Nov 12, 2022·edited Nov 12, 2022Liked by Richard Y Chappell
"So to do things that risk deterring many others in society (at a population-wide level) from following utilitarian ethics is to risk immense harm".
For a while, I was thinking about trying to write an economic model of this sort of thing with repeated games, collective reputation, and evolutionary dynamics based on the fraction of utilitarians in society (and/or the frequency of their 'transgressive' behavior) vis-a-vis other 'types'. It didn't seem worth pursuing at the time, but maybe could interesting at some point.
Some relevant stuff I looked at though in case anyone cares:
Under a utilitarian framework, how would “rights” be determined? For instance, if there was evidence that imposing the death penalty prevented future crime, would prudent utilitarianism still prioritize the criminal’s rights over the potential welfare lost. And if so, what would be the basis for these rights outside of welfare?
Rights are a kind of social institution that protects individuals from specified forms of harm. On a utilitarian view, we should institute just those rights that would be socially beneficial on the whole. We should not accept absolutist ("taxation-is-theft" style) property rights, for example, because those do less good than more moderate (taxable) forms of property rights. Similarly, what rights criminals should have depends on the empirical question of what system of attributed rights would have the best long-term results.
Given the unreliability of the criminal justice system, with people often proved innocent years after the fact (especially as technology, e.g. DNA testing, improves), I think we have pretty good reason to oppose the death penalty. But that is a contingent empirical matter. It isn't difficult to imagine a possible world in which the death penalty would be justified. Personally, I think it could even be justified in our world, if restricted solely to those cases in which there is no *possible* doubt as to the guilt of the convicted party, and when the offense is sufficiently severe. (E.g. those men who are caught red-handed, having kidnapped, abused, and imprisoned others in their personal "dungeons" for many years.) But again, that's just my personal opinion.
However, isn't this circular? Rights shouldn't be violated by actions that are socially benefical, yet what is socially beneficial determines our rights. This makes prudent utiltarianism seem more like ad hoc rule utilitiarianism.
And if it's "follow the rules, unless following the rules leads to a bad outcome" then the rules (like respecting rights) just seem like helpful guidelines, rather than objective moral rules.
> isn't this circular? Rights shouldn't be violated by actions that are socially benefical, yet what is socially beneficial determines our rights.
I'm not sure if I'm parsing your sentence correctly. The way I understand it, the scenario under consideration is that you are a utilitarian who finds themselves in a society. The society has some rules and some concepts of rights, and you agree with some but not necessarily all of those rules and rights. (E.g. perhaps society thinks women and men deserve equal rights, but homosexuals do not have the same rights as heterosexuals -- and you agree that women and men deserve equal rights, but you think homosexuals also deserve the same rights as heterosexuals).
Given this disagreement, there are several distinct things going on simultaneously here, and also some equivocation of at least two different things we may mean by "rights":
1. You can try to influence society, via debate or legislation, so that its opinions on rights and rules move closer towards what you think they should be.
2. You can make decisions on which of society's rules to follow and when to follow them.
3. You can make decisions on when to violate someone's "rights" for the greater good, where "rights" refers to a right granted by society that you may or may not agree with. "What are his/her/my rights?" in this context is an empirically question that one can resolve by observing the society in question (e.g. reading its code of laws).
4. You can make decisions on when to violate someone's "rights" for the greater good, where "rights" refer to a right you think someone should have, even if society doesn't agree with you. "What are his/her/my rights?" in this context is not directly observable -- and the you may not even have a coherent answer to the question yet. Perhaps you're still exploring the question.
I think Richard's post concerns with points 2 and 3 (and maybe to a lesser degree 4), and is trying to address the misconception that some people have that utilitarians are dangerous, because they might go around breaking rule and violating rights due to their naive application of utilitarianism.
It's unclear to me whether you are talking about 3 or 4 in your comments. A utilitarian might go through a different thought process when performing the evaluation in 3 vs in 4, even though both situations use the word "rights". Is that where the confusion is coming from?
Thanks for the response. What I’m referring to in my comment are metaphysical rights and whether these would be rights at all under a utilitarian framework (in which case I don’t think the word means anything.)
For instance, if the government took someone’s property without compensation, this action might be justified under utilitarianism (say, the benefits of the taken property are widespread and the person is who lost the property is rich enough to not care too much).
Yet if metaphysical rights were taken seriously, the government would be obligated provide due process and just compensation when taking someone else’s property, regardless of the utilitarian calculus. So my question asks to what extent does utilitarianism recognize rights.
It's pretty clear that utilitarians in general don't recognize "metaphysical" rights, isn't it? As Richard says (and I think most utilitarians would agree), "rights are a kind of social institution." Your view that "rights" are objective and "the good" is subjective is almost (though not precisely) diametrically opposed to his view that "what matters" is an objective question and that "rights" are social conventions.
Yes, my question was meant to know what "rights" mean under prudent utilitarianism, since the word has been used. Nothing, it seems like. And failure to respect the "is ought" distinction is certaintly one of my issues with utilitarianism.
I don't know what you mean by "metaphysical" rights. But there are real normative questions of (i) what legal rights should be instituted (by law), and (ii) what moral rights should be instituted (by social norms). I think in both cases, the answer is determined on utilitarian grounds: we should institute just those rights that it would be best to so institute.
So, for example, I think it would be best if the government were legally obliged to follow due process and just compensation, rather than performing a utilitarian calculation in each instance to determine whether or not to do this. So, in that sense, I recognize rights.
Thanks for the additional response. I mean natural rights (although I would argue that they are non-natural). The legal positivist view you raise is just another step in the circularity of utilitarian rights (social benefit --> government action --> rights --> social benefit). Your view is most likely the prevailing view among legal philosophers, which is why I'll be taking the time to critique it in future posts when making the case for natural law.
If your view is just enlightened utilitarianism, then there is nothing in principle that would require a government to provide due process/fair compensation after a taking if the utilitarian calculus goes a certain way. And if there is something in principle that requires due process/fair compensation in all cases, isn't this rule utilitarianism? And what's the basis for that rule besides welfare?
Gibbard defends rights on practicality and non-utilitarian principles, which raises the question of what justifies these non-utilitarian principles?
Thanks again for taking the time. Don't feel the need to respond further if you'd rather not, although I hope to read how you would address these concerns in the future.
I do think some of these things depend a bit on how many utilitarians there are in society. I don't think we really know what it would be like if there were a high number. E.g. What would capitalism look like in such a society?
In a society where literally everyone is a utilitarian, it may be useful to publish a set of heuristic/guidelines of rules that, if followed, in general lead to good outcomes (e.g. "in general, don't steal from others"). Individual utilitarians can then choose to spend time fully considering all the relevant factors and reasoning things out from first principles -- or they can do a quick check to see whether a situation seems like it's covered by the heuristic, and if so, follow that heuristic (e.g. "in general, don't murder people").
In such a case, it seems like that society would not look significantly different from how our society today looks? Except perhaps people would be a lot more frank about when rule-breaking is justified?
I think so! The OP categorized prudent utilitarianism as a form of multi-level utilitarianism. But it may depend on exactly what you mean by that, since the boundaries of these terms are not always precisely defined. (Some use 'sophisticated utilitarianism' to mean any non-naive view, whereas in the OP I reference Railton's view which is much more specific, and differs in significant ways from the view I defend here.)
Are you thinking there are important respects in which R.M. Hare's view diverges from what I've set out here? (There could well be! Though I also think there are important similarities.)
I didn't mean anything precise. I just noticed that, when I was reading through the old philosophyetc archives, you often mentioned multi-level utilitarianism, but now you rarely seem to, so I was curious as to the reason for that.
For this particular post, I think 'prudent' makes for more accessible terminology than 'multi-level' (and makes clearer that the alternative view is an outright mistake/misunderstanding, as opposed to a legit variant view).
As to why more of my recent posts don't discuss practical-level decision procedures at all: probably just that my blogging tends to reflect my research interests, and I have (I think) more original stuff to say about the deeper theoretical issues. But I do try to remember to flag (for casual readers) that the theoretical rejection of constraints, for example, doesn't mean they can be blithely neglected in practice.
"So to do things that risk deterring many others in society (at a population-wide level) from following utilitarian ethics is to risk immense harm".
For a while, I was thinking about trying to write an economic model of this sort of thing with repeated games, collective reputation, and evolutionary dynamics based on the fraction of utilitarians in society (and/or the frequency of their 'transgressive' behavior) vis-a-vis other 'types'. It didn't seem worth pursuing at the time, but maybe could interesting at some point.
Some relevant stuff I looked at though in case anyone cares:
- Jonathan Levin on Collective Reputation https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/working-paper/dynamics-collective-reputation
- Ingela Alger "Evolution and Kantian morality" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825616300410
Under a utilitarian framework, how would “rights” be determined? For instance, if there was evidence that imposing the death penalty prevented future crime, would prudent utilitarianism still prioritize the criminal’s rights over the potential welfare lost. And if so, what would be the basis for these rights outside of welfare?
Rights are a kind of social institution that protects individuals from specified forms of harm. On a utilitarian view, we should institute just those rights that would be socially beneficial on the whole. We should not accept absolutist ("taxation-is-theft" style) property rights, for example, because those do less good than more moderate (taxable) forms of property rights. Similarly, what rights criminals should have depends on the empirical question of what system of attributed rights would have the best long-term results.
Given the unreliability of the criminal justice system, with people often proved innocent years after the fact (especially as technology, e.g. DNA testing, improves), I think we have pretty good reason to oppose the death penalty. But that is a contingent empirical matter. It isn't difficult to imagine a possible world in which the death penalty would be justified. Personally, I think it could even be justified in our world, if restricted solely to those cases in which there is no *possible* doubt as to the guilt of the convicted party, and when the offense is sufficiently severe. (E.g. those men who are caught red-handed, having kidnapped, abused, and imprisoned others in their personal "dungeons" for many years.) But again, that's just my personal opinion.
Thanks for the engagement.
However, isn't this circular? Rights shouldn't be violated by actions that are socially benefical, yet what is socially beneficial determines our rights. This makes prudent utiltarianism seem more like ad hoc rule utilitiarianism.
And if it's "follow the rules, unless following the rules leads to a bad outcome" then the rules (like respecting rights) just seem like helpful guidelines, rather than objective moral rules.
> isn't this circular? Rights shouldn't be violated by actions that are socially benefical, yet what is socially beneficial determines our rights.
I'm not sure if I'm parsing your sentence correctly. The way I understand it, the scenario under consideration is that you are a utilitarian who finds themselves in a society. The society has some rules and some concepts of rights, and you agree with some but not necessarily all of those rules and rights. (E.g. perhaps society thinks women and men deserve equal rights, but homosexuals do not have the same rights as heterosexuals -- and you agree that women and men deserve equal rights, but you think homosexuals also deserve the same rights as heterosexuals).
Given this disagreement, there are several distinct things going on simultaneously here, and also some equivocation of at least two different things we may mean by "rights":
1. You can try to influence society, via debate or legislation, so that its opinions on rights and rules move closer towards what you think they should be.
2. You can make decisions on which of society's rules to follow and when to follow them.
3. You can make decisions on when to violate someone's "rights" for the greater good, where "rights" refers to a right granted by society that you may or may not agree with. "What are his/her/my rights?" in this context is an empirically question that one can resolve by observing the society in question (e.g. reading its code of laws).
4. You can make decisions on when to violate someone's "rights" for the greater good, where "rights" refer to a right you think someone should have, even if society doesn't agree with you. "What are his/her/my rights?" in this context is not directly observable -- and the you may not even have a coherent answer to the question yet. Perhaps you're still exploring the question.
I think Richard's post concerns with points 2 and 3 (and maybe to a lesser degree 4), and is trying to address the misconception that some people have that utilitarians are dangerous, because they might go around breaking rule and violating rights due to their naive application of utilitarianism.
It's unclear to me whether you are talking about 3 or 4 in your comments. A utilitarian might go through a different thought process when performing the evaluation in 3 vs in 4, even though both situations use the word "rights". Is that where the confusion is coming from?
Thanks for the response. What I’m referring to in my comment are metaphysical rights and whether these would be rights at all under a utilitarian framework (in which case I don’t think the word means anything.)
For instance, if the government took someone’s property without compensation, this action might be justified under utilitarianism (say, the benefits of the taken property are widespread and the person is who lost the property is rich enough to not care too much).
Yet if metaphysical rights were taken seriously, the government would be obligated provide due process and just compensation when taking someone else’s property, regardless of the utilitarian calculus. So my question asks to what extent does utilitarianism recognize rights.
It's pretty clear that utilitarians in general don't recognize "metaphysical" rights, isn't it? As Richard says (and I think most utilitarians would agree), "rights are a kind of social institution." Your view that "rights" are objective and "the good" is subjective is almost (though not precisely) diametrically opposed to his view that "what matters" is an objective question and that "rights" are social conventions.
I have enjoyed reading your posts, by the way!
Yes, my question was meant to know what "rights" mean under prudent utilitarianism, since the word has been used. Nothing, it seems like. And failure to respect the "is ought" distinction is certaintly one of my issues with utilitarianism.
And thank you!
I don't know what you mean by "metaphysical" rights. But there are real normative questions of (i) what legal rights should be instituted (by law), and (ii) what moral rights should be instituted (by social norms). I think in both cases, the answer is determined on utilitarian grounds: we should institute just those rights that it would be best to so institute.
So, for example, I think it would be best if the government were legally obliged to follow due process and just compensation, rather than performing a utilitarian calculation in each instance to determine whether or not to do this. So, in that sense, I recognize rights.
See also Gibbard (1984), 'Utilitarianism and Human Rights': https://philpapers.org/rec/GIBUAH
Thanks for the additional response. I mean natural rights (although I would argue that they are non-natural). The legal positivist view you raise is just another step in the circularity of utilitarian rights (social benefit --> government action --> rights --> social benefit). Your view is most likely the prevailing view among legal philosophers, which is why I'll be taking the time to critique it in future posts when making the case for natural law.
If your view is just enlightened utilitarianism, then there is nothing in principle that would require a government to provide due process/fair compensation after a taking if the utilitarian calculus goes a certain way. And if there is something in principle that requires due process/fair compensation in all cases, isn't this rule utilitarianism? And what's the basis for that rule besides welfare?
Gibbard defends rights on practicality and non-utilitarian principles, which raises the question of what justifies these non-utilitarian principles?
Thanks again for taking the time. Don't feel the need to respond further if you'd rather not, although I hope to read how you would address these concerns in the future.
I do think some of these things depend a bit on how many utilitarians there are in society. I don't think we really know what it would be like if there were a high number. E.g. What would capitalism look like in such a society?
In a society where literally everyone is a utilitarian, it may be useful to publish a set of heuristic/guidelines of rules that, if followed, in general lead to good outcomes (e.g. "in general, don't steal from others"). Individual utilitarians can then choose to spend time fully considering all the relevant factors and reasoning things out from first principles -- or they can do a quick check to see whether a situation seems like it's covered by the heuristic, and if so, follow that heuristic (e.g. "in general, don't murder people").
In such a case, it seems like that society would not look significantly different from how our society today looks? Except perhaps people would be a lot more frank about when rule-breaking is justified?
Richard, I know you used to be a multi-level utilitarian. Are you still?
I think so! The OP categorized prudent utilitarianism as a form of multi-level utilitarianism. But it may depend on exactly what you mean by that, since the boundaries of these terms are not always precisely defined. (Some use 'sophisticated utilitarianism' to mean any non-naive view, whereas in the OP I reference Railton's view which is much more specific, and differs in significant ways from the view I defend here.)
Are you thinking there are important respects in which R.M. Hare's view diverges from what I've set out here? (There could well be! Though I also think there are important similarities.)
I didn't mean anything precise. I just noticed that, when I was reading through the old philosophyetc archives, you often mentioned multi-level utilitarianism, but now you rarely seem to, so I was curious as to the reason for that.
For this particular post, I think 'prudent' makes for more accessible terminology than 'multi-level' (and makes clearer that the alternative view is an outright mistake/misunderstanding, as opposed to a legit variant view).
As to why more of my recent posts don't discuss practical-level decision procedures at all: probably just that my blogging tends to reflect my research interests, and I have (I think) more original stuff to say about the deeper theoretical issues. But I do try to remember to flag (for casual readers) that the theoretical rejection of constraints, for example, doesn't mean they can be blithely neglected in practice.