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  • Last time, we argued about

  • the case of The Queen v. Dudley & Stephens,

  • the lifeboat case, the case of cannibalism at sea.

  • And with the arguments about the lifeboat in mind,

  • the arguments for and against what Dudley and Stephens did in mind,

  • let's turn back to the philosophy, the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham.

  • Bentham was born in England in 1748. At the age of 12, he went to Oxford.

  • At 15, he went to law school. He was admitted to the Bar at age 19

  • but he never practiced law.

  • Instead, he devoted his life to jurisprudence and moral philosophy.

  • Last time, we began to consider Bentham's version of utilitarianism.

  • The main idea is simply stated and it's this:

  • The highest principle of morality, whether personal or political morality,

  • is to maximize the general welfare, or the collective happiness,

  • or the overall balance of pleasure over pain;

  • in a phrase, maximize utility.

  • Bentham arrives at this principle by the following line of reasoning:

  • We're all governed by pain and pleasure,

  • they are our sovereign masters, and so any moral system

  • has to take account of them.

  • How best to take account? By maximizing.

  • And this leads to the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number.

  • What exactly should we maximize?

  • Bentham tells us happiness, or more precisely, utility -

  • maximizing utility as a principle not only for individuals

  • but also for communities and for legislators.

  • "What, after all, is a community?" Bentham asks.

  • It's the sum of the individuals who comprise it.

  • And that's why in deciding the best policy,

  • in deciding what the law should be, in deciding what's just,

  • citizens and legislators should ask themselves the question

  • if we add up all of the benefits of this policy

  • and subtract all of the costs, the right thing to do

  • is the one that maximizes the balance of happiness over suffering.

  • That's what it means to maximize utility.

  • Now, today, I want to see whether you agree or disagree with it,

  • and it often goes, this utilitarian logic,

  • under the name of cost-benefit analysis,

  • which is used by companies and by governments all the time.

  • And what it involves is placing a value,

  • usually a dollar value, to stand for utility on the costs

  • and the benefits of various proposals.

  • Recently, in the Czech Republic, there was a proposal

  • to increase the excise tax on smoking. Philip Morris, the tobacco company,

  • does huge business in the Czech Republic.

  • They commissioned a study, a cost-benefit analysis

  • of smoking in the Czech Republic, and what their cost-benefit

  • analysis found was the government gains by having Czech citizens smoke.

  • Now, how do they gain?

  • It's true that there are negative effects to the public finance

  • of the Czech government because there are increased health care

  • costs for people who develop smoking-related diseases.

  • On the other hand, there were positive effects

  • and those were added up on the other side of the ledger.

  • The positive effects included, for the most part,

  • various tax revenues that the government derives from the sale

  • of cigarette products, but it also included

  • health care savings to the government when people die early,

  • pension savings -- you don't have to pay pensions for as long -

  • and also, savings in housing costs for the elderly.

  • And when all of the costs and benefits were added up,

  • the Philip Morris study found that there is a net public finance gain

  • in the Czech Republic of $147,000,000,

  • and given the savings in housing, in health care, and pension costs,

  • the government enjoys savings of over $1,200 for each person

  • who dies prematurely due to smoking.

  • Cost-benefit analysis.

  • Now, those among you who are defenders of utilitarianism

  • may think that this is an unfair test.

  • Philip Morris was pilloried in the press

  • and they issued an apology for this heartless calculation.

  • You may say that what's missing here is something that the utilitarian

  • can easily incorporate, namely the value to the person

  • and to the families of those who die from lung cancer.

  • What about the value of life?

  • Some cost-benefit analyses incorporate a measure for the value of life.

  • One of the most famous of these involved the Ford Pinto case.

  • Did any of you read about that?

  • This was back in the 1970s.

  • Do you remember what the Ford Pinto was,

  • a kind of car? Anybody?

  • It was a small car, subcompact car, very popular,

  • but it had one problem, which is the fuel tank

  • was at the back of the car and in rear collisions,

  • the fuel tank exploded and some people were killed

  • and some severely injured.

  • Victims of these injuries took Ford to court to sue.

  • And in the court case, it turned out that Ford

  • had long since known about the vulnerable fuel tank

  • and had done a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether it would be

  • worth it to put in a special shield that would

  • protect the fuel tank and prevent it from exploding.

  • They did a cost-benefit analysis.

  • The cost per part to increase the safety of the Pinto,

  • they calculated at $11.00 per part.

  • And here's -- this was the cost-benefit analysis that emerged in the trial.

  • Eleven dollars per part at 12.5 million cars and trucks

  • came to a total cost of $137 million to improve the safety.

  • But then they calculated the benefits of spending all this money

  • on a safer car and they counted 180 deaths

  • and they assigned a dollar value, $200,000 per death,

  • 180 injuries, $67,000, and then the costs to repair,

  • the replacement cost for 2,000 vehicles,

  • it would be destroyed without the safety device $700 per vehicle.

  • So the benefits turned out to be only $49.5 million

  • and so they didn't install the device.

  • Needless to say, when this memo of the

  • Ford Motor Company's cost-benefit analysis came out in the trial,

  • it appalled the jurors, who awarded a huge settlement.

  • Is this a counterexample to the utilitarian idea of calculating?

  • Because Ford included a measure of the value of life.

  • Now, who here wants to defend cost-benefit analysis

  • from this apparent counterexample?

  • Who has a defense?

  • Or do you think this completely destroys the whole

  • utilitarian calculus? Yes?

  • Well, I think that once again, they've made the same mistake

  • the previous case did, that they assigned a dollar value

  • to human life, and once again,

  • they failed to take account things like suffering

  • and emotional losses by the families.

  • I mean, families lost earnings but they also lost a loved one

  • and that is more valued than $200,000.

  • Right and -- wait, wait, wait, that's good. What's your name?

  • Julie Roteau .

  • So if $200,000, Julie, is too low a figure

  • because it doesn't include the loss of a loved one

  • and the loss of those years of life, what would be -

  • what do you think would be a more accurate number?

  • I don't believe I could give a number. I think that this sort of analysis

  • shouldn't be applied to issues of human life.

  • I think it can't be used monetarily.

  • So they didn't just put too low a number, Julie says.

  • They were wrong to try to put any number at all.

  • All right, let's hear someone who -

  • You have to adjust for inflation.

  • You have to adjust for inflation.

  • All right, fair enough.

  • So what would the number be now?

  • This was 35 years ago.

  • Two million dollars.

  • Two million dollars? You would put two million?

  • And what's your name?

  • Voytek

  • Voytek says we have to allow for inflation.

  • We should be more generous.

  • Then would you be satisfied that this is the right way of

  • thinking about the question?

  • I guess, unfortunately, it is for -

  • there needs to be a number put somewhere, like, I'm not sure

  • what that number would be, but I do agree that

  • there could possibly be a number put on the human life.

  • All right, so Voytek says, and here, he disagrees with Julie.

  • Julie says we can't put a number on human life

  • for the purpose of a cost-benefit analysis.

  • Voytek says we have to because we have to make decisions somehow.

  • What do other people think about this?

  • Is there anyone prepared to defend cost-benefit analysis

  • here as accurate as desirable? Yes? Go ahead.

  • I think that if Ford and other car companies

  • didn't use cost-benefit analysis, they'd eventually go out of business

  • because they wouldn't be able to be profitable and millions of people

  • wouldn't be able to use their cars to get to jobs,

  • to put food on the table, to feed their children.

  • So I think that if cost-benefit analysis isn't employed,

  • the greater good is sacrificed, in this case.

  • All right, let me add. What's your name?

  • Raul.

  • Raul, there was recently a study done about cell phone use by a driver

  • when people are driving a car, and there was a debate

  • whether that should be banned.

  • Yeah.

  • And the figure was that some 2,000 people die as a result

  • of accidents each year using cell phones.

  • And yet, the cost-benefit analysis which was done by the

  • Center for Risk Analysis at Harvard found that

  • if you look at the benefits of the cell phone use

  • and you put some value on the life, it comes out about the same

  • because of the enormous economic benefit of enabling people

  • to take advantage of their time, not waste time, be able to make deals

  • and talk to friends and so on while they're driving.

  • Doesn't that suggest that it's a mistake to try to put

  • monetary figures on questions of human life?

  • Well, I think that if the great majority of people try to

  • derive maximum utility out of a service,

  • like using cell phones and the convenience that cell phones provide,

  • that sacrifice is necessary for satisfaction to occur.

  • You're an outright utilitarian.

  • Yes. Okay.

  • All right then, one last question, Raul. - Okay.

  • And I put this to Voytek, what dollar figure should

  • be put on human life to decide whether to ban the use of cell phones?

  • Well, I don't want to arbitrarily calculate a figure,

  • I mean, right now. I think that -

  • You want to take it under advisement?

  • Yeah, I'll take it under advisement.

  • But what, roughly speaking, would it be? You got 2,300 deaths. - Okay.

  • You got to assign a dollar value to know whether you want

  • to prevent those deaths by banning the use of cell phones in cars. - Okay.

  • So what would your hunch be? How much? A million?

  • Two million? Two million was Voytek's figure. - Yeah.

  • Is that about right? - Maybe a million.

  • A million? - Yeah.

  • You know, that's good. Thank you. -Okay.

  • So, these are some of the controversies that arise these days

  • from cost-benefit analysis, especially those that involve placing a

  • dollar value on everything to be added up.

  • Well, now I want to turn to your objections,

  • to your objections not necessarily to cost-benefit analysis specifically,

  • because that's just one version of the utilitarian logic in practice today,

  • but to the theory as a whole, to the idea that the right thing to do,

  • the just basis for policy and law is to maximize utility.

  • How many disagree with the utilitarian approach to law

  • and to the common good?

  • How many agree with it?

  • So more agree than disagree.

  • So let's hear from the critics. Yes?

  • My main issue with it is that I feel like you can't say

  • that just because someone's in the minority, what they want

  • and need is less valuable than someone who is in the majority.

  • So I guess I have an issue with the idea that the greatest good

  • for the greatest number is okay because there are still -

  • what about people who are in the lesser number?

  • Like, it's not fair to them.

  • They didn't have any say in where they wanted to be.

  • All right. That's an interesting objection.

  • You're worried about the effect on the minority.

  • Yes.

  • What's your name, by the way?

  • Anna.

  • Who has an answer to Anna's worry about the effect on the minority?

  • What do you say to Anna?

  • Um, she said that the minority is valued less.

  • I don't think that's the case because individually,

  • the minority's value is just the same as the individual of the majority.

  • It's just that the numbers outweigh the minority.

  • And I mean, at a certain point, you have to make a decision

  • and I'm sorry for the minority but sometimes,

  • it's for the general, for the greater good.

  • For the greater good. Anna, what do you say?

  • What's your name?

  • Yang-Da.

  • What do you say to Yang-Da?

  • Yang-Da says you just have to add up people's preferences

  • and those in the minority do have their preferences weighed.

  • Can you give an example of the kind of thing

  • you're worried about when you say you're worried about utilitarianism

  • violating the concern or respect due the minority?

  • And give an example.

  • Okay. So, well, with any of the cases that we've talked about,

  • like for the shipwreck one, I think the boy who was eaten

  • still had as much of a right to live as the other people

  • and just because he was the minority in that case,

  • the one who maybe had less of a chance to keep living,

  • that doesn't mean that the others automatically

  • have a right to eat him just because it would give a

  • greater amount of people a chance to live.

  • So there may be certain rights that the minority members have,

  • that the individual has that shouldn't be traded off for the sake of utility?

  • Yes.

  • Yes, Anna? You know, this would be a test for you.

  • Back in Ancient Rome, they threw Christians to the lions

  • in the Colosseum for sport.

  • If you think how the utilitarian calculus would go,

  • yes, the Christian thrown to the lions suffers enormous excruciating pain.

  • But look at the collective ecstasy of the Romans!

  • Yang-Da.

  • Well, in that time, I don't -- if -- in modern day of time,

  • to value the -- to give a number to the happiness

  • given to the people watching, I don't think any, like,

  • policymaker would say the pain of one person, of the suffering

  • of one person is much, much -- is, I mean, in comparison

  • to the happiness gained, it's -

  • No, but you have to admit that if there were enough Romans

  • delirious enough with happiness, it would outweigh even the

  • most excruciating pain of a handful of Christians thrown to the lion.

  • So we really have here two different objections to utilitarianism.

  • One has to do with whether utilitarianism adequately respects

  • individual rights or minority rights, and the other has to do with

  • the whole idea of aggregating utility or preferences or values.

  • Is it possible to aggregate all values to translate them into dollar terms?

  • There was, in the 1930s, a psychologist who tried

  • to address this second question.

  • He tried to prove what utilitarianism assumes,

  • that it is possible to translate all goods, all values,

  • all human concerns into a single uniform measure,

  • and he did this by conducting a survey of young recipients of relief,

  • this was in the 1930s, and he asked them,

  • he gave them a list of unpleasant experiences and he asked them,

  • "How much would you have to be paid to undergo the following experiences?"

  • and he kept track.

  • For example, how much would you have to be paid

  • to have one upper front tooth pulled out?

  • Or how much would you have to be paid to have one little toe cut off?

  • Or to eat a live earthworm six inches long?

  • Or to live the rest of your life on a farm in Kansas?

  • Or to choke a stray cat to death with your bare hands?

  • Now, what do you suppose was the most expensive item on that list? - Kansas!

  • Kansas?

  • You're right, it was Kansas.

  • For Kansas, people said they'd have to pay them -

  • they have to be paid $300,000.

  • What do you think was the next most expensive?

  • Not the cat.

  • Not the tooth.

  • Not the toe.

  • The worm!

  • People said you'd have to pay them $100,000 to eat the worm.

  • What do you think was the least expensive item?

  • Not the cat.

  • The tooth.

  • During the Depression, people were willing to have their

  • tooth pulled for only $4,500.

  • What?

  • Now, here's what Thorndike concluded from his study.

  • Any want or a satisfaction which exists exists in some amount

  • and is therefore measurable.

  • The life of a dog or a cat or a chicken consists of appetites,

  • cravings, desires, and their gratifications.

  • So does the life of human beings, though the appetites

  • and desires are more complicated.

  • But what about Thorndike's study?

  • Does it support Bentham's idea that all goods,

  • all values can be captured according to a single uniform measure of value?

  • Or does the preposterous character of those different items on the list

  • suggest the opposite conclusion that maybe,

  • whether we're talking about life or Kansas or the worm,

  • maybe the things we value and cherish can't be captured

  • according to a single uniform measure of value?

  • And if they can't, what are the consequences

  • for the utilitarian theory of morality?

  • That's a question we'll continue with next time.

  • All right, now, let's take the other part of the poll,

  • which is the highest experience or pleasure.

  • How many say Shakespeare?

  • How many say Fear Factor?

  • No, you can't be serious. Really?

  • Last time, we began to consider some objections to

  • Jeremy Bentham's version of utilitarianism.

  • People raised two objections in the discussion we had.

  • The first was the objection, the claim that utilitarianism,

  • by concerning itself with the greatest good for the greatest number,

  • fails adequately to respect individual rights.

  • Today, we have debates about torture and terrorism.

  • Suppose a suspected terrorist was apprehended on September 10th

  • and you had reason to believe that the suspect had crucial information

  • about an impending terrorist attack that would kill over 3,000 people

  • and you couldn't extract the information.

  • Would it be just to torture the suspect to get the information

  • or do you say no, there is a categorical moral duty

  • of respect for individual rights?

  • In a way, we're back to the questions we started with

  • about Charlie Carson organ transplant.

  • So that's the first issue.

  • And you remember, we considered some examples

  • of cost-benefit analysis, but a lot of people were unhappy

  • with cost-benefit analysis when it came to placing

  • a dollar value on human life.

  • And so that led us to the second objection.

  • It questioned whether it's possible to translate all values into

  • a single uniform measure of value.

  • It asks, in other words, whether all values are commensurable.

  • Let me give you one other example of an experience.

  • This actually is a true story.

  • It comes from personal experience that raises a question

  • at least about whether all values can be translated without loss

  • into utilitarian terms.

  • Some years ago, when I was a graduate student,

  • I was at Oxford in England and they had men's and women's colleges.

  • They weren't yet mixed and the women's colleges

  • had rules against overnight male guests.

  • By the 1970s, these rules were rarely enforced and easily violated,

  • or so I was told.

  • By the late 1970s, when I was there,

  • pressure grew to relax these rules and it became the subject of debate

  • among the faculty at St. Anne's College,

  • which was one of these all-women's colleges.

  • The older women on the faculty were traditionalists.

  • They were opposed to change unconventional moral grounds.

  • But times have changed and they were embarrassed

  • to give the true grounds for their objection and so they translated

  • their arguments into utilitarian terms.

  • "If men stay overnight", they argued,

  • "the costs to the college will increase."

  • "How?" you might wonder.

  • "Well, they'll want to take baths

  • and that'll use up hot water," they said.

  • Furthermore, they argued,

  • "We'll have to replace the mattresses more often."

  • The reformers met these arguments by adopting the following compromise.

  • Each woman could have a maximum of three overnight male guests each week.

  • They didn't say whether it had to be the same one or three different

  • provided, and this was the compromise,

  • provided the guest paid 50 pence to defray the cost to the college.

  • The next day, the national headline in the national newspaper read,

  • "St. Anne's Girls, 50 Pence A Night."

  • Another illustration of the difficulty of translating all values,

  • in this case, a certain idea of virtue, into utilitarian terms.

  • So, that's all to illustrate the second objection to utilitarianism,

  • at least the part of that objection, that questions whether utilitarianism

  • is right to assume that we can assume the uniformity of value,

  • the commensurability of all values and translate all moral considerations

  • into dollars or money.

  • But there is a second aspect to this worry about

  • aggregating values and preferences.

  • Why should we weigh all preferences that people have without assessing

  • whether they're good preferences or bad preferences?

  • Shouldn't we distinguish between higher pleasures and lower pleasures?

  • Now, part of the appeal of not making any qualitative distinctions

  • about the worth of people's preferences,

  • part of the appeal is that it is nonjudgmental and egalitarian.

  • The Benthamite utilitarian says everybody's preferences count

  • and they count regardless of what people want,

  • regardless of what makes different people happy.

  • For Bentham, all that matters, you'll remember,

  • are the intensity and the duration of a pleasure or pain.

  • The so-called "higher pleasures or nobler virtues"

  • are simply those, according to Bentham,

  • that produce stronger, longer pleasure.

  • Yet a famous phrase to express this idea,

  • the quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry.

  • What was pushpin?

  • It was some kind of a child's game, like tiddlywinks.

  • "Pushpin is as good as poetry", Bentham says.

  • And lying behind this idea, I think, is the claim, the intuition,

  • that it's a presumption to judge whose pleasures

  • are intrinsically higher or worthier or better.

  • And there is something attractive in this refusal to judge.

  • After all, some people like Mozart, others Madonna.

  • Some people like ballet, others bowling.

  • Who's to say, a Benthamite might argue,

  • who is to say which of these pleasures, whose pleasures are higher,

  • worthier, nobler than others?

  • But is that right, this refusal to make qualitative distinctions?

  • Can we altogether dispense with the idea that

  • certain things we take pleasure in are better or worthier than others?

  • Think back to the case of the Romans in the Colosseum.

  • One thing that troubled people about that practice is that it seemed

  • to violate the rights of the Christian.

  • Another way of objection to what's going on there

  • is that the pleasure that the Romans take in this bloody spectacle,

  • should that pleasure, which is abased, kind of corrupt, degrading pleasure,

  • should that even be valorized or weighed in deciding

  • what the general welfare is?

  • So here are the objections to Bentham's utilitarianism

  • and now, we turn to someone who tried to respond to those objections,

  • a latter-day utilitarian, John Stuart Mill.

  • So what we need to examine now is whether John Stuart Mill

  • had a convincing reply to these objections to utilitarianism.

  • John Stuart Mill was born in 1806.

  • His father, James Mill, was a disciple of Bentham's,

  • and James Mill set about giving his son, John Stuart Mill,

  • a model education.

  • He was a child prot¨¦g¨¦, John Stuart Mill.

  • He knew Greek at the age of three, Latin at eight,

  • and age 10, he wrote "A History of Roman Law."

  • At age 20, he had a nervous breakdown.

  • This left him in a depression for five years, but at age 25,

  • what helped lift him out of this depression

  • is that he met Harriet Taylor.

  • She and Mill got married, they lived happily ever after,

  • and it was under her influence that John Stuart Mill

  • tried to humanize utilitarianism.

  • What Mill tried to do was to see whether the

  • utilitarian calculus could be enlarged and modified to

  • accommodate humanitarian concerns, like the concern to

  • respect individual rights, and also to address the distinction

  • between higher and lower pleasures.

  • In 1859, Mill wrote a famous book on liberty,

  • the main point of which was the importance

  • of defending individual rights and minority rights,

  • and in 1861, toward the end of his life,

  • he wrote the book we read as part of this course, "Utilitarianism."

  • He makes it clear that utility is the only standard of morality,

  • in his view, so he's not challenging Bentham's premise.

  • He's affirming it.

  • He says very explicitly, "The sole evidence it is possible

  • to produce that anything is desirable is that people actually do desire it."

  • So he stays with the idea that our de facto actual empirical desires

  • are the only basis for moral judgment.

  • But then, page eight, also in chapter two,

  • he argues that it is possible for a utilitarian to distinguish

  • higher from lower pleasures.

  • Now, for those of you who have read Mill already,

  • how, according to him, is it possible to draw that distinction?

  • How can a utilitarian distinguish qualitatively higher pleasures

  • from lesser ones, base ones, unworthy ones? Yes?

  • If you've tried both of them and you prefer the higher one,

  • naturally, always.

  • That's great. That's right.

  • What's your name? - John.

  • So as John points out, Mill says here's the test.

  • Since we can't step outside actual desires,

  • actual preferences that would violate utilitarian premises,

  • the only test of whether a pleasure is higher or lower

  • is whether someone who has experienced both would prefer it.

  • And here, in chapter two, we see the passage where

  • Mill makes the point that John just described.

  • "Of two pleasures, if there be one to which

  • all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference,

  • irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it --

  • in other words, no outside, no independent standard -- then,

  • that is the more desirable pleasure."

  • What do people think about that argument?

  • Does it succeed?

  • How many think that it does succeed of arguing

  • within utilitarian terms for a distinction between

  • higher and lower pleasures?

  • How many think it doesn't succeed?

  • I want to hear your reasons.

  • But before we give the reasons

  • let's do an experiment of Mill's claim.

  • In order to do this experiment, we're going to look at

  • three short excerpts of popular entertainment.

  • The first one is a Hamlet soliloquy.

  • It'll be followed by two other experiences.

  • See what you think.

  • What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason,

  • how infinite in faculties, in form and moving

  • how express and admirable, in action how like an angel,

  • in apprehension how like a god!

  • The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals -

  • and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

  • Man delights not me.

  • Imagine a world where your greatest fears become reality.

  • Ahh! They're biting me!

  • Each show, six contestants from around the country

  • battle each other in three extreme stunts.

  • Ow!

  • These stunts are designed to challenge the contestants

  • both physically and mentally.

  • Six contestants, three stunts, one winner.

  • Yes! Whooo!

  • Fear Factor.

  • Hi-diddily-ho, pedal-to-the-metal-o-philes.

  • Flanders, since when do you like anything cool?

  • Well, I don't care for the speed but I can't get enough

  • of that safety gear. Helmets, roll bars, caution flags...

  • I like the fresh air...

  • and looking at the poor people in the infield.

  • Dang, Cletus, why'd you have to park by my parents?

  • Now, Honey, they's my parents too.

  • I don't even have to ask which one you liked most.

  • The Simpsons, how many liked The Simpsons most?

  • How many Shakespeare?

  • What about Fear Factor?

  • How many preferred Fear Factor?

  • Really?

  • People overwhelmingly like The Simpsons better than Shakespeare.

  • All right, now, let's take the other part of the poll,

  • which is the highest experience or pleasure.

  • How many say Shakespeare?

  • How many say Fear Factor?

  • No, you can't be serious. Really? What?

  • All right, go ahead. You can say it.

  • I found that one the most entertaining.

  • I know, but which do you think was the worthiest,

  • the noblest experience?

  • I know you found it the most entertaining.

  • If something is good just because it is pleasurable,

  • what does it matter whether you have sort of an

  • abstract idea of whether it is good by someone else's sense or not?

  • All right, so you come down in the straight Benthamite side.

  • Who is to judge and why should we judge,

  • apart from just registering and aggregating de facto preference?

  • All right, that's fair enough. And what's your name?

  • Nate, okay, fair enough.

  • All right, so how many think The Simpsons is actually,

  • apart from liking it, is actually the higher experience?

  • Higher than Shakespeare?

  • All right, let's see the vote for Shakespeare again.

  • How many think Shakespeare is higher?

  • All right. So why is it -- ideally,

  • I'd like to hear from someone, is there someone who thinks

  • Shakespeare is highest but who preferred watching The Simpsons?

  • Yes?

  • Like, I guess just sitting and watching The Simpsons,

  • it's entertaining because they make jokes and they make us laugh.

  • But like, someone has to tell us that Shakespeare was this great writer.

  • We had to be taught how to read him, how to understand him.

  • We had to be taught how to kind of take in Rembrandt,

  • how to analyze a painting.

  • But let me -- what's your name?

  • Anisha.

  • Anisha, when you say someone told you that Shakespeare is better --

  • Right.

  • Are you accepting it on blind faith?

  • You voted that Shakespeare is higher

  • only because the culture tells you that

  • or teachers tell you that or do you actually agree with that yourself?

  • Well, in the sense that Shakespeare no,

  • but earlier you made an example of Rembrandt.

  • I feel like I would enjoy reading a comic book

  • more than I would enjoy kind of analyzing Rembrandt

  • because someone told me it was great, you know. - Right.

  • So some of this seems to be, you're suggesting,

  • a kind of a cultural convention and pressure.

  • We're told what books, what works of art are great. - Right.

  • Who else?

  • Yes?

  • Although I enjoyed watching The Simpsons more

  • in this particular moment, in justice, if I were to spend

  • the rest of my life considering the three different video clips shown,

  • I would not want to spend that remainder of my life

  • considering the latter two clips.

  • I think I would derive more pleasure from being able to branch out in my

  • own mind sort of considering more deep pleasures, more deep thoughts.

  • And tell me your name.

  • Joe.

  • Joe, so if you had to spend the rest of your life on a farm

  • in Kansas with only Shakespeare or the collected episodes

  • of The Simpsons, you would prefer Shakespeare?

  • What do you conclude from that about John Stuart Mill's test that the test

  • of a higher pleasure is whether people who have experienced both prefer it?

  • Can I cite another example briefly?

  • Yeah.

  • In Neurobiology last year, we were told of a rat

  • who was tested a particular center in the brain where the rat was able

  • to stimulate his brain and caused itself intense pleasure repeatedly.

  • The rat did not eat or drink until it died.

  • So the rat was clearly experiencing intense pleasure.

  • Now, if you ask me right now if I would rather experience

  • intense pleasure or have a full lifetime of higher pleasure,

  • I would consider intense pleasure to be low pleasure.

  • I would right now enjoy intense pleasure but

  • -- yes, I would.

  • I certainly would.

  • But over a lifetime, I think I would think almost a complete majority here would agree that they would rather

  • a complete majority here would agree that they would rather

  • be a human with higher pleasure than be that rat with intense pleasure

  • for a momentary period of time.

  • Now, in answer to your question, I think this proves that -

  • or I won't say "proves."

  • I think the conclusion is that Mill's theory that when a majority

  • of people are asked what they would rather do,

  • they will answer that they would rather engage in a higher pleasure.

  • So you think that this support Mill's you think Mill is onto something here?

  • I do.

  • All right, Is there anyone who disagrees with Joe and who thinks

  • that our experiment disproves Mill's test,

  • shows that that's not an adequate way, that you can't distinguish

  • higher pleasures within the utilitarian framework?

  • Yes?

  • If whatever is good is truly just whatever people prefer,

  • it's truly relative and there's no objective definition,

  • then there will be some society where people prefer Simpsons more.

  • Anyone can appreciate The Simpsons but I think it does take education

  • to appreciate Shakespeare as much.

  • All right, you're saying it takes education

  • to appreciate higher true things.

  • Mill's point is that the higher pleasures do require

  • cultivation and appreciation and education.

  • He doesn't dispute that.

  • But once having been cultivated and educated, people will see,

  • not only see the difference between higher and lower pleasures,

  • but will actually prefer the higher to the lower.

  • You find this famous passage from John Stuart Mill.

  • "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied;

  • better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.

  • And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion,

  • it is because they only know their side of the question."

  • So here, you have an attempt to distinguish

  • higher from lower pleasures.

  • So going to an art museum or being a couch potato

  • and swilling beer, watching television at home.

  • Sometimes, Mill agrees, we might succumb to the temptation

  • to do the latter, to be couch potatoes.

  • But even when we do that out of indolence and sloth,

  • we know that the pleasure we get gazing at Rembrandts in the museum

  • is actually higher because we've experienced both,

  • and it is a higher pleasure gazing at Rembrandts

  • because it engages our higher human faculties.

  • What about Mill's attempt to reply to the objection about individual rights?

  • In a way, he uses the same kind of argument,

  • and this comes out in chapter five.

  • He says, "I dispute the pretensions of any theory which sets up

  • an imaginary standard of justice not grounded on utility."

  • But still, he considers justice grounded on utility to be what he calls

  • "the chief part and incomparably, the most sacred

  • and binding part of all morality."

  • So justice is higher, individual rights are privileged,

  • but not for reasons that depart from utilitarian assumptions.

  • Justice is a name, for certain moral requirements,

  • which, regarded collectively, stand higher in the scale

  • of social utility and are, therefore, of more paramount

  • obligation than any others.

  • So justice, it is sacred.

  • It's prior. It's privileged.

  • It isn't something that can easily be traded off against lesser things.

  • But the reason is ultimately, Mill claims, a utilitarian reason

  • once you consider the long-run interests of humankind,

  • of all of us as progressive beings.

  • If we do justice and if we respect rights,

  • society as a whole will be better off in the long run.

  • Well, is that convincing or is Mill actually, without admitting it,

  • stepping outside utilitarian considerations in arguing for

  • qualitatively higher pleasures and for sacred

  • or especially important individual rights?

  • We haven't fully answered that question because to answer that question,

  • in the case of rights and justice,

  • will require that we explore other ways,

  • non-utilitarian ways of accounting for the basis

  • of rights and then asking whether they succeed.

  • As for Jeremy Bentham, who launched utilitarianism

  • as a doctrine in moral and legal philosophy,

  • Bentham died in 1832 at the age of 85.

  • But if you go to London, you can visit him today literally.

  • He provided in his will that his body be preserved,

  • embalmed, and displayed in the University of London,

  • where he still presides in a glass case with a wax head,

  • dressed in his actual clothing.

  • You see, before he died, Bentham addressed himself

  • to a question consistent with his philosophy.

  • Of what use could a dead man be to the living?

  • One use, he said, would be to make one's corpse

  • available to the study of anatomy.

  • In the case of great philosophers, however, better yet to preserve

  • one's physical presence in order to inspire future generations of thinkers.

  • You want to see what Bentham looks like stuffed?

  • Here is what he looks like.

  • There he is.

  • Now, if you look closely, you will notice that the embalming

  • of his actual head was not a success,

  • so they substituted a waxed head and at the bottom, for verisimilitude,

  • you can actually see his actual head on a plate.

  • You see it? Right there.

  • So, what's the moral of the story?

  • The moral of the story - and by the way,

  • they bring him out during meetings of the board

  • at University College London and the minutes record him

  • as present but not voting.

  • Here is a philosopher in life and in death

  • who adhered to the principles of his philosophy.

  • We'll continue with rights next time.

  • Don't miss the chance to interact online with other viewers of Justice.

  • Join the conversation, take a pop quiz,

  • watch lectures you've missed, and learn a lot more.

  • It's at justiceharvard.org. It's the right thing to do.

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