Mr. Moderate

When I write about “utility” in this essay, I’m referring to an ethical principle that is usually stated as something like: “the maximum amount of happiness for the maximum number of people.” This ethical system is usually called “utilitarianism.”

Now, I used to believe that utilitarianism was the best form of ethics, but I recognized that it had several problems, and among those problems were a total failure to motivate rather ordinary behavior. Most of us spend most of our time doing things that do not make us very happy. Most of us work, for instance, not because it makes us happy (although some of may be happy as a result of our work), but rather because it produces money for us to use to meet the needs and wants which arise in our lives. In other words, happiness is only a small portion of what we obtain when we work; that portion which allows us to fulfill our “wants.” Our needs are matters of necessity, and if observed strictly, fulfilling them provides little to no happiness. (There may be, of course, blended situations where I need to eat and I want to eat a steak; eating a steak fulfills my need and my want at the same time. The higher we are on the economic ladder of success, the more likely it is that our needs will be fulfilled using wants in this same fashion.)

My new ethical focus is on survival, as I explain in my essay “Survival is Moral Bedrock.” But this does not mean that I need to totally jettison concepts from utilitarianism. This is true because it is part of the nature of human beings that happiness contributes to survival. (I have had friends commit suicide. They were not happy. My guess is that if they had been happy, they would have been much less likely to have committed suicide.) We can look at the morale of a person or a group of people and know that the level of functioning for that person or group is enhanced if the psychological morale (or measure of happiness) is higher. This is why leaders of armed forces worry about the morale of the members of their units. They know that the survival of the group can depend on possessing a higher level of morale (or happiness).

So, in my moral system, utility becomes a means to achieve survival rather than an end in and of itself. First we have to look out for the basics of survival, and if those are not compelling us to take (or avoid) some particular action, then we can analyze the utility of the action to attempt to decide whether to take (or avoid) the action. Utilitarianism thus becomes a fallback ethical position when the implications on survival are equally balanced or entirely unclear.

In this way we now see as true what I chose for a title of this essay: utility is a means to survive, not an end in and of itself.