Mill vs. Kant on Rescue Ethics: A Thought Experiment

Applying Mill's Utilitarianism to the Rescue Scenarios

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. While it is obviously better to save five than one, intentionally killing one person to save five does not carry the same moral assurances as simply choosing to save five over one. Killing one is an intentional act and does not correlate with goodness in any way. To justify the killing of one so 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 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 holds that actions are good if they 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 that everyone, as moral agents, would feel compelled to save the five because more happiness would be promoted in that way. However, if the person in danger were of particular value to society—say, the President—then moral agents might believe it more important 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.

Applying Kant's Categorical Imperative to the Rescue Scenarios

Kant would tell the rescuer in Rescue I to save whoever is nearest and most immediately in need of saving. If that means saving one over five, then so be it: one has a duty to fulfill one's duty, and to ignore someone in need of rescuing in order to rescue others is to fail in that duty. In Rescue II, the same principle applies. Kant would say that one must not harm another so that others might be aided, for one has a duty to save—not to kill.

The first version of the Categorical Imperative holds 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 contradicts how one would want all others to act in every case. Applied to these scenarios: in Rescue I, the maxim stipulates that one must act in accordance with what one believes the universal law to be on this matter. If there are five people in need of rescuing but one person closer by who also needs rescuing, what would one want the entire world to do in such a duty-driven situation? Universally speaking, one's duty as a rescuer is to save the person in need—and so the person in nearest need is the one who should be saved.

The second version of the Categorical Imperative holds that one should always treat people not as a means to an end but as ends in themselves. This means that every individual has inherent value, and one should not seek to use people merely to achieve a further goal. For instance, it is not acceptable to exploit others for profit or fame. From this perspective, the same principle holds for both Rescue I and II. The person must be treated as having value. In Rescue I, the nearest individual must be saved because one has a duty to save that person. In Rescue II, one has an equally binding duty to preserve 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.

Conclusion: Evaluating the Superior Ethical Approach

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 in universally applicable terms—one cannot easily 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 fairly objectively discerned, understood, and accepted. If there is confusion about one's duty, one is typically dismissed from that role. Thus, Kant provides 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 identify what the duty is, what the responsibility of the individual is with respect to their role, and what the moral course of action would be. It is far less easy to do this when applying Mill's approach: trying to calculate what would promote the most happiness takes so much time and deliberation that it must inevitably be seen as a very impractical approach—which is ironic, given that it is a framework posited on having utility.