I am writing this as an argument to use in policy debate and would appreciate comments as to the logical soundness of my reasoning.
Utilitarianism critique:
Utilitarianism has inherent flaws which prevent it from being used to create a governmental system.
- To create a utilitarian system, we must have some measure of utility. A unit of, say, “utils.” This would measure the utility of a policy option for every person.
However, such a unit does not exist. No one can define what a “util” is.
Perhaps, then, we may decide an arbitrary amount (as we do when defining an inch) to be a util: “Bobby’s happiness when he receives an apple under such-and-such conditions.” However, you then run into the problem of measuring happiness. Perhaps, you say, there is a way to scientifically measure happiness. However, this delves into a field of molecular chemistry which 1) we have not yet studied and 2) still fundamentally depends on the specific scientist conducting the analysis.
Does dopamine count as 1/99 of a util while serotonin counts as 1/56 of a util? There has to be a subjective judgment at some point in this process, which inherently creates bias.
Hence, defining a “util” is impossible.
Regardlegss, I will show that the argument for utilitarianism has even deeper flaws that exist even if God descends from the heavens and hands us the unit “util.”
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To gauge the effect of a policy you would need to know its effect on the utility of all constituents. This is impossible. As a side note, remember that utility is not only conscious, but also subconscious.
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Assume that you may indeed, by some God-given method, find the utility impact of a policy. Then what you’d like to do is maximize the utility of the population.
All goes well as long as everyone follows the law of decreasing marginal utility - the utility gained out of consuming a good decreases with each additional unit of the good consumed.
However, there is no guarantee whatsoever that this law holds for all people and for all products. There is nothing to prevent the existence of a “utility monster” - a person who gains the same amount or an increasing amount of utility from each additional unit of good consumed.
From this follows that all of civilization must be fed to this utility monster to maximize the total utility of society (or average, as the two are identical mathematically).
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Besides utility monsters, there may also be utility leeches [I forgot the actual word Nozick uses] - people who have constant negative utility additions when others gain utility. The existence of such a “downer” would mean that policy will be tightly controlled in favor of these leeches.
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This brings us to the question of whether there is such a thing as “negative utility.” For while we gain utility from eating a cookie, do we not “lose” utility by watching a kitten get run over by a car?
Perhaps, you will say, that we either gain 0 utility or we gain a very small amount of utility from such an event. Yet this system of “0 or positive” utility breaks down: Fine, say you gain gain 0 utility from watching a kitten get run over. Surely you couldn’t gain the same 0 utility if ten kittens get run over. If this were so, then the Holocaust is no worse than stubbing your toe. Hence, the utility of the watching a kitten die increases when you compare it to ten kittens dying. This continues happening as you add more and more unfortunate events, until low-value utilities begin to essentially act like negative utilities (for 0 is infinitely below the utility gained from eating an apple, then).
- Furthermore, remember that you cannot simply add utilities - The utility of the whole is greater than the utility of the parts. Sure, there is the same number and kind of atoms in a pumpkin and in a pumpkin puree, yet the pumpkin puree is of no value if I want to carve a pumpkin for Halloween. Hence, note that while a person may receive X utility from object A and Y utility from object B, it is highly unlikely that he will receive X+Y utility from having both object A and object B.
This brings us to the point that a system to calculate utility must try all possible combinations of events to arrive at the best one. There is no system powerful enough to do that on the planet.
- Now, a reasonable person might look at the utility monster and say “we shall still maximize the average utility, but we shall exclude outliers!”
But who decides who the outlier is? Such a judgment inherently introduces bias and fraud. It begins to maximize YOUR specific utility function.
- Since you cannot maximize either average utility or average-minus-outlier utility, you say aha! we shall simply put this to a vote: each member of the public will vote on what utility function to maximize! This, surely, creates the best function to optimize!
This idea neglects the fact that the vast populace has next to no knowledge of utility, let alone its maximization or mathematical functions thereof. But let’s assume they’re all utility geniuses.
We again run into the problem of much of utility being subconscious, and hence no one knows how to treat subconscious utility. Assume this too if fixed.
So now, we have a scenario where people will be asked to vote on the utility function to maximize.
However, again a problem - for people to vote, they must have the permission to act, for nowhere has utilitarianism stated that people are the rightful owners of their bodies. Hence, the mere casting of their votes is pointless, as they’re committing voter fraud!
Alright, then, say we live in an unethical, amoral, and lawless world before this grand vote on utility.
People cast their votes. There is a large spectrum of utility functions to maximize. How do you reconcile them all to each other? Mathematical functions cannot simply be crammed together! There is no way to reconcile the functions!
We see that the democratic approach is a mess as well.
- Seeing that utilitarian calculation is fraught with so many problems, we must abandon it as a system for establishing a government.