Philippa Foot Though Experiment for Mill and Kant

Philippa Foot Thought Experiment
1
J.S. Mill would tell the rescuer in Rescue I to save the five as that would promote the greatest common good. In Rescue II, it is not as easy to say the same thing—for while it is obviously better to save five than it is to save one, intentionally killing one to save five does not come with the same moral assurances as simply choosing to save five instead of one. Killing one is an intentional act and does not correlate with goodness in any way. To justify the killing of one that five may live is to pervert the notion of what it means to act morally. One cannot say that one person is more deserving of life than another; one can, however, argue that in a given situation where one has the chance to save a group of five or a group of one, one ought to try to save as many as possible.
The principle of utility is that actions are good if they can promote happiness for moral agents. Thus, the morality of an action is determined by its utility in the promotion of happiness. The more happiness that is promoted, the better it is for the common good of all. In Rescue I, it is likely the case that everyone will feel that, as moral agents, they must act to save the five because more happiness will be promoted in that way. However, if the one who is in danger were of particular value to society—so it was the President—then the moral agents might believe that it is more important to happiness to ignore the five and save the one. In the Rescue II scenario, none of the moral agents would be able to justify intentionally killing a person to save others because intentionally killing anyone does not promote happiness.
2
Kant would tell the rescuer in Rescue I to save the ones who are nearest and in need of saving. If that means, saving the one over the five, then so be it: one has a duty to do one’s duty—and to ignore one in need of rescuing so that one might rescue others is to fail in one’s duty. In Rescue II, it is the same. Kant would say that one must not harm another that others might be aided, for one has a duty to save—not kill.
The first version of the Categorical Imperative is that one should act only on that maxim through which one can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. In other words, one should not act in a way that would go against the way that one would want others to act in all cases. This version would apply to the two situations in this way: in Rescue I, the maxim stipulates that one must act in accordance with what one would believe the universal law to be on this matter. So if there are five in need of rescuing but one who is closer who is in need of rescuing, what would one want the whole rest of the world to do in a duty-type situation? What is one’s duty, universally speaking, as a rescuer? Universally speaking, one’s duty is to save the person in need—and so the person who is in nearest need is the one who should be saved.
The second version of the Categorical Imperative is that one should act in a way that one always treats people not as a means but as an end. This means that every individual has value and one should not seek to use people to achieve an end that is beyond the person. For instance, it is not acceptable to exploit others for profit or for fame. So from this perspective, the same holds true for both Rescue I and II. The person has to be treated as having value, and in Rescue I the individual who is nearest must be saved because one has a duty to save that person. In the second example, one has a duty to save the life of the person on the road because that person has just as much value as any one of the individuals threatened by the incoming tide.
3
One criticism of Mill is that there is no exact conception given of what constitutes the good. For instance, happiness is stated as the goal in the principle of unity—but what does this goal mean? How is happiness defined? It can appear one way to one person and completely differently to another. Perhaps, for one rescuer, it would make him happier to rescue who is nearest because he would believe that God has put this person in his path to be saved for a reason. Another rescuer might feel his happiness depended on saving as many lives as possible and thus he might be more inclined to ignore the one and save the five.
The issue with Mill’s approach is that there is no objective sense of what will make a person happy or what happiness would mean for the community. This is a problem especially in the current age where so much subjectivity exists. People are more likely to disagree about what will make a person happy than they are to agree. Even in the US, today, people are evenly divided over one candidate or another. How can one expect to implement a policy based on the principle of unity when there is no sense of unity within the culture? This is the main problem with Mill’s philosophy—it does not anticipate the rise of subjective viewpoints.
One criticism of Kant’s approach is that it puts emphasis on the objective or universal notion of moral duty. It does not necessarily anticipate the problem of situations that might change the moral duty of a person given the context of the situation or the subjective experience of the individual at the time. For example, not all people are at equal levels of understanding. Some see more deeply into things than others. One must not, therefore, expect that everyone is going to have a sense of the same moral duty. Universally speaking, one might be able to say what is right or wrong in a given situation—but it is unlikely that all will be able to say that.
The ethical approach that I believe to be superior is Kant’s—only because it at least focuses on an objective standard, based on duty, to determine the morality of an action. It could be argued that Mill does as well, but happiness is so subjectively determined in the contemporary age that it is difficult to say how this can be objectively viewed as a standard when what makes one person happy is not necessarily going to make another person happy. Unless all are in agreement about what constitutes happiness, Mill’s approach is limited. For Mill’s approach to work, it is almost as if Aristotle’s virtue ethics system would have to be accepted first.
Kant’s approach at least recognizes that duty can be determined universally speaking, i.e., one cannot argue about what one’s duty is in a given role. A teacher’s duty is to teach; a student’s duty is to learn; a police officer’s duty is to serve and protect the community by enforcing the law, and so on. These are all fairly objectively discerned and understood and accepted. If there is confusion about one’s duty, one is usually dismissed. Thus, Kant at least gives an objective standard by which one can judge the morality of an action. This eliminates the risk of contention and argument, for one can objectively say what the duty is, what the responsibility of the individual is with respect to the role, and what the moral course of action would be. It is not as easy to say this in a given situation when one is implementing the Mill’s approach, and trying to figure out what would make sense in terms of promoting the most happiness would take so much time and energy that it must inevitably be seen as a very impractical approach—which is ironic since it is an approach posited on having utility.
Sources
https://go.view.usg.edu/content/enforced/2034709-CO.540.PHIL2010.81722.20212/Course%20Content%202018/Readings/05%20Mill-Utilitarianism-chapter%202%20and%204.pdf?_&d2lSessionVal=YLZpi7cDVVn5POfXbyARXP2h9&ou=2034709
https://go.view.usg.edu/content/enforced/2034709-CO.540.PHIL2010.81722.20212/Course%20Content%202018/Readings/05%20Kant-%20Groundwork%20for%20the%20Metaphysic%20of%20Morals-chapter%201%20and%202.pdf?_&d2lSessionVal=YLZpi7cDVVn5POfXbyARXP2h9&ou=2034709