerned, the
problem of equality.
It is significant that the problem of equality, in moral and
political philosophy, is invariably
formulated in terms of human equality. The effect of this is that
the question of the equality of
other animals does not confront the philosopher, or student, as
an issue itself—and this is
already an indication of the failure of philosophy to challenge
accepted beliefs. Still,
philosophers have found it difficult to discuss the issue of
human equality without raising, in a
paragraph or two, the question of the status of other animals.
The reason for this, which should
be apparent from what I have said already, is that if humans are
to be regarded as equal to one
another, we need some sense of "equal" that does not require
any actual, descriptive equality

of capacities, talents or other qualities. If equality is to be
related to any actual characteristics
of humans, these characteristics must be some lowest common
denominator, pitched so low
that no human lacks them—but then the philosopher comes up
against the catch that any such
set of characteristics which covers all humans will not be
possessed only by humans. In other
words, it turns out that in the only sense in which we can truly
say, as an assertion of fact, that
all humans are equal, at least some members of other species
are also equal—equal, that is, to
each other and to humans. If, on the other hand, we regard the
statement "All humans are
equal" in some non-factual way, perhaps as a prescription, then,
as I have already argued, it is
even more difficult to exclude non-humans from the sphere of
equality.
This result is not what the egalitarian philosopher originally
intended to assert. Instead of
accepting the radical outcome to which their own reasonings
naturally point, however, most
philosophers try to reconcile their beliefs in human equality and
animal inequality by
arguments that can only be described as devious.
As a first example, I take William Frankena's well-known
article "The Concept of Social Justice."
Frankena opposes the idea of basing justice on merit, because
he sees that this could lead to
highly inegalitarian results. Instead he proposes the principle
that
all men are to be treated as equals, not because they are equal,
in any respect, but simply

because they are human. They are human because they have
emotions and desires, and are
able to think, and hence are capable of enjoying a good life in a
sense in which other animals
are not.8
But what is this capacity to enjoy the good life which all
humans have, but no other animals?
Other animals have emotions and desires and appear to be
capable of enjoying a good life. We
may doubt that they can think—although the behavior of some
apes, dolphins, and even dogs
suggests that some of them can—but what is the relevance of
thinking? Frankena goes on to
admit that by "the good life" he means "not so much the morally
good life as the happy or
satisfactory life," so thought would appear to be unnecessary for
enjoying the good life; in fact
to emphasize the need for thought would make difficulties for
the egalitarian since only some
people are capable of leading intellectually satisfying lives, or
morally good lives. This makes it
difficult to see what Frankena's principle of equality has to do
with simply being human. Surely
every sentient being is capable of leading a life that is happier
or less miserable than some
alternative life, and hence has a claim to be taken into account.
In this respect the distinction
between humans and nonhumans is not a sharp division, but
rather a continuum along which we
move gradually, and with overlaps between the species, from
simple capacities for enjoyment
and satisfaction, or pain and suffering, to more complex ones.
Faced with a situation in which they see a need for some basis
for the moral gulf that is

commonly thought to separate humans and animals, but can find
no concrete difference that
will do the job without undermining the equality of humans,
philosophers tend to waffle. They
resort to highs sounding phrases like "the intrinsic dignity of
the human individual";9 they talk
of the "intrinsic worth of all men" as if men (humans?) had
some worth that other beings did
8 In R. Brandt (ed.), Social Justice (Prentice Hall, Englewood
Cliffs, 1962), p. 19.
9 Frankena, op. cit. p. 23.
not,10 or they say that humans, and only humans, are "ends in
themselves," while "everything
other than a person can only have value for a person.''11
This idea of a distinctive human dignity and worth has a long
history; it can be traced back
directly to the Renaissance humanists, for instance to Pico della
Mirandola's Oration on the
Dignity of Man. Pico and other humanists based their estimate
of human dignity on the idea
that man possessed the central, pivotal position in the "Great
Chain of Being" that led from the
lowliest forms of matter to God himself; this view of the
universe, in turn, goes back to both
classical and Judeo-Christian doctrines. Contemporary
philosophers have cast off these
metaphysical and religious shackles and freely invoke the
dignity of mankind without needing
to justify the idea at all. Why should we not attribute "intrinsic
dignity" or "intrinsic worth" to

ourselves? Fellow-humans are unlikely to reject the accolades
we so generously bestow on
them, and those to whom we deny the honor are unable to
object. Indeed, when one thinks
only of humans, it can be very liberal, very progressive, to talk
of the dignity of all human
beings. In so doing, we implicitly condemn slavery, racism, and
other violations of human
rights. We admit that we ourselves are in some fundamental
sense on a par with the poorest,
most ignorant members of our own species. It is only when we
think of humans as no more than
a small sub-group of all the beings that inhabit our planet that
we may realize that in elevating
our own species we are at the same time lowering the relative
status of all other species.
The truth is that the appeal to the intrinsic dignity of human
beings appears to solve the
egalitarian's problems only as long as it goes unchallenged.
Once we ask why it should be that
all humans—including infants, mental defectives, psychopaths,
Hitler, Stalin, and the rest—
have some kind of dignity or worth that no elephant, pig, or
chimpanzee can ever achieve, we
see that this question is as difficult to answer as our original
request for some relevant fact
that justifies the inequality of humans and other animals. In
fact, these two questions are
really one: talk of intrinsic dignity or moral worth only takes
the problem back one step,
because any satisfactory defence of the claim that all and only
humans have intrinsic dignity
would need to refer to some relevant capacities or
characteristics that all and only humans
possess. Philosophers frequently introduce ideas of dignity,

respect, and worth at the point at
which other reasons appear to be lacking, but this is hardly
good enough. Fine phrases are the
last resource of those who have run out of arguments.
In case there are those who still think it may be possible to find
some relevant characteristic
that distinguishes all humans from all members of other species,
I shall refer again, before I
conclude, to the existence of some humans who quite clearly are
below the level of awareness,
self-consciousness, intelligence, and sentience, of many non-
humans. l am thinking of humans
with severe and irreparable brain damage, and also of infant
humans. To avoid the
complication of the relevance of a being's potential, however, I
shall henceforth concentrate
on permanently retarded humans.
Philosophers who set out to find a characteristic that will
distinguish humans from other
animals rarely take the course of abandoning these groups of
humans by lumping them in with
the other animals. It is easy to see why they do not. To take this
line without re-thinking our
attitudes to other animals would entail that we have the right to
perform painful experiments
on retarded humans for trivial reasons; similarly it would follow
that we had the right to rear
and kill these humans for food. To most philosophers these
consequences are as unacceptable
as the view that we should stop treating nonhumans in this way.
Of course, when discussing the problem of equality it is
possible to ignore the problem of
mental defectives, or brush it aside as if somehow

insignificant.12 This is the easiest way out.
10 H. A. Bedau, "Egalitarianism and the Idea of Equality," in
Nomos IX: Equality, ed. J. R. Pennock and J. W. Chapman,
New York, 1967.
11 C. Vlastos, "Justice and Equality," in Brandt, Social Justice,
p. 48.
12 For example, Bernard Williams, "The Idea of Equality," in
Philosophy, Politics, and Society (second series), ed. P.
Laslett and W. Rundman (Blackwell, Oxford, 1962), p. 118; J.
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 509—10.
What else remains? My final example of speciesism in
contemporary philosophy has been
selected to show what happens when a writer is prepared to face
the question of human
equality and animal inequality without ignoring the existence of
mental defectives, and
without resorting to obscurantist mumbo jumbo. Stanley Benn's
clear and honest article
"Egalitarianism and Equal Consideration of Interests''13 fits
this description.
Benn, after noting the usual "evident human inequalities"
argues, correctly I think, for equality
of consideration as the only possible basis for egalitarianism.
Yet Benn, like other writers, is
thinking only of "equal consideration of human interests." Benn
is quite open in his defence of
this restriction of equal consideration:
. . . not to possess human shape is a disqualifying condition.
However faithful or intelligent a

dog may be, it would be a monstrous sentimentality to attribute
to him interests that could be
weighed in an equal balance with those of human beings . . . if,
for instance, one had to decide
between feeding a hungry baby or a hungry dog, anyone who
chose the dog would generally be
reckoned morally defective, unable to recognize a fundamental
inequality of claims.
This is what distinguishes our attitude to animals from our
attitude to imbeciles. It would be
odd to say that we ought to respect equally the dignity or
personality of the imbecile and of
the rational man . . . but there is nothing odd about saying that
we should respect their
interests equally, that is, that we should give to the interests of
each the same serious
consideration as claims to considerations necessary for some
standard of well-being that we
can recognize and endorse.
Benn's statement of the basis of the consideration we should
have for imbeciles seems to me
correct, but why should there be any fundamental inequality of
claims between a dog and a
human imbecile? Benn sees that if equal consideration depended
on rationality, no reason
could be given against using imbeciles for research purposes, as
we now use dogs and guinea
pigs. This will not do: "But of course we do distinguish
imbeciles from animals in this regard,"
he says. That the common distinction is justifiable is something
Benn does not question; his
problem is how it is to be justified. The answer he gives is this:
. . . we respect the interests of men and give them priority over
dogs not insofar as they are

rational, but because rationality is the human norm. We say it is
unfair to exploit the
deficiencies of the imbecile who falls short of the norm, just as
it would be unfair, and not just
ordinarily dishonest, to steal from a blind man. If we do not
think in this way about dogs, it is
because we do not see the irrationality of the dog as a
deficiency or a handicap, but as normal
for the species, The characteristics, therefore, that distinguish
the normal man from the
normal dog make it intelligible for us to talk of other men
having interests and capacities, and
therefore claims, of precisely the same kind as we make on our
own behalf. But although these
characteristics may provide the point of the distinction between
men and other species, they
are not in fact the qualifying conditions for membership, to the
distinguishing criteria of the
class of morally considerable persons; and this is precisely
because a man does not become a
member of a different species, with its own standards of
normality, by reason of not possessing
these characteristics.
The final sentence of this passage gives the argument away. An
imbecile, Benn concedes, may
have no characteristics superior to those of a dog; nevertheless
this does not make the
imbecile a member of "a different species" as the dog is.
Therefore it would be "unfair" to use
the imbecile for medical research as we use the dog. But why?
That the imbecile is not rational
is just the way things have worked out, and the same is true of
the dog—neither is any more
responsible for their mental level. If it is unfair to take
advantage of an isolated defect, why is

it fair to take advantage of a more general limitation? I find it
hard to see anything in this
argument except a defense of preferring the interests of
members of our own species because
they are members of our own species. To those who think there
might be more to it, I suggest
13 Nomos IX: Equality; the passages quoted are on p. 62ff.
the following mental exercise. Assume that it has been proven
that there is a difference in the
average, or normal, intelligence quotient for two different races,
say whites and blacks. Then
substitute the term "white" for every occurrence of "men" and
"black" for every occurrence of
"dog" in the passage quoted; and substitute "high l.Q." for
"rationality" and when Benn talks of
"imbeciles" replace this term by "dumb whites"—that is, whites
who fall well below the normal
white l.Q. score. Finally, change "species" to "race." Now
retread the passage. It has become a
defense of a rigid, no-exceptions division between whites and
blacks, based on l.Q. scores, not
withstanding an admitted overlap between whites and blacks in
this respect. The revised
passage is, of course, outrageous, and this is not only because
we have made fictitious
assumptions in our substitutions. The point is that in the
original passage Benn was defending a
rigid division in the amount of consideration due to members of
different species, despite
admitted cases of overlap. If the original did not, at first
reading strike us as being as

outrageous as the revised version does, this is largely because
although we are not racists
ourselves, most of us are speciesists. Like the other articles,
Benn's stands as a warning of the
ease with which the best minds can fall victim to a prevailing
ideology.
1 Introducing Philosophy
“It is the mark of an educated mind
to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it”
—Aristotle
©Terry Why/ Getty Images
6 Traditional Theories of Ethics
You have your way. I have my way. As for
the right way, the correct way, and the only
way, it does not exist.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
Federico Caputo/iStock/Thinkstock
mos81165_06_c06.indd 175 1/6/14 2:33 PM
CHAPTER 6Section 6.1 How Should One Act?

Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, students will be able to:
1. Characterize the classical theories of ethics—utilitarianism,
deontology, and virtue ethics.
2. Identify some of the problems these theories confront.
3. Describe other metaethical views, such as relativism and
egoism.
4. Apply ethical theories to problems that affect both
individuals and larger groups, including
environmental challenges.
What We Will Discover
• Philosophers have developed theories to provide support for
our claims about right and
wrong.
• Other theories such as egoism and relativism offer alternatives
to traditional theories of
ethics.
• Ethics has many specific applications to our lives, from the
very personal and specific to
those that affect everyone in society.
6.1 How Should One Act?
Ethics, or moral philosophy, investigates how we can evaluate
our behavior in terms of right and wrong, good and bad—in
other words, how we
determine what we should do, what we should not

do, and how to tell the difference. After looking at
the three classical ethical views that philosophers have
presented and some of the problems with these theo-
ries, we will explore some alternative approaches.
Utilitarianism
Suppose you and five of your friends are hanging out
one night and decide to order a pizza. You are all
equally hungry and decide to order two pizzas, each
of which has six slices. Thus, when the pizzas are
delivered, it is pretty easy to determine how to divide
the pizzas in a way that is the fairest: Everyone gets
two slices. It may be that one person wanted a third
slice, and someone else may have only wanted one.
Yet without knowing anything else, this arrange-
ment, more than any other, will be the most benefi-
cial to the greatest number of people.
This simple example demonstrates the basic notion at
the heart of the ethical doctrine known as utilitari-
anism. Often associated with the philosophers Jer-
emy Bentham (1748–1822) and John Stuart Mill, utilitarianism
offers a very straightforward and
direct way to evaluate behavior. When given a choice between
two acts, utilitarianism states that
Photos.com/© Getty Images/Thinkstock
Jeremy Bentham is associated with the
founding of utilitarianism, which states
that given a choice between two acts,
the one that creates greater happiness
for the greatest number of people should
be chosen.

mos81165_06_c06.indd 176 1/6/14 2:33 PM
Read more of
John Stuart
Mill’s ideas
on this topic
in his work
Utilitarianism
in the
Chapter
Readings
section of the
Appendix.
the act that should be chosen is the one that creates the greatest
amount of happiness for
the greatest number of people. Philosophers (and economists)
often use the term utility
to express this quality. Utility is the satisfaction one gets from
something. For instance, if
you like chocolate ice cream more than vanilla ice cream, we
can say that chocolate ice
cream has a higher utility for you, relative to vanilla ice cream.
In theory, at least, each of
us can rank all of our choices according to a scale that indicates
our relative preferences.
Some philosophers, such as Bentham, even attempted to assign
numbers to these prefer-

ences. If someone likes chocolate ice cream five times as much
as vanilla ice cream, that
person would presumably be willing to accept five vanilla ice
cream cones as a substitute
for one chocolate ice cream cone. It should also be noted that
utility is regarded in terms
of net utility: The correct moral choice is that which generates
the greatest good and also
minimizes unhappiness.
Because utilitarianism considers an act’s consequences in
assessing its morality, utilitarian-
ism is also regarded as a consequentialist theory. The basic idea
in consequentialism is
to consider the consequences that will result from the choices
one confronts: If the conse-
quences of one act produce the greatest net good—or the highest
utility—for the great-
est number of people, this is the act one should carry out. Many
people find this to be a
rather obvious ethical viewpoint; clearly if we had decided to
give all the pizza slices to just
three people and no slices to the other three, this would seem
rather unfair. It should also
be clear that utilitarianism offers an approach to scenarios other
than distributing pizza
and ice cream. Imagine Mary really loves to dance, but she does
not get to go dancing
very often. Mary has three children, with whom she enjoys
spending time and who enjoy
spending time with her. One night she is given the option of
staying home and spending
time with her children or going dancing. What should she do?
The utilitarian might argue
that, on the one hand, the pleasure Mary gets from dancing is
greater than staying with

her children. Yet on the other hand, her children will receive
great pleasure if she does not
go dancing. Therefore, the “utility calculation” is that the net
happiness of Mary and her
three children will be higher if she stays home, even though
Mary’s individual happiness
might be slightly lower than it would have been if she had
chosen to go dancing.
Utility is often described in terms of pleasure, which can be
problematic for utilitarian-
ism. Imagine someone finds pleasure in playing video games
and drinking beer all day
long. Given a choice between, say, helping out in a homeless
shelter or drinking and
playing the newest video game, a person may well choose the
latter, which suggests to
some that utilitarianism has no way to distinguish between
different kinds of pleasures.
Presumably, we want our theory to be able to make a distinction
between hedonistic and
nobler pleasures. Mill saw this as a potential problem and
insisted that pleasure should be
considered not just in terms of quantity but also quality: that
certain kinds of pleasures,
or certain ways of satisfying desires, are simply better than
others. A pig may be happy
rolling around in the mud and eating garbage, but Mill insisted
that people who take that
approach to pleasure fail to develop their potential as human
beings (relative to pigs, at
least). According to Mill, it is better to be a dissatisfied
Socrates than a satisfied pig. This is
not to say that one should always choose something less
pleasurable; rather, it is simply an
indication that pleasures themselves can, or perhaps should, be

distinguished from each
other. It is not always easy to say that one pleasure is
“superior” to another, and certainly
people have long argued about this issue. However, these kinds
of examples indicate a
problem utilitarianism confronts if we evaluate acts solely in
terms of their pleasurable
consequences (Mill, 1909).
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Many people find utilitarianism to be an easy and useful
approach to making ethical decisions.
When distributing goods, services, or even time, it would seem
to be a “no-brainer” to choose
the option that would satisfy or please as many people as
possible, compared to any other avail-
able choice. However, philosophers have raised a number of
problems in response to utilitarian-
ism, which may make it a less plausible ethical theory than it
first appears.
Problems With Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism has what philosophers call an intuitive appeal: It
seems to be relatively obvious,
and just plain common sense, to evaluate our actions based on
the results those actions pro-
duce. If all we know about a situation is that four kids in a
sandbox have one toy, the best option
would be for the children to share that toy, even if each child is
quite sure he or she would get

the most pleasure from playing with it alone.
However, many philosophers have objected to utilitarianism,
and for a number of reasons. As
we have seen, distinguishing different kinds of pleasures from
each other can be difficult. Does
utilitarianism have any way to address the situation of a person
who gets pleasure from staring
at the wall or doing something else that most people would find
quite unpleasant (something
often called masochism)? Mill (1863) suggests there are
“higher” or “more refined” pleasures
and that they should be preferred, but who is to say which is a
“higher” pleasure? Is reading
poetry somehow better than watching soap operas? What if
someone gains pleasure by sleep-
ing all the time or hitting his thumb over and over with a
hammer?
More significant objections to utilitarianism have been posed on
the basis of calculating the out-
come, or consequences, of a choice. Suppose you are on a cruise
ship that catches fire; you and
19 others are lucky enough to survive on a lifeboat. There is
enough water to last for a week or
more, but you have no food and do not know whether you will
be rescued. Everyone is aware
of how grim the future looks; as the boat drifts, everyone gets
hungrier. It becomes apparent
that everyone is going to die unless your group finds food. The
utilitarian in the group poses
the following options: All 20 people die, or 19 people live if
one person is killed and eaten! To
justify his position, he cites historical examples of similar cases
in which cannibalism helped the
majority survive. However, while this scenario may appear to

result in the greatest good for the
greatest number, do we really want an ethical theory that not
only allows cannibalism, but actu-
ally endorses it as the fairest and most ethical decision?
Few of us are likely to experience a situation this extreme, but
we may find ourselves in situations
where the basic utilitarian calculation actually leads to results
that are very unfair and unjust. This
is particularly threatening anytime individuals find themselves
in a minority, whether because
of their sex, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any
of the other ways in which soci-
ety categorizes people. For example, suppose a local grade
school must decide if it should use
taxpayer money to build ramps to make the building accessible
to students in wheelchairs. This
tax will likely decrease the pleasure of each taxpayer and may
only be used by a few individuals
throughout the year. In this way it would result in a net utility
that would favor a decision not to
build the ramps. Would you consider this a fair outcome?
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Tyranny of the Majority
Dating as far back as Plato, political philosophers have often
cited the tyranny of the majority,
which is when the interests of the majority are placed above the
interests of the minority, and
to their detriment. American history is littered with such
stories, whether the minority groups

be African Americans, Native Americans, Jews, homosexuals,
or many others. In the original,
Protestant-dominated colonies, for example, Roman Catholics
were not allowed to vote or hold
public office. Despite the obvious injustice, this would seem to
fit the utilitarian calculation,
because Catholics were a minority at that time. This kind of
calculation has been used to jus-
tify a wide range of policies that seem wrong, from slavery to
refusing to sell houses in certain
neighborhoods to ethnic and racial minorities. Interestingly,
women have also suffered for similar
reasons on the basis of this kind of calculation, despite the fact
that they actually make up the
majority of the population.
Mill’s Response
John Stuart Mill and other utilitarians recognized the flaws in
an ethical system that had such
unethical and oppressive results. One popular way of addressing
these flaws has been to dis-
tinguish between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act
utilitarianism simply involves a
judgment of the act’s consequences: Given a set of choices,
which act generates the greatest net
good for the greatest number? Rule utilitarianism, on the other
hand, involves an evaluation
of the types of acts involved and proposes that, when followed
as a general rule, the act should
produce the greatest net good, or the greatest amount of
happiness, for the greatest number.
Great Ideas: The Trolley Problem
A very famous challenge to our ethical intuitions, originated by
Philippa Foot, is easy to describe but

more problematic to solve. In Foot’s 1967 essay “The Problem
of Abortion and the Doctrine of the
Double Effect,” she posed the following scenario known as the
trolley problem:
Imagine a runaway trolley hurtling toward five workers on the
track. The driver must choose between
staying the course, which would result in the death of the five
workers, or divert the trolley to a spur
where just one worker on the track would be killed. Most would
say that diverting the trolley to save
five lives while killing only one would be the better of the two
options.
Now imagine a similar scenario: What if a doctor could save the
lives of five people who needed organ
donations by killing one patient and distributing his organs?
Would that be considered a moral act?
If not, why would it be moral to kill the one track worker, but
not the one patient? There are many
variations on this basic scenario, which has generated a great
deal of debate and discussion.
Reflection Questions:
With this in mind, consider the following questions:
1. Try to posit a situation where it would seem moral to kill (or
allow to die) one person in
order to save five people’s lives.
2. What is the relevant moral difference—if there is one—
between killing someone and allow-
ing someone to die?
3. Does it make a difference if one could save twenty people by

sacrificing one person’s life?
One hundred? One thousand? At what point might our views
change due to the relation-
ship between the one person sacrificed and the number of
people saved?
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Consider the following example: Bob is taking an important
physics test that he needs to pass
to get into medical school. He considers the possibility that if
he cheats “successfully,” he gains
a great deal and thus achieves his greatest happiness, or
“maximizes his utility” (we will ignore
any feelings of guilt Bob may have). The act utilitarian would
suggest that, in this case, cheating
produces the greatest amount of good. The rule utilitarian would
offer a different analysis. Bob
may gain the most by cheating, but in general, we could not
promote the rule that one should
cheat. If we endorse a rule that says it is okay to cheat to get
into medical school, then the rest of
society would be considerably less confident that physicians
were trustworthy and deserved their
credentials. This would fail to generate the greatest good for the
greatest number; therefore, the
rule utilitarian would tell Bob not to cheat.
Rule utilitarianism seems to have a better chance of dealing
with some of the more obvious
objections we have seen, although it is not entirely clear
whether it can successfully treat the

problem of a minority being oppressed by a majority. Mill
(1909) seemed to advocate a system
of “proportionate representation,” so minorities would be at
least represented, but it is not clear
how this solves the problem. Other objections have also been
raised against both act and rule
utilitarianism. For instance, when measuring pleasure, or utility,
what time frame should be used:
days, years, decades? Who is included in the idea of the
“greatest number”—our family, our
community, our country, our planet? How can one compare one
person’s amount of pleasure
with another person’s? Can we really even measure pleasure, or
happiness, or utility in a way
that allows us to make these utilitarian calculations?
These are difficult questions to answer, and many philosophers
have seen this as a reason to look
elsewhere for a moral theory, one that does not evaluate acts in
terms of consequences and does
not measure such things as happiness and utility. The most
famous alternative to utilitarianism is
deontology, which is a nonconsequentialist theory.
Deontology
Deontological ethics is usually associated with the philosopher
Immanuel Kant. Deontology
comes from the Greek word for “obligation” (or “duty”). In
contrast to consequentialist theo-
ries, Kant, and more generally the deontologist, ignores an act’s
consequences when evaluating
whether it is a good, bad, or morally neutral act. It is important
to remember that deontologists
do not deny that acts have consequences; their point is that
those consequences should not

play a role in evaluating the act’s morality. Rather,
deontological ethics focuses on the will of the
person acting, the person’s intention in carrying out the act, and
particularly, the rule according
to which the act is carried out. Deontology focuses on the duties
and obligations one has in car-
rying out actions rather than on the consequences of those
actions.
In his Critique of Practical Reason, Kant (1997) claimed that
certain kinds of rules established
what he called a categorical imperative. This is a requirement or
demand (imperative), and it
has no exceptions (it is categorical). We might contrast this
kind of imperative with what Kant
calls a hypothetical imperative, which is illustrated by
supposing you are hungry and decide to
eat something; in this case the action (eating) is designed to
achieve a goal (making you less
hungry). Yet there is no obligation or demand that you eat; it is
just what you do in this specific
situation. Similarly, if you want to pass a course, a hypothetical
imperative might tell you to
study. In short, if someone adopts a certain goal, then actions
that help achieve that goal are to
be adopted. The categorical imperative, on the other hand, has
no exceptions and is something
one must do. As part of the categorical imperative, Kant
assumes that being a moral person is a
requirement; it is not merely a goal people may choose to strive
for.
mos81165_06_c06.indd 180 1/6/14 2:33 PM

Read
Immanuel
Kant’s
Fundamental
Principles
of the
Metaphysics
of Morals in
the Chapter
Readings
section of the
Appendix.
Kant offers several versions of the categorical imperative. We
will look at the first two,
which will give us a rough idea of what kind of rule it is.
1. Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the
same time want that
it should become a universal law. That is, if you choose to do
something, would
you desire that everyone in that same circumstance do exactly
the same thing?
2. Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your
own person or in the
person of any other, always at the same time as an end and
never merely as a
means to an end. In other words, all people—including you—

deserve respect. It
would always be wrong to treat people as objects, or as a way of
achieving some
goal, or in another way that does not show respect. (Kant 1997,
1998)
These rules may sound similar to that very famous and old
Golden Rule: “Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you.” The Golden Rule can be
found in many different
civilizations, beginning with the ancient Egyptians and the
ancient Greeks, as well as in
many religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and
Islam. Yet there is a crucial
distinction that Kant notes between the Golden Rule and the
categorical imperative. Kant
insists that rational agents should act in such a way that the rule
they adopt can be fol-
lowed universally, or by all rational agents. Otherwise, someone
who might enjoy pain (a
masochist) or enjoys inflicting pain (a sadist) might well be
following the Golden Rule by
treating others as he or she would like to be treated.
Despite the distinction, there are many circumstances in which
the categorical imperative
and the Golden Rule lead to similar results. You do not want to
be treated by others as
some kind of “thing,” so you yourself should not treat others
that way. This last claim is
essentially what Kant provides as the second version of the
categorical imperative.
As we have seen, a simple utilitarian calculation has an intuitive
appeal in that it seems
fairly obvious to evaluate an act in terms of whether it produces

the greatest net good for
the greatest number. An indication that universal rules of
behavior have their own intuitive
appeal is borne out by the number of parents who use such rules
with their children. For
example, suppose a mother observes her daughter not sharing a
toy with several other
children; she is likely to take her daughter aside and ask, “How
would you like it if no
one shared toys with you?” The daughter, of course, would not
like it, and—the mother
hopes—the little girl will begin to understand that if she does
not like to be treated in a
certain way, then she should not treat others in that way. This
question—”How would you
like it if others treated you that way?”—is probably something
all of us have heard before
and is indicative of how familiar we are with this version of
deontological ethics.
Despite their differences, utilitarianism and deontology often
come to the same conclu-
sion, but from alternate directions. In the example of a group of
children having one toy
among them, the utilitarian would argue that the greatest net
good for the greatest num-
ber is achieved by sharing the toy. The deontologist, on the
other hand, would argue that
people should treat others with the same respect they expect to
be given, and that is best
achieved by sharing the toy. They both conclude that the
children should share, but one
draws this conclusion by looking at the results, whereas the
other draws the same conclu-
sion by looking at the rule that should be followed. At the same
time, other actions may

generate conflicts between the two perspectives. For instance, a
deontologist may adopt
as the universal rule “Never steal.” Yet imagine a family that
has no food; the deontologist
may be forced to conclude that it would be wrong for the father
to steal food to feed his
mos81165_06_c06.indd 181 1/6/14 2:33 PM
family. The utilitarian, in contrast, calculates that the
unhappiness of the person from whom the
food was stolen is not as great as the happiness achieved by the
family getting food. Thus, the
utilitarian may well argue that in this case stealing is not wrong
because it produces the greatest
good for the greatest number.
Both utilitarianism and deontology have certain advantages.
Utilitarian calculations are, at least
at first glance, fairly easy to devise and provide a quick way to
evaluate the moral worth of an
act. Deontology, on the other hand, has the appeal of being
easily explained and develops rules
that seem to make sense and are also widely applied. We have
already seen that utilitarianism
confronts certain problems that expose how it may lead to
results that appear unfair and unjust;
we can now look at some similar kinds of problems that face the
deontologist.
Problems With Deontology

Traditionally, critics of deontology have focused on two
specific but related issues. First, deontol-
ogy—particularly the Kantian version—seems too sterile and
fails to capture some of the com-
plex issues that arise when we confront ethical problems in real
life. The second issue (which may
be a result of the first) is that deontology may require one to act
in a way that seems obviously
wrong and unethical. As we saw with utilitarianism, any ethical
theory that leads to potentially
unethical results is problematic.
We have seen the best known versions of Kant’s categorical
imperative: That is, you should
never treat others only as a means to achieve your goals, and
you should only do something if
everyone in that same situation would act the same way. The
repeated use of the word should
indicates these are normative demands, or moral claims.
In some scenarios, the right course of action seems obvious.
Just because you are late for a
movie, you should not run over someone with your car on your
way to the theater. No one in a
similar situation should do so either. Following the Golden Rule
would lead to the same result;
after all, you would not want to be run over by someone rushing
to get to the movies, so you
should not run over someone to do so. Yet are there situations
in which these kinds of rules
result in actions that are wrong or even immoral?
The most famous objection to the deontologist’s approach—
specifically Kant’s—is the problem
posed by lying. Lying is, of course, intentionally misleading
someone to think something is true

when it is false, or false when it is true. Children are taught at
an early age never to lie, and most
moral systems prohibit or at least discourage lying. Often, the
Ninth Commandment given in
the book of Exodus, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against
thy neighbour” (Exodus 20:16),
is interpreted to mean that lying is always wrong. Lying also
seems to be a clear example of the
categorical imperative: To lie to someone is to treat them with
insufficient respect as a human
being, and since we presumably do not want to be lied to, we
should not lie to others.
Still, people lie to each other quite a lot, and often to achieve
goals that seem to be appropriate
and moral (or at least not immoral). Consider the following four
examples:
1. A husband buys a new shirt that he likes very much and asks
his wife if it makes him
look fat. In truth, the shirt does make him look fat. Should the
wife tell her husband
the truth? (The wife might avoid lying by not answering, but
this may itself indicate her
opinion.)
2. Dan and his friends are throwing an elaborate surprise party
for Jody. Jody gets suspi-
cious and asks Dan, “Are you throwing me a surprise party?” If
Dan tells the truth, the
mos81165_06_c06.indd 182 1/6/14 2:33 PM

surprise party is ruined, and all their efforts will have been
wasted. Should Dan lie to
Jody?
3. Parents in the United States often tell their children made-up
stories, not just about a
jolly fat man who brings them presents at Christmastime, but
also about a rabbit that
brings candy at Easter and even a fairy who “buys” the teeth
they have lost. Should
parents always tell their children the truth about Santa Claus,
the Easter bunny, and
the tooth fairy?
4. Sarah comes to your door and asks you to hide her from an
ax-wielding stalker. You
agree without hesitation. Shortly thereafter, a wild-eyed man,
holding an ax, asks you
if you have hidden Sarah. Do you tell him the truth? (It is
important to note that you
are not being threatened; the man holding the ax asks about
Sarah in a very polite and
respectful manner.)
We started with what seemed to be a good, widely accepted
rule: “Never lie.” Yet the preced-
ing examples illustrate the complexity of applying this rule. Do
the people who lie in the above
examples act immorally? The wife does not want to make her
husband feel bad; Dan wants to
make sure Jody enjoys her surprise; parents want their children
to be captivated by Santa Claus
and provide incentive for good behavior; and lying to an ax-
wielding stalker might save Sarah’s
life.

Kant’s stern rule about never lying, then, seems to force
everyone in the above cases to do
something they would prefer not to do. Perhaps the husband,
Jody, the children, and the stalker
would prefer to be lied to? One might tinker with Kant’s rule, or
suggest that one should not ask
questions unless one expects to be told the truth. One might also
say that children are special
cases and have not reached the age where we are always honest
with them. Yet this logic results
in a rule that is even more convoluted: “Never lie,” morphs into
something like, “Never lie to
those over a certain age, and hope no one asks you questions
they really would prefer not be
answered truthfully.” Even this variation on the rule may be
problematic; we can probably think
of examples where lying seems to be the right thing to do.
Formulating a rule that allows for
those examples is a difficult task.
We have seen the advantages of utilitarianism and deontology,
as well as some of their prob-
lems. One other classical, or traditional, theory remains; it does
not look at the consequences of
our acts (as in utilitarianism, or consequentialism) or at the acts
themselves and the rules that
guide those acts (as in deontology, or nonconsequentialism).
Rather, it looks at the character of
the person acting. This is a theory known as virtue ethics.
Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics is an approach to moral and ethical questions that
focuses on a person’s character.
Some discussion of this concept can be found in the writings of

Plato, as well as in the teachings
of Chinese philosophers such as Confucius (551–479 bce).
However, the classic conception of
virtue ethics in Western philosophy is attributed to Aristotle.
For Aristotle, the virtuous person,
or the person of virtuous character, is someone who has
admirable characteristics and displays
them in a way that is balanced and harmonious. This person
seeks to have an ideal character,
and the virtues that contribute to this goal will all be
appropriately related to each other. Ulti-
mately, the person with practical or moral wisdom—what
Aristotle calls phronesis—will have
the appropriate virtues, will know how to use them, and will
possess moral excellence. Such a
person will achieve the specific kind of happiness Aristotle
describes as human flourishing.
mos81165_06_c06.indd 183 1/6/14 2:33 PM
Read more
about virtue
ethics in
Aristotle’s
Nicomachean
Ethics in
the Chapter
Readings

section of the
Appendix.
Some of these virtues are traditional characteristics that we still
use to describe a good,
moral, or virtuous person, including courage, generosity, and
being a good friend. Accord-
ing to Aristotle, a person may have too little courage, which we
would call cowardice.
Another person may have too much courage, resulting in rash
behavior. A soldier who
runs from the field of battle when first confronting the enemy
might not have enough
courage, whereas the soldier who runs straight into machine-gun
fire may have too much.
Aristotle insists that the virtuous person will have the right
amount of courage and will
aim at what he calls the golden mean between having too little
and having too much
of a given characteristic. Thus, someone who displays little
generosity will fall on one end
of the spectrum (miserly); someone who is much too generous
will fall on the opposite
end (wasteful); and a moderately generous person falls in the
middle and is virtuous. The
person who has the requisite moral wisdom, or phronesis, will
know how to act in a given
situation, and those acts will be in harmony with the other
virtues that make up this per-
son’s character.
Aristotle also describes two virtues that are a bit more complex.
One of these he calls
temperance, or sophrosunë (Aristotle, 2002). A temperate
person is moderate and has
self-control. This person is able to control his or her emotions

through reason and does not
indulge in the extreme. When it comes to drinking wine, the
intemperate person will drink
too much of it, whereas the person who rejects it entirely, in
spite of finding it enjoyable,
is regarded as insensible. Temperance, then, is a middle ground
between the two excesses
of insensibility and intemperance.
Aristotle also describes a virtue he calls magnanimity, which is
how we see ourselves and
how we are regarded by others (Aristotle, 2002). This can
involve the respect others give
us and also the kinds of rewards and honors we can receive.
Along with justice, Aristotle
considered this to be the highest virtue. Magnanimity is
translated from the Greek word
megalopsuchia, which literally means “great soul” or “great
mind.” This is a person who
represents excellence, is worthy of being honored by others, and
knows that he or she
is worthy. Neither arrogant nor falsely modest, the virtuous
person demonstrates mag-
nanimity, and as a virtue, it is possessed in a reasonable
amount. People who think too
highly of themselves or who think they deserve more
recognition than they actually do
are considered vain. On the other hand, those who believe they
deserve no recognition
or appreciation when the opposite is likely true have too little
magnanimity, a characteris-
tic Aristotle calls “low-minded.” We might call such a person
too self-effacing, or falsely
modest. The truly magnanimous person has this virtue in its
proper proportion; such a per-
son will be appropriately modest while appropriately proud of

his or her accomplishments.
To see how virtues might interact with and balance against one
another, consider the fol-
lowing example. Suppose Nick likes to go to parties, but he
drinks too much and acts as if
he is everyone’s best friend. One night a fight breaks out, and
Nick tries to stop it by fight-
ing with everyone involved in the original fight. Nick is unable
to keep his desires in check
by practical reason; does not live in accordance with the golden
mean, and he indulges in
excess. In contrast, Ted never goes to parties; he stays home
alone and never has any fun.
Once, when he saw someone steal an elderly woman’s purse, he
ran in the opposite direc-
tion. Ted also does not have his desires by reason, does not live
in accordance with the
golden mean, and disproportionately deprives himself. Neither
Nick nor Ted would qualify
as having a virtuous character. Jennifer, on the other hand, is a
good friend; she is coura-
geous; she is modest but takes pride in what she does and
accepts the legitimate praise
of others; and she is generous, honest, and moderate. She has
what the Greeks called
mos81165_06_c06.indd 184 1/6/14 2:33 PM
eudaimonia, which can be translated in a variety of ways,
including happiness, flourishing, and
well-being. Aristotle would say that because Jennifer’s virtues

are in their proper balance and
proportion, she has eudaimonia.
It is easy to get lost in Aristotle’s technical vocabulary, but his
basic point is that the person who
makes the right moral choices, or behaves ethically, is a
virtuous person and is the kind of person
we admire for that reason. We object to those who are deficient
in one or more of the char-
acteristics we have mentioned, but we also object to those who
display one or more of these
attributes excessively. The person who has eudaimonia is the
person who has acquired the cor-
rect conception of the virtues, individually and as a whole, and
as such, offers us an example of
what kinds of moral choices should be made. We may not
actually know of such a person, and
indeed such a person may not actually exist. However, the
conception of such a virtuous person
helps us examine our own choices and behavior to see where we
are doing the right thing and
where we may need improvement.
As is often the case with ethical theories, virtue ethics initially
sounds clear, obvious, and easy to
apply. But just as challenges exist to both utilitarianism and
deontology, certain problems arise
for proponents of virtue ethics.
Problems With Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics differs from utilitarianism and deontology in that
it examines not what a person
does, but what kind of character he or she has. In addition to the
virtues, this theory provides us
with a spectrum on which to moderate our own behavior, as well

as an ideal for which to strive.
Applying these notions in real-world examples is more difficult
than it would initially appear,
however.
For example, consider one of Aristotle’s specific virtues,
courage. While it is easy to imagine
plenty of scenarios in which someone has an excess of courage
or a lack of sufficient courage,
it is difficult to determine what the appropriate amount of
courage would be for more nuanced
situations. Imagine Steve is a prisoner of war, kept in very
brutal conditions with a number of his
fellow soldiers. He knows he has a fairly good chance of
escaping, but if he is caught, the guards
will torture and execute him. He also knows that if a prisoner
successfully escapes, the guards
will choose another prisoner at random, torture him, and then
execute him. To escape under
these conditions requires a certain degree of courage; but
choosing not to escape also requires
some courage. Under these circumstances, how should Steve be
appropriately courageous? It
is not clear that there is a golden mean to which Steve can
appeal, and it is therefore not clear
which, if either, of the possible actions is virtuous. In this
specific case then, it seems that virtue
ethics lacks sufficient guidance for how to act. Similar
problems confront the other virtues. Is
there an “appropriate amount” of lying one should do in order to
be virtuous? Should one be
willing to break some promises but keep others? Even if we
think there may be solutions to vari-
ous individual ethical dilemmas, virtue ethics seems to fail to
offer the kind of general solution
offered by utilitarianism and deontology.

Another problem with virtue ethics is that Aristotle and many
virtue ethicists seem to think that
certain terms are well understood and that everyone shares the
same general conception of the
virtues. But do we? We may think that friendship, for example,
is universally understood. Yet
imagine Carl, who thinks of himself as a very good friend to
Charles and Kate, the couple that
lives next door. Carl discovers that Charles has been having an
affair with Kate’s best friend. Pre-
sumably, friends tell each other the truth, but friends also do
not want to see their friends hurt,
mos81165_06_c06.indd 185 1/6/14 2:33 PM
Read
Alasdair
MacIntyre’s
work After
Virtue in
the Chapter
Readings
section of the
Appendix.
their marriages broken, and so on. It is not at all clear what Carl
should do in this case.
More importantly, people would likely disagree over what Carl

should do if he is actually
to be a good friend. Thus, we all may not share the same general
conception of “friend-
ship.” Such problems multiply because each virtue will confront
this kind of problem and
will encounter further problems upon trying to determine the
appropriate amount of each
virtue and how they should be balanced with each other. It is for
this reason that some
philosophers have rejected virtue ethics entirely. For example,
in his text After Virtue, Alas-
dair MacIntyre (2007) dismisses the concept and possibly even
the existence of virtues.
One other traditional problem for virtue ethics is that of
relativity, or when one culture
views an act as a virtue but another regards that very same act
as a vice. Consider two
communities, A and Z. A is a culture of warriors that insists its
members be fierce and
respond violently to threats. Z is a culture of pacifists that
insists its members always “turn
the other cheek” and respond to threats with nonviolence and
negotiation. A group of
outsiders, X, sets up camp outside of both A’s and Z’s land. X
appears to have a great num-
ber of weapons and may well pose a threat. Accordingly, A
reacts to X’s presence violently,
while Z reacts to X’s presence nonviolently. Virtue ethics does
not seem to offer a wholly
adequate way of determining whether A’s violent response or
Z’s nonviolent response
is appropriate. A will regard Z’s pacifism as immoral, just as Z
will regard A’s violence as
immoral. The point is not so much to determine whether A or Z
(or neither) is doing the

virtuous thing. Rather, it is that virtue ethics does not seem to
offer enough guidance to
make this determination. Or it ends up saying that both
responses, for the respective cul-
ture, are virtuous. But if all our moral evaluations must be made
relative to a given culture,
then virtue ethics cannot address actions that have different
value in different cultures. In
other words, if evaluations are relativized, then virtue ethics
does nothing more than say
some things are right and some are wrong, but no one can really
object when someone
from another culture does something wrong so long as they act
within their culture’s
moral parameters. There are those who do indeed support this
view, which is known as
ethical relativism. (See Table 6.1 for a review of ethical
theories and theorists.)
Table 6.1: Concept review: Theories and theorists
Ethical theory Key figure Basic idea
Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill An act (or rule) is good or right
if it produces the
greatest net good for the greatest number.
Deontology Immanuel Kant An act is good or right if it is done
because it
is the right thing to do, in accordance with a
justified moral rule or rules.
Virtue ethics Aristotle Morality is determined on the basis of
specific
virtues, exemplified by a person of noble or
virtuous character.

mos81165_06_c06.indd 186 1/6/14 2:33 PM
CHAPTER 6Section 6.2 Alternatives to Traditional Theories of
Ethics
6.2 Alternatives to Traditional Theories of Ethics
Each of the three classic ethical theories—utilitarianism,
deontology, and virtue ethics—has advantages and
disadvantages, and none offers an obvious or easily applied
solution to the question, “What should I do?” In this section, we
will look at alternatives that have been
developed in contrast to these three classic theories.
Technically, these are regarded as “meta-
ethical” views, in contrast to normative ethics. Normative ethics
provides a way of evaluating
acts as moral or determining whether a given act is right or
wrong. Metaethics, as employed
here, is the attempt to understand what ethics is and how we can
and should understand moral
questions and evaluations.
Ethical Egoism
Ego comes from the Greek word for “I.” Most readers probably
know at least a few people
who could be described as having a big ego; that is, people with
an exaggerated sense of their
abilities, talents, accomplishments, or qualities. Egoism, then,
means to have a focus on one’s
self, and ethical egoism is the idea that one’s conception of
right and wrong, good and evil,
and other moral terms are determined by one’s own sense of

value. To return to the notion of
utility, we could describe this position as advocating that one
should do what maximizes one’s
own utility. In short, I should do what is in my own self-
interest. Thus, in the most literal sense,
this theory is selfish. Yet unlike more traditional moral
theories, selfishness, or self-interest, is not
seen as wrong or immoral, but the preferred way for one to act.
Let us return to the example of the group of children playing in
a sandbox with access to only
one toy. Sally, the ethical egoist—who we will just call the
egoist from now on—determines
that what makes her happiest, or maximizes her utility, is to
have the toy to herself. Thus, it is in
Sally’s self-interest to get the toy, keep the toy, and play with
they toy all by herself. This is not,
however, the only result possible. It may be that she decides
that she would get more out of it
if everyone shared, or for that matter, if only one other person
got to play with the toy. If she
concludes that some other option is in her self-interest, then she
should adopt that choice. So
we can see that the crucial factor in this case is not that Sally
gets the toy to herself; it is that
what she perceives as most beneficial to herself will be what
she should do.
Great Ideas: Different Cultures, Different Ethics?
In ancient China emperors were known to have several wives.
They also had dozens, even thousands,
of concubines, women who functioned as “secondary wives” in
many ways, including sexually. For
example, Emperor Taizong (599–649) of the Tang Dynasty was
reputed to have 3,000 concubines.

With this in mind, consider the following questions:
1. How might a utilitarian argue that Emperor Taizong was
acting immorally?
2. How might a deontologist argue that Emperor Taizong was
acting immorally?
3. How might a virtue ethicist argue that Emperor Taizong was
acting immorally?
4. Is there an argument that justifies Emperor Taizong’s
behavior? What would such an argu-
ment look like?
5. Do you think ethical values change over time? Would this
affect how we might judge this
situation today, and how we might have judged this situation in
the 7th century?
mos81165_06_c06.indd 187 1/6/14 2:33 PM
Ethics
Read Joel
Feinberg’s
“Psycho-
logical
Egoism” in
the Chapter
Readings
section of the

Appendix.
Now let us revisit the example of Mary, who is trying to decide
whether to go dancing
or stay home with her three children. Factoring in the happiness
of Mary and the three
children, the utilitarian argued that everyone would be best off
if Mary stayed home—that
this scenario would produce the greatest net good for the
greatest number. The egoist
might conclude otherwise: If Mary sees her greatest happiness
achieved by going out
dancing, then she should go out dancing. Again, Mary may
conclude that it would make
her happiest to stay home. The egoist’s position is that what
Mary should do is whatever
Mary sees as in her self-interest.
We saw that the classic theories of ethics—utilitarianism,
deontology, and virtue ethics—
all had problems when we tried to apply them to real life.
Egoism, however, seems not
to have that problem. People determine what is in their self-
interest. They do what they
think will make them best off, and according to this theory, that
is what they should do.
Suppose Joe is a retired billionaire investment banker. He has
several houses, cars, and
servants and can take vacations whenever and wherever he
wants. One day Joe sees Mike,
an old friend from high school who has become homeless. Mike
asks Joe for $10. For Joe,
this amount is almost nothing; but Joe considers whether he
would be better off giving

the money to Mike or keeping it himself. Joe decides he would
be happier keeping his
money; egoism tells us that is what he should do. Traditional
ethical theories and religious
views may regard Joe as being selfish, greedy, and more
generally, acting immorally. Ego-
ism, however, does not; traditional conceptions of selfishness
are not regarded by egoism
as immoral. It may turn out, of course, that Joe decides that it is
in his self-interest to give
Mike the $10; it might make him feel better to help out an old
friend, and after all, it is
not much of a sacrifice for Joe. But egoism leaves that decision
up to Joe, and what Joe
perceives to be in his own self-interest is what Joe should do.
Many economists have argued that this is in fact how economic
exchanges work in free
markets. Buyers want to get as much as they can as cheaply as
they can; sellers want to
sell as much as they can for the highest price. Individuals, then,
want to maximize their
utility by getting as much as they can out of the exchange. In
the traditional views, this
sounds not just selfish, but greedy. Yet we assume everyone
has, more or less, the same
amount of information about the product involved, and we also
assume that everyone
knows that everyone else is trying to maximize his or her self-
interest. In this way the mar-
ket will in theory be most efficient and create more goods and
more wealth for everyone
if everyone acts in ways that maximize his or her self-interest.
Recognizing that greed was traditionally regarded as sin,
political economist Bernard

Mandeville (1670–1733) claimed that great benefits would be
produced if everyone were
greedy. He described this arrangement as “private vices, public
benefits”: That is, the pri-
vate vice of selfishness would actually end up making society
wealthier than it would have
been otherwise, which is a public benefit. Joel Feinberg (1926–
2004) is another philoso-
pher who considered the role of selfishness in human actions.
Feinberg, however, argues
against psychological egoism, the idea that humans are
internally driven to do all acts by
selfish motives. He demonstrates logical inconsistencies in this
position and ultimately
claims that it is an unsound judgment about human motives in
ethical judgment.
Problems With Ethical Egoism
Ethicists, religious leaders, and many others protest against
ethical egoism because it
seems to promote selfishness. The objection is fairly obvious:
Being selfish is wrong, either
mos81165_06_c06.indd 188 1/6/14 2:33 PM
Ethics
because it is immoral, a sin, or both; so too must be an ethical
theory that promotes it. How-
ever, another more subtle question might trouble the ethical
egoist: How do we determine our
self-interest?

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