Utilitarianism and the Suffering of Some

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is the idea that the right course of action is that which would produce the greatest common good. In the story of Seaman Holmes, for example, the captain orders the seaman to throw several of the male passengers overboard in order to keep the leaky vessel afloat. The crew reluctantly does as told, and the next day the vessel is saved by another ship. The captain and crew, however, violated the law of the sea, which says that the crew should always sacrifice its own life first for the good of the passengers and the ship. In this case, the crew sacrificed some of the passengers in order to keep the ship afloat and everyone else alive. They chose one common good—survival of the majority of the passengers—but they went about it in a way that enabled them to sacrifice others rather than themselves, and so there was a trial. The only one to stand for trial instead of fleeing was Seaman Holmes. He acquitted himself nobly by saving a child during the rescue, and this in the eyes of the court was just cause to see mercy granted to him for his ignoble actions in violating the law of the sea. Here we have in this example some good or utility identified and applied with respect to rules (p. 199). But it is not always so easy to tell what the greatest utility or good is in any given situation.

Bentham points out that the two opposing principles of human nature—pain and pleasure—essentially dictate what our sense of good and utility are: “It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do” (p. 200). However, he notes that this approach does not lend itself to any improvement of the moral science. That is why he defines utilitarianism as a better way—based on the principle of utility, “which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question” (p. 200). The problem here is what if there are multiple parties with multiple interests that conflict or whose idea of happiness is different or even in contradiction with another’s? Who decides which happiness matters most?

In Le Guin’s story we see this problem illustrated, as it focuses on an ideal utopian utilitarian society in which everyone’s happiness depends upon the suffering of one individual. It is essentially the story of Ivan Karamazov, which he tells to his brother Alyosha in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov: neither agree that one could rightly accept such a society as good. The happiness of all should not depend upon the suffering of an innocent. This is perhaps the fatal flaw in utilitarianism. It proposes that it is okay or justified to let one suffer so than another or more can be happier because of some theoretical utility that they have which is greater than the theoretical utility that the suffering one has.