Does Utilitarianism Promote Justice in Ethical Dilemmas?

 by Amelia Cooper

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory originated by Jeremy Bentham, a social reformer and enlightenment philosopher, who believed that the only way to decide whether or not an action is morally right or wrong is to decide if it creates the “greatest pleasure for the greatest number”. The utilitarian theory is a teleological, consequentialist, hedonistic, quantitative, and relativist theory meaning that it does not have set rules or laws, determines what is right or wrong in terms of pleasure, and focuses on the end goal or purpose of an action. The theory also determines what is wrong or right in terms of if it maximises pleasure and minimises pain for the people who are affected by a certain action or decision. It could be argued that utilitarianism promotes justice; however, I would argue that the outcome of many actions decided through utilitarianism does not promote justice and instead allows the tyranny of the majority to be predominant.

On the one hand, utilitarianism does not promote justice as it allows the tyranny of the majority to be predominant in followers of the theory. Utilitarianism focuses on the greatest happiness and pleasure for the greatest number, and as a result, potentially allows the innocent minority to be treated badly. An example of this is John Stuart Mill’s critical analysis of Jeremy Bentham’s original theory of utilitarianism, in which evil actions such as gang rape could be seen as acceptable as long as they cause the greatest pleasure for the greatest number. This is called the tyranny of the majority, as even though the action may be causing the greatest pleasure for the greatest number in the group of rapists, the person experiencing the rape will have a trauma so destructive and powerful that it would outweigh the pleasure that the rapists experience; however, as there are more rapists than people being raped, the pleasure from the rapists would be classed as greater in Bentham’s version of the theory. Also, many beings such as animals cannot express their pain, and so cases such as animal testing for medical or even recreational purposes can be justified even though the animals who die or become severely injured as a result of these actions will never experience justice. Is it fair that these animals experience no justice, purely because they cannot express the pain? It may be the case that animals experience more pain than people do in buying products that have been tested on animals, yet we will never know if this is the case as the animals cannot describe how much pain they are being caused. Therefore, in some extreme cases, it could be seen that utilitarianism does not promote justice as suppresses the feelings of the minority regardless of how strong they are and of how evil an act is that is being committed. 

It could also be seen that Utilitarianism does promote justice as it focuses on the approach to decision making that avoids absolutism. The ethical theory of Utilitarianism allows more flexibility than other perspectives on morality, as it demonstrates a more subjective nature and gives humanity the ability to choose which values they agree with whilst still not allowing chaos to reign because of human selfishness. Utilising these basic principles and outlines to create the ethical theory allows followers to express their free will within their decision-making abilities. Additionally, Utilitarianism could be seen as promoting justice because of its teleological nature. Bentham argues that happiness is equal for everybody within his theory, meaning that no matter whether you are “playing push-pin or reading poetry”, the happiness experienced is equal. This promotion of equality within the original theory allows happiness to be represented as something universal, and not as something that is exclusive and only able to be experienced by certain individuals or groups of people. Although John Stuart Mill includes higher and lower pleasures in his variation of the original utilitarian theory, Bentham’s original idea allowed everybody’s experiences of happiness to be equal and therefore could be seen as promoting justice in terms of the search for eudaimonia, and that everybody has the ability to do this and utilise their experiences to do the greatest pleasure for the greatest number. Additionally, utilitarianism could be seen as promoting justice through the way in which the theory forms the basis of our current government system in the form of democracy; our voting system allows the majority to make decisions for our country rather than important matters being decided by a minority or even one person alone. This idea of minorities making potentially damaging decisions for the majority is even further prevented within Mill’s version of the theory as he includes the “harm principle”, in which actions are only allowed to harm oneself, rather than others. If harm only affects themself, then the government can do nothing to stop this; however, if the harm affects others then the government has the ability to prevent this as it could potentially bring great pain to a large number of people. 

However, the idea that the ultimate pleasure is that experienced by the greatest number is arguably problematic in this theory, as it could result in evil pleasures being carried out. This is particularly prevalent in Bentham’s version of the theory, as he expresses no differentiation between different classes of happiness and pleasures. An example of this may involve a group of sadistic prison guards who torture an inmate just to fulfil their own pleasures. This is evidently wrong; however, as the prison guards gain pleasure from this and only one person experiences pain, it could be argued that this promotes the greatest pleasure for the greatest number. This, similarly to the example of gang rape, demonstrates how prevalent the tyranny of the majority can be when deciding whether or not an action is morally right or wrong depending on the amount of pleasure versus pain that it causes. Additionally, the subjective nature of the utilitarian theory may also lead to its downfall as it may result in people carrying out immoral acts as there are no set actions or rules which people should follow in order to fully fulfil the utilitarian principles. Because happiness is subjective, and morality to some extent is also subjective, it could be seen that the ability to do actions that follow the bases of utilitarianism whilst also creating as much happiness as possible is difficult to achieve. Larger atrocities such as genocide could be justified if done through the utilitarian principle, as if 10,000 people are affected by an act of genocide but 10,001 experience pleasure and happiness as a result of this, then the action may be seen as something morally good and as an act that ought to be done. However, it is evident that genocide is not an action that is morally good or at all right in any society; therefore, utilitarianism could be seen as promoting injustice to a large extent, as it allows people to commit actions that are morally wrong, yet may not be regarded as morally wrong by others.

In conclusion, I would argue that utilitarianism does not promote justice very much as the theory allows the tyranny of the majority to be prevalent in society, rather than focusing on eliminating the pain and suffering that minorities of people suffer. It is because of this that the subjective nature of the theory leads to its main pitfall, as it is this lack of rules of law systems that allow evil actions to be justified under utilitarian principles. The fact that mass atrocities such as genocide can be allowed within utilitarianism is also something that suggests its unjustified nature, and how it does not allow some people to experience justice regardless of how much individual pain they experience.