SPONSOR: Adrian A.
At the beginning of the semester, I read and responded to most of the papers in a Philosophy of Mind course list. Toward the middle, I started engaging with an assortment of cognitive science and psychology papers, but quickly moved on to exploring various thinkers' ideas on justice. I became fascinated by how humans make moral judgments, particularly regarding justice. For this project, I wrote a paper on the underlying assumptions about the fundamental human desires made in Jeremy Bentham's version of utilitarianism. I look for its strong and weak points and propose an alternate idea of the fundamental desires of humanity, and more broadly, existence.
This paper seeks to address Bentham’s theory of utilitarianism, the theories of cognition upon which it’s based, the soundness of those understandings of human cognition, and what might be done to modify the theory in light of an analysis of those understandings of human cognition. To address these issues, this paper will take a three-pronged approach: one, to visualize what a society following Bentham’s principle of utility would look like and compare how and why that differs from the society we have today; two, to determine and analyze the underlying theories of human cognition upon which Bentham’s utilitarianism is based to understand how exactly Bentham takes this fundamental human drive into account; three, to use Bentham’s framework of consequentialist moral reasoning to propose an alternate theory of the fundamental drive of humans (and as it turns out all beings) and its consequent implications for how to act.
Bentham’s utilitarian calculus states that:
The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work: it will be proper therefore at the outset to give an explicit and determinate account of what is meant by it. By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever. According to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever, and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government.
Let’s visualize what Bentham’s ideal society would look like under this principle of utility, which measures the “intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity, and extent” of the utilitarian action in question. This society would be one with the highest possible total of all of the individual members’ utility “counts” (i.e. how much pleasure they experience – how much pain they experience). Whatever society produces the highest possible utility is the ideal society. If there is less pleasure than pain, and there is no mechanism by which that could ever change, it would be better if everyone would die than having life continue, as the net pleasure if everyone is dead is zero, whereas the net pleasure is negative if people stay alive. If however, there is a chance that this community can be improved such that there could be more pleasure than pain, or if the community already is in a state where there is more pleasure than pain, the goal of the community would be to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. This does seem a bit cold, however, a bit uncaring. What is it about utilitarianism that generates this feeling?
This oft-experienced displeasure at the thought of utilitarianism arises because it feels disconnected. There’s something about going through one’s life, calculating the methods by which pleasure can be optimized, and accordingly executing those paths of optimal pleasure, that seems antithetical to how we humans function. There is some legitimacy to this claim, for performing this utilitarian calculus is a cerebral, thinking task that indeed requires some sense of disconnectedness from the world and oneself, analyzing the world as things and machines, not as people. This is, generally, not how we act. It feels inefficient, faulty, and often tasteless. Instead, we use our emotions and unthinking heuristic strategies to make most of our decisions, especially those that take just a few seconds or less and are more instinctual. [reference research] These types of acts do not require any conscious mathematical calculations because they are so deeply ingrained within our modes of operation, allowing us to not have to take the time to weigh the consequences of our act because the situation has instead triggered a built-in or practiced response. Thus, when we consider the utilitarian calculus, it feels justifiably cold and inaccurate as to how we actually go about making acts. Still, Bentham would say that although we don’t consciously make this calculus, sometime in the evolution performed by our ancestors or in our own lives, that response has been crafted within us as it led to more pleasure and/or less pain. Bentham seems to be right here, and although this phenomenon of unconscious pleasure calculation is the source of perhaps at least some of the discontent with utilitarianism, this discontent, although understandable, isn’t any sort of justifiable argument against the principle of utility. There is, however, a deeper, more legitimate concern with utilitarianism, not concerning the coldness of it, but instead concerning the question of whether pleasure and pain are truly the fundamental drives of human action, as Bentham proposes.
This is a bothersome question, one which is admittedly quite hard to accurately answer, for how does one even go about determining the fundamental drive of human action? To do this, one must examine what enables human life, as only that would be the fundamental drive of human action. Everything else would be secondary and subordinate to this enabler, or else that secondary attribute would be what enables life, for if the enabler of life were to be subordinate to another attribute that directly competed with the enabler of life for power and control over the human psyche, life and its continuation could not happen because the ultimate purpose (although, it’s important to note, this purpose isn’t teleological, but simply arises by its mere existence) of that life would be some other end. For life to have anything else, the continuation of life must occur. Billions of years ago, life (or rather, just chemicals at that point) could continue if a chemical reaction allowed for chemicals of that type to stay around. Only the chemicals that could continue would, needless to say, continue. Eventually, RNA spontaneously formed, which happened to be able to continue via replication better than other molecules. What we now call life formed using this mechanism of RNA replication, which allowed those molecular forms to continue better than other molecular forms. It continued like this, and to this day, this mechanism of being able to continue only if the form can outcompete and continue still functions just as well. Whatever continues what we now call life forms is the fundamental mechanism behind the existence of those life forms, including those which are human.
Another way to put this is that, in the context of this universe, there is nothing prior to existence, which can be defined as that which is the continued source of being. Without existence, there is nothing. This means that in a universe in which beings exist, one cannot have a mechanism that promotes something other than existence that isn’t, in some way or another, reliant upon the mechanism which promotes existence. This makes the mechanisms that make existence possible the fundamental mechanisms of all that exists. It must be noted that when one says that the true fundamental mechanisms of our existent state are whatever mechanisms fuel both that existence and its continuation, it is not an identity, but rather the conclusion of an argument that begins with the premise that there is nothing prior to existence.
So, a natural claim to follow from this is “let’s make a society that maximizes our continuation!” One might be initially inclined to say that making as many babies as possible is the logical progression from this, but of course, given earth’s limited resources, this would be a recipe for mass chaos and possible extinction. The biological mechanisms we all possess are already quite potent agents at ensuring we follow this law of maximizing chances of continuation, but biology isn’t ever perfect, so there are certainly some more artificial maximization operations that could be performed to better our chances of continuation.
Still, this revised theory feels quite crude, cold, and a recipe for downfalls into moral relativist nihilism. True, true, it seems unhealthy for humans to think too literally about optimizing the continuation of life. Perhaps, the best way to fulfill this morality of continuing life is, for at least most people, to not think too consciously about it.
Alright, we are given that the true fundamental mechanisms of our existent state, which does continue, is whatever mechanisms continue our existence. This most often manifests itself in the human awareness as sexual desire, but there are myriad other non-conscious or even non-mental mechanisms that contribute to the continuance of life as well, ranging from how one develops to the desire for pleasurable experiences, from our critical thinking skills to even the tendency of elderly people to try to maintain the status quo. As many might when encountering utilitarianism, those same people might perhaps be even more disgusted at this claim, proposing that it’s too nihilistic, burying their heads in tears at the thought that life is utterly meaningless, that meaning is simply constructed by the human psyche. Yet this is not the case. To continue this phenomenon called life is a noble pursuit. It allows us to continue the adventure of life, learning more, experiencing more, feeling and thinking more. While this is in and of itself quite exciting, more importantly, it’s simply unwise to go against these deeply ingrained biological truths. That path only leads to misery. Now, to apply Bentham’s framework of maximization, but not to pleasure and the absence of pain, but rather to the end of maximizing the continuation of life, whatever the means, seems like a more worthwhile pursuit. Some might say that pleasure is more fundamental than the continuation of existence, for when one pursues sex, one often does so for pleasure, not for reproduction. This misses the understanding that it’s only because when one does an action and it’s without pleasure, they’re much less likely to do it than if that action has pleasure. The first RNA molecules only survived because they were capable/more capable of reproducing, not because the RNA molecules experienced pleasure. Pleasure evolved on top of reproduction, and creatures that experienced pleasure while in the act of reproduction were simply more likely to reproduce. Pleasure is in the service of reproduction, not the other way around. This, ultimately, is the reason why the end of the continuation of life is more fundamental than the end of pursuing pleasure and the absence of pain, for how can pleasure be more fundamental if it evolved because of the pressure to continue life.
A strong objection to this fundamental law of continued existence would be that it causes an infinite regress because this law observes, on a psychological level, that the fundamental drive of humans is to continue existence, but one could say the same about a simple biological organism such as bacteria, or even about the most basic atoms, or even gravitational force. The objector might ask: what level of existence is the proper level of existence to apply this law? It needs to be seen that this objector would be misapplying the law, for the law applies to all levels of existence, no matter the scale. It is a general law of the nature of existent beings, for all existent beings must follow this law, else they wouldn’t exist, or at least wouldn’t exist in the form in which they existed before they broke the law.
Another might say that this law of continued existence isn’t teleologically planned into all existent beings at all times, and thus the law is imperfect. For example, evolution doesn’t have organisms selecting the perfect partner 100% of the time, and organisms don’t evolve because something is better suited to continue existence. Instead, they evolve through the imperfect process of natural selection. While it is true that it isn’t teleologically planned into such beings and that the law doesn’t look far into the future for which outcome best ensures existence, what matters is that the law applies continuously in the present moment. It may appear that the law has looked into the future and intentionally selected those beings which have been designed to best continue existence, it’s a law that can be applied solely to the present moment in that those beings which are best suited to exist at the moment will continue to exist throughout the present moments until there come some beings which can “dethrone” those old beings.
A quite serious objection to the proposition that the fundamental mechanism behind human action is whatever mechanisms continue existence would be that this is solely based on evolutionary theory’s empirical evidence, which makes the theory flawed as it doesn’t rely on a priori principles. Fair enough, but it could be legitimately argued that even Kant’s ethics, which valiantly attempts to craft a theory derived only from a priori principles, relies on the empirical observation that humans are rational beings, meaning that they act according to principles, not according to a natural law that determines their every act, which Kant labels as “things.” Even if it is indeed a priori true that humans are fully rational, our awareness of that rationality is based on our observance of how ourselves or others think, an empirically-based awareness. The closest conception humans have of a priori truth is mathematical truth, such as 2+2=4. It seems true that 2+2=4 is true no matter where, when, how, or even why you live. It would seem as though that one doesn’t need to observe that when one adds two of something to two of that same thing, one gets four of those things, although there are in fact objections to even this claim which this paper will not delve into. One does need to observe that the moon orbits the earth, or that Lithium has one valence electron, that the lungs help some organisms breathe in O2, or that humans desire to continue life, to declare that as truth. All of these are, of course, subjective truths, as they are only based on the observations of individuals, and don’t concern what is 100% certain to be objectively true. Until 100% a priori truths that can be applied to morality are known, empirical, subjective truths will have to suffice. What must we do in light of these empirically observed “natural laws?”
It was mentioned earlier that it is simply unwise to go against these natural laws and to attempt to do so would only cause misery. Unfortunately, that is not a robust reason. Why, truly, should a community obey these empirically observed natural laws? Many might say that we are unable to disobey these natural laws, for humans don’t have any volition of their own, but say they do, why then must humans obey these natural laws? Let’s not go there, for we won’t produce a certain answer within the realms of the admittedly uncertain empirically observable world, as we are unable to say definitively whether humans have volition or not. We can, however, say definitively that we humans (or at least some humans) often have the impression that we possess the reasoning faculties associated with free will. Whether or not we truly can make these volition-based decisions, the empirical evidence is the best we’ve got, so we might as well stick with that. Humans that have this impression of volition but objectively do not have this volition could still act as though they were commanded to follow the law to continue life because it gives them the best chance of following the law upon which they’re built, but this is in vain, as they have no volition, and therefore can’t have any true sense of morality. Humans that have this impression of volition but objectively do have this volition are not subject to the law anymore, and can do whatever they’d like with creating their own new laws. But this is not the case with us humans: we are still fundamentally tied to this law of existence, and therefore are not free to act of our own volition. Only when one becomes unshackled of this fundamental law of existence, or any fundamental law, for that matter, does one truly have volition. In this case, this might look something like objectively achieving immortality.
Note that at the moment, given the limited perception of humanity, we are unable to determine whether we have free will or not, but we can, albeit with cautious acceptance of its empirical nature, note that this fundamental law to continue existence exists, at least within the closed empirical system of which we are aware. If it is true that we are subject to this fundamental law, then we should “do whatever we want,” knowing full well that we’re just deterministic followers of the law of continued existence. If it isn’t true that we are subject to this fundamental law, it would be hard to claim that there could be any fundamental law of morality, as there wouldn’t be any fundamental, objectively true truths upon which one could base that law. Instead, morality would be constructed by us. Either way, there’s not a possibility of a fundamental law of morality, which must presuppose volition but must explain something objectively and always true about the nature and mechanism of existence, that could objectively guide all beings.
In other words, this discussion of the fundamental law of continued existence exposes a problem with moral reasoning of Bentham’s kind, i.e. moral reasoning which is based on fundamental laws of nature. If one professes something to be a fundamental law of nature, then there’s no way it can’t be followed. That law is stating something about the present state of nature and isn’t making any claim about how beings capable of acting from volition should act. In fact, if there is a fundamental law of nature, then there is no way beings capable of acting from volition could even exist under it, for that law determines fundamental, basic aspects of action, meaning nothing can act independent of that law or non-deterministically relative to that law, which would be a case of impossible volition.
On a related note, this conflict exposes what is known as the is-ought distinction of moral reasoning, which states that one can’t produce any imperative ‘ought’ from a declarative ‘is.’ No imperative directly follows from a declarative. For example, one can’t get “don’t kick the puppy” from “the puppy is sleeping.” One needs a go-between that is a practical application of a universal moral law. One only gets imperatives from other imperatives. Saying a correct statement about a state of being never in itself leads to a correct statement about what one should do.
To tie this all together, there exists this natural law that the fundamental mechanism of beings (i.e., things that exist) is to continue the existence of those beings. Due to the nature of fundamental laws, if this law (or even Bentham’s principle of utility) does in fact exist and apply to human beings, then there’s no possible moral law that could follow from that.