Quality Utilitarianism

Quality Utilitarianism is an adaptation of the moral theory Utilitarianism in which quality of life is maximized instead of happiness. Quality of life is a broad concept meant to include happiness as well as feelings which some may differentiate from happiness. This can include satisfaction, contentment, awe, physical pleasure, and feelings of accomplishment.

Many Utilitarians view the term "happiness", as it applies to Utilitarianism, to be synonymous with the Quality Utilitarianism definition of "quality of life". As such, many Utilitarians would consider themselves Quality Utilitarians.

Origin

The concept of maximizing quality of life (as opposed to raw happiness) was first argued by John Stuart Mill, an advocate of Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism who recognized that pleasures can come in various forms, and are not limited to mere hedonism [1][2]. Mill, like many Quality Utilitarians today, viewed his philosophy as Utilitarianism proper, simply practiced with the necessary amount of precision.

Comparison to other types of Utilitarianism

When a distinction is drawn between happiness and quality of life, it can be seen that Quality Utilitarianism will yield different moral predictions from standard Utilitarianism. If Bob is a Buddhist monk who claims to be enlightened but never happy, one could easily imagine that Quality Utilitarianism could justify his lifestyle. However, standard Utilitarianism would certainly assign a low value to his experience, as Bob's life contains little raw happiness.

Quality Utilitarianism is qualitatively different from the many offshoots of standard Utilitarianism. Although Quality Utilitarianism is often likened to Preference Utilitarianism, there are qualitative differences here as well. Preference Utilitarianism advocates maximizing the preferences of an individual [3].

Consider a situation where Bob's friends gossip about his love life in such a way that there is absolutely no risk of Bob finding out. Further suppose this gossiping had no effects external to the scope of this problem - that the gossiping friends were not more likely to become chronic gossips and hurt the feelings of others, or that others would hear about Bob's love life and judge him harshly. A Preference Utilitarian would condemn the actions of Bob's friends, as undoubtedly Bob would prefer his friends not gossip about his love life, even if he is unaware of their actions. A Quality Utilitarian (and, indeed, a regular Utilitarian) would not necessarily condemn the friends in this example, for it would seem that, while Bob remains unaware of their actions, Bob's friends attain a greater quality of life, while Bob's quality of life remains unaffected.

The above example, and many like it, are often used to argue against the validity of Utilitarianism and Quality Utilitarianism. While there may be viable arguments against these moral theories, it is generally accepted that the above example cannot be construed to be among them. There can never be absolute assurance that gossip won't return to its subject; being a gossip can never be assured to be a harmless character trait. Proponents of Quality Utilitarianism point out that, on one hand, we have a situation that's essentially impossible. On the other hand, our intuition tells us that "gossip is wrong", presumably stemming from the fact that gossip can hurt those it targets, and be a negative trait for those who engage in it. The Quality Utilitarian thus claims that we are applying intuition that comes from one situation to an entirely different (and essentially impossible) situation, and so we end up judging it incorrectly.

Although the only necessary difference between Quality Utilitarianism and standard Utilitarianism is the difference between maximizing quality of life and maximizing happiness, Quality Utilitarianism is often associated with other specific practices and applications of Utilitarianism.

Non-Definitional Differences

There are several specific Utilitarian beliefs that are significantly more common among Quality Utilitarians than among followers of other types of Utilitarianism. Although these differences are independent of the definitional differences between Quality Utilitarianism and other branches, they are very common (although not universal) among Quality Utilitarians, and often characterize what an individual intends to convey when he labels himself a Quality Utilitarian.

Maximization over All Time

Quality Utilitarians typically hold that the correct way to maximize quality of life is to maximize it over all time, a position that has drawn criticism from other schools, including the moral theory of Consequentialism [4]. Maximizing quality-based utility in the immediate can, in many cases, lead to decreased quality of life over an extended period of time. Quality Utilitarians often cite hard drug usage and violent crime as examples. The former can lead to brain damage, and the latter can lead to imprisonment, both of which are expected to decrease the sum of the individual's quality of life over his lifespan, and thus are expected to decrease the sum of all quality of life over all time.

Application to Non-Humans

Quality Utilitarians generally consider that non-human animals have a quality of life, albeit one that is probably lesser than that of humans. While this principle can be applied to standard Utilitarianism just as easily, it is typically more characteristic of Utilitarians to hold that a non-human animal's happiness should not factor in to a Utilitarian calculation, or that non-human animals don't truly feel happiness as we would identify it.

Unequal Application to Humans

There are two distinct ways in which a Quality Utilitarian can conclude that the quality of life of one individual has more weight than the quality of life of another. As with the axiom of maximization over all time, the following applications are neither universal to Quality Utilitarians, nor exclusive to them. However, many Quality Utilitarians feel that these traits are sufficiently common to Quality Utilitarianism, and sufficiently rare to other branches of Utilitarianism, that they are worthy of note.

Different humans may have different fundamental capacities for quality of life

Quality Utilitarians see this as an inevitable consequence of the view that a non-human animal will have a quality of life worth considering, yet of less importance than a human's quality of life. In the Quality Utilitarian's eyes, it is not that equal units of quality of life weigh differently, but rather that the animal has less capacity for a quality of life due to its less complicated brain, and its presumably less rich consciousness.

As we can observe that some humans are better at math than others, or have superior reflexes to others, a Quality Utilitarian would argue that it is reasonable to conclude that different humans may have different capacities for quality of life. Thus, if you were forced to choose between the lives of Human A and Human B, and you were assured that both A and B were equally likely to reach their maximum quality of life potential but that A had a lower potential than B, the Quality Utilitarian would choose Human B to live, and Human A to die, since (all other factors kept equal) this would result in greater sum quality of life.

Quality Utilitarians also argue that this view is in accordance with our moral intuition, often citing the following example.

Batman gets two calls for help at the same time. One is from a man caught in a burning building, and another is from a man about to fall from a bridge. Batman knows both these men; the one in the burning building is a happy individual who takes great joy and satisfaction from his life. The one about to fall from a bridge is chronically depressed, and is frequently suicidal. Time is of the essence, but Batman can only save one man.

Quality Utilitarians typically claim that it is clear, both under Quality Utilitarianism, Utilitarianism, and everyday morality, that Batman ought to save the man in the burning building, and not the man on the bridge.

Different humans have different potentials to affect the quality of life of others

While a janitor and a doctor may have equal potentials for quality of life, and may have identical moral dispositions, they may have drastically differing potentials for increasing the quality of life of others. If forced to choose between the lives of the doctor and janitor, all other factors equal, the Quality Utilitarian would pick the doctor to live, and the janitor to die, not because the janitor is immoral or likely to cause pain, but rather because the doctor is capable of saving lives and the janitor is not. Thus, the Quality Utilitarian would expect that, if the doctor were to live and the janitor to die, the sum of all quality of life over all time would be greater than if the doctor were to die and the janitor to live.

Here, many pose the objection that the doctor might be a sadist, and the janitor might be a rich humanitarian, and thus that Quality Utilitarianism may have yielded the wrong answer. A Quality Utilitarian would claim that this is an invalid objection, since if the Quality Utilitarian had known of these important factors, he would have made the opposite choice. One could similarly argue that it was wrong to save a drowning man, because it later came to light that he was a rapist. Both arguments fail because the knowledge was not available at the time.

Attention to Long-Term Consequences

Quality Utilitarians often strive to factor in more subtle, long-term consequences of a particular circumstance in their approximations of quality of life calculations. A good example of this practice is found in the Quality Utilitarian answer to the following objection.

Bob is having heart problems, and visits the hospital. The doctor informs him that his heart will fail in exactly two days. At the same time, Fred also enters the hospital, complaining of headaches. He is diagnosed with brain cancer, and is given three weeks to live. Bob could be saved if he had a transplant of a healthy heart, but unfortunately the waiting list is thousands of patients long, and there is no chance Bob will get a heart in the next two days. Further, Bob's pleas fall on deaf ears; Fred wants to enjoy his last three weeks, and doesn't want to give up any of his last days. Utilitarianism seems to claim that, since Fred is doomed anyway, the best course of action is to kill Fred, and give his healthy heart to Bob. However, clearly this is not a morally acceptable course, and thus Utilitarianism is flawed.

Quality Utilitarians, and many standard Utilitarians, will often point out that the consequences of the situation have not been fully explored in the context of the objection. If it becomes hospital policy to kill a patient against his will and harvest his organs, people will be very hesitant to go to the hospital, for fear of being murdered. If fewer people go to the hospital, there will be more untreated diseases and injuries, which will greatly decrease the sum of all quality of life. Thus, it is not at all clear that Utilitarianism (or Quality Utilitarianism) will conclude that killing Fred is the correct course.

Precision

Many Quality Utilitarians feel that the essential difference between Quality Utilitarianism and standard Utilitarianism is one of precision. Specifying that the maximization is to be of quality of life instead of happiness is often held to be a difference of precision of terms, rather than of definition of terms. Additionally, standard Utilitarian theory often fails to specify a time interval over which happiness or quality of life should be maximized. Many Quality Utilitarians believe that the only reasonable time interval is all time. To the extent to which a standard Utilitarian would agree with this sentiment, this evidences a difference of precision rather than of definition.

Similarly, many Quality Utilitarians view the attention to long-term consequences simply as a natural consequence of precision applied to the maximization process. Many Quality Utilitarians also believe that the application of the moral theory to non-humans, and the position that the moral theory can differentiate between the utilitarian worth of two individuals, are necessary consequences of well-practiced Utilitarianism that generally go unrecognized by standard Utilitarians, and remain unrecognized in arguments for and against Utilitarianism. To these individuals, stating this belief is simply a matter of being a precise Utilitarian, and not a matter of having opinions that are not strictly Utilitarian.

Criticism of Quality Utilitarianism

Almost all criticisms (and responses to criticisms) of standard Utilitarianism can be applied to Quality Utilitarianism. These include, but are not limited to,

• Conflict between Utilitarian statements of value and Human Rights
• Conflict between Utilitarianism statements of value and commonsense morality
• Lack of provability of Utilitarian theory (see Moral Relativism)

A discussion of criticisms of Utilitarianism and common Utilitarian responses can be found here.

Critics have raised an objection unique to Quality Utilitarianism, that goes as follows.

As quality of life theoretically contains multiple independent components, there is no unique way to combine the different values into a linear scale. (This is equivalent to the easily provable proposition that, given a vector space V with associated field F, if | V | > 1, there must exist multiple maps from V to F.) Thus, more information is needed before any Quality Utilitarian calculation can be performed.

This objection can be understood via the following example. Suppose Bob is overweight, and desires to eat a hamburger. Giving Bob the hamburger would make him happy; yet he would be dissatisfied to know that he was breaking his diet. Denying Bob the hamburger would decrease his happiness, yet increase his self-satisfaction. Quality Utilitarianism does not provide a method for discerning which action is the best, because it does not provide a way to tell how important Bob's happiness is compared to his self-satisfaction.

Quality Utilitarians generally respond with the claim that each indivudual has his own weighing system, and that this is fairly evident when you know a person well. If Bob is a Buddhist monk, you may know that his happiness is less important to him than his self-satisfaction, and not give him the hamburger. If Fred is also overweight and desires a hamburger, and you know that he lives for immediate gratification and without care for the future, you may decide that he would be happiest with the hamburger. Equivalently, you may also decide that his preference is not in accordance with what maximizes his own interests overall, and decide to deny him the hamburger so that he may live longer, and thus increase the sum of his life's happiness. Either is a plausible, everyday response - and either response necessitates the ability of an individual to attain a belief about another person's weighting system, according to the Quality Utilitarians.

This article contains content from Wikipedia. Current versions of the GNU FDL article Quality Utilitarianism on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article

WP