IPP 503: Environmental Ethics

AWAYMAVE - The Distance Mode of MA in Values and the Environment at Lancaster University

Week 3: Consequentialism and environmental value

I. Classical Utilitarianism:

The right action is that which has the consequences which maximises the well-being or happiness of affected agents i.e. the best action is that which produces the greatest improvement in well-being.

The theory makes three distinct claims that need to be distinguished:

1. It is welfarist: The only thing that is good in itself and not just a means to another good is the happiness or well-being of individuals.

2. It is consequentialist: whether an action is right or wrong is determined solely by its consequences.

3. It is an aggregative maximising approach: we choose the action that produces the greatest total amount of well-being.

Consequentialism

Whether an action is right or wrong depends upon the ends it is used to achieve. Actions as such, without regard to the states of affairs they bring about, have no moral value, positive or negative, but are morally neutral. They have only instrumental value. They can never be wrong in themselves. They are means to what is of intrinsically valuable, for what is valuable for its own sake.

Consequentialism is quite independent of how what is intrinsically good is characterised – one needn’t defend the classical utilitarian view of what is good. It says whatever is intrinsically good, the right action is the one that promotes that good.

Thought in favour of consequentialism: what else could determine what is good other than the value it promotes? Wouldn’t it be irrational or inconsistent to say – ‘I value A, but I don’t think I should act to promote that value’?

II. Problems for consequentialism:

A. Consequentialism permits too much:

Example 1: A ruthless head of a large corporation operating with the licence of a corrupt political regime is about to order the release of a cocktail of toxic chemicals into a water supply. However, he is a good family man. The only effective way to stop him is to kidnap and threaten violence on an innocent member of his family.

Example2: A terrorist has planted a bomb in a busy city centre. He refuses to say where it is. However, he is a good family man. The only way to discover where it is planted is to torture an innocent member of his family.

It might seem that form the utilitarian perspective the calculation of consequences really does show that torturing an innocent individual would do more good than harm, or prevent more harm than it caused, to all those affected, then it is the right thing to do.

Rejection of consequentialism: there are acts one ought not to perform even if their consequences are good or even the best - some acts are intrinsically wrong, wrong in themselves: killing the innocent, torturing the innocent, lying, promise-breaking, for instance. Such actions may sometimes have overall good consequences, but that does not make them right.

Deontological ethics: To hold a deontological ethic is to accept that there are constraints on performing certain kinds of actions even where those actions produce a greater value than not performing them. The basic ethical question is ‘What acts am I obliged to perform or not perform?’.

What is the problem? The moral standing of individuals

Individuals have a moral standing which cannot be over-ridden for the purposes of promoting the greater good. As Rawls has it, this ‘Each person has an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override’. (J. Rawls A Theory of Justice p.3). One source of this thought is Kantian:

Now I say that man, and in general every rational being, exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means for arbitrary use by this or that will: he must in all his actions, whether they are directed to himself or to other rational beings, always be viewed at the same time as an end. All the objects of inclination have only a conditioned value; for if there were not these inclinations and the needs grounded on them, their objects would be valueless. Inclinations themselves, as sources of needs, are so far from having an absolute value to make them desirable for their own sake that it must rather be the universal wish of every rational being to be wholly free from them. Thus the value of all objects that can be produced by our action is always conditioned. Beings whose existence depends, not on our will, but on nature, have none the less, if they are non-rational beings, only a relative value as means and are consequently called things. Rational beings, on the other hand, are called persons because their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves - that is, as something that ought not to be used merely as a means - and consequently imposes to that extent a limit on all arbitrary treatment of them (and is an object of reverence). (I. Kant Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, ch 2)

Rights: The Kantian view that individuals are ends in themselves that cannot be treated merely as means to the promotion of the greater good is often stated in the language of rights. Individuals have rights that cannot be overridden by the greater good.

Question:

Could this Kantian approach provide the basis for an environmental ethics? How far can the Kantian approach be extended to non-humans?

Deontological ethics and environmental concern

There are three main moves that have been made to extend the deontological position to environmental concern.

1. Extend the sphere of human rights to include rights to certain environmental goods. A right to an environment that is necessary to basic health and well-being is a human right that cannot be overridden for other goods. (See T. Hayward, 2004, Constitutional Environmental Rights Oxford: OUP).
2. Extend rights to include rights of sentient non-human animals (See T. Regan, 1988 The Case for Animal Rights London: Routledge)
3. Extend rights to include rights of all living things. (See P. Taylor, 1986 Respect for Nature Princeton, Princeton University Press)

We will discuss approaches 2 and 3 in detail in week 5.

John Rawls' Theory of Justice (TJ)

‘Original position’ and ‘the veil of ignorance’:
How should we determine what principles should govern the ‘basic structure’ of a just society?

Rawls answer: those we would arrive at in ‘original position’ – a hypothetical situation in which rational disinterested persons choose to agree to behind ‘a veil of ignorance' (implements the idea of impartiality):

Veil of ignorance: ‘It is assumed that parties do not know certain kinds of particular facts. First of all, no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like. Nor again does anyone know his conception of the good, the particulars of his rational plan of life, or even the special features of his psychology such as aversion to risk or liability to optimism and pessimism’ (TJ section 24, emphasis added)

[NB – this is a hypothetical device for arriving at principles that are both fair and neutral (and hence able to adjudicate between competing conception of the good.)]

Thin and thick theory of the good
What do individuals know? (One couldn’t reason from a completely blank sheet.)
They know that their society is subject to the circumstances of justice (limited altruism and moderate scarcity) and ‘general facts about human society’.

Distinction: Thin and thick theory of the good. (TJ 15 and 60)
Thin theory of the good: those ‘primary’ goods which are required by any rational person to carry out whatever their particular plan of life may be.
Thick theory of the good: the detailed specification of what makes life valuable for a person.

Primary goods: ‘Primary goods...are things which it is supposed a rational man wants whatever else he wants...’ ‘Whatever one’s systems of ends, primary goods are necessary means.’
‘While the persons in the original position do not know their conception of the good, they do know...that they prefer more rather than less primary goods’

What are the primary goods?: ‘rights and liberties, opportunities and powers, income and wealth [and] a sense of one’s own worth’

Principles of justice
What principles would be chosen in the original position?

'1. Each person has an equal right to a fully adequate scheme of equal
basic liberties which is compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for
all.

2. Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions. First, they must be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity [the opportunity principle]; and second they must be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society [the difference principle].’

The principles are lexically ordered: the satisfaction of the first principle has priority over the satisfaction of the second and the first part of the second is prior to the second part of the second.

Links for discussions of Rawls:

There is a good resource page on John Rawls at: http://www.policylibrary.com/rawls/index.htm

For a good overview and discussion of his work see Nussbaum's, The Enduring Significance of John Rawls:

Question:

How far could Rawls’ approach be employed to capture environmental concerns?

B. Consequentialism demands too much:

Bernard Williams example: George is an unemployed chemist of poor health, with a family who are suffering in virtue of his being unemployed. An older chemist, knowing of the situation tells George he can swing him a decently paid job in a laboratory doing research into biological and chemical warfare. George is deeply opposed to biological and chemical warfare, but the older chemist points out that if George does not take the job then another chemist who is a real zealot for such research will get the job, and push the research along much faster than would the reluctant George. Should George take the job?

For the consequentialist, given any plausible account of the good, the right thing to do is obvious: George should take the job. That will produce better consequence both for his family and the world in general.

Williams To take the job would be to undermine George's integrity. He must treat his own projects and commitments as just so many desires to be put into the calculus with others.

It is absurd to demand of such a man, when the sums come in from the utility network which the projects of others have in part determined, that he should just step aside from his own project and decision and acknowledge the decision which the utilitarian calculation requires. It is to alienate him in a real sense from his actions and the source of his action in his own convictions. It is to make him into a channel between the input of everyone's projects, including his own, and an output of optimific decision; but this is to neglect the extent to which his actions and his decisions have to be seen as the actions and decisions which flow from the projects and attitudes with which he is most closely identified. It is thus, in the most literal sense, an attack on his integrity.( B. Williams 'A Critique of Utilitarianism' pp.116-117 in J.J.C. Smart and B. Williams Utilitarianism For and Against)

Consider the following example from Bernard Williams:

Jim finds himself in the central square of a small South American town. Tied up against the wall are a row of twenty Indians, most terrified, a few defiant, in front of them several armed men in uniform. A heavy man in a sweat-stained khaki shirt turns out to be the captain in charge and, after a good deal of questioning of Jim which establishes that he got there by accident while on a botanical expedition, explains that the Indians are a random group of the inhabitants who, after recent acts of protest against the government, are just about to be killed to remind other possible protesters of the advantages of not protesting. However, since Jim is an honoured visitor from another land, the captain is happy to offer him a guest's privilege of killing one of the Indians himself. If Jim accepts, then as a special mark of the occasion, the other Indians will be let off. Of course, if Jim refuses, then there is no special occasion, and Pedro here will do what he was about to do when Jim arrived, and kill them all. Jim, with some desperate recollection of schoolboy fiction, wonders whether if he got hold of a gun, he could hold the captain, Pedro, and the rest of the soldiers to threat, but it is quite clear from the set-up that nothing of that kind is going to work: any attempt at that sort of thing will mean that all the Indians will be killed, and himself. The men against the wall, and the other villagers, understand the situation, and are obviously begging him to accept. What should he do?

Questions:

What does the utilitarian say that Jim should do?

What do you think Jim should do?

If your answers to the questions are the same are there differences between the reasons you offer and those of the utilitarian?

Can from the utilitarian perspective Jim attach any special ethical significance to the fact that he is the one who pulls the trigger?

What is the problem? Agent-based restrictions on action
While it may be better from an impartial perspective that there are fewer chemical weapons, that one indian dies rather than six, that one child suffers torture rather than several persons suffer the consequences of a bomb blast there are constraints on what we can oblige or permit an agent to do to realise those goals.

On what grounds can a person make that kind of claim? One justification of that position is that of the ‘virtues ethic’. To hold a virtues ethic is to take the question 'what kind of person should I be?' to be the basic question in ethical deliberation. Primitives of ethical appraisal include the excellences of character, the virtues.

A virtues ethic: The basic ethical question is 'what sort of person should I be' and an answer to that question cites excellences of character, virtues, to be developed and defects of character, vices, to be avoided.

On this line of argument, integrity, the virtue of our chemist, is of basic value, which cannot be overridden by consequentialist considerations, since it is one of those basic excellences of character.

Question: How might a virtues ethic be extended to include non-human beings?

Virtues and environmental concern
Starting question: what it is for us to do well as human agents, what sorts of person should we be?

Answer: specify a certain range of dispositions of character that are constitutive of a good human life: sensitivity, courage, loyalty, good judgement and so on.

Many of those dispositions of character will be exhibited in having particular responses that are proper to other humans. For example, someone who perceives the undeserved pain of a fellow human being and feels no response of sympathy or compassion will lack one of the dispositions of character that make for a good human life. In an extreme case they would exhibit a psychopathic character. Someone with those dispositions would miss out on many of the goods of human life such as friendship, love, relations with kin and human solidarity.

Some such dispositions of character that are part of what makes for a good human life might include dispositions and capacities to respond appropriately to beings in the non human world. This will include sensitivity and compassion to the suffering of other sentient beings. However, it might also involve a wider set of dispositions and responses to the non-human world, attitudes of awe towards the larger universe of which we are just a part, or of wonder at the complexity and interdependence of particular places and living things. (See R. Hursthouse, Ethics, Humans and Other Animals London: Routledge; J. O’Neill, 1993 Ecology, Policy and Politics: Human Well-Being and the Natural World London, Routledge)

III. Possible consequentialist responses

Question: what justification would you give for respecting individuals’ rights or integrity?

Possible answer: because the world in which rights and integrity are respected is a better world than one in which they are not. There are good consequentialist reasons for respecting rights and integrity.

1. Indirect utilitarianism:

One may have utilitarian reasons for not using utilitarian calculation in making particular decisions. One will, however, use utilitarian calculation in deciding, in a cool hour, what rules, and habits it is best to adopt for general use.

Parallels: paradox of hedonism: Consider the person who in making pleasure their aim, misses out on pleasure (think of the party goer, who is so desperate to have a good time, that they never get one). It may be that if one wants happiness one should not aim at happiness.

But I now thought that this end [happiness] was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness....Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness along the way.... Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. J. S. Mill Autobiography

See also the paradox of self-realisation, paradox of success.

The indirect utilitarianism insists on the distinction between utilitarianism as a criterion of rightness and utilitarianism understood as a decision procedure. That is the indirect utilitarian distinguishes between (i) the criterion by which an action or policy is judged to be right; (ii) the decision making method that is used, on a particular occasion, to decide which action or policy to adopt.

The indirect utilitarian says that the criterion (i) is the Principle of Utility, but that the best way to ensure that an action satisfies this criterion may be to apply a simple principle, or to follow the moral habits one is brought up to follow. The distinction matters since utilitarian outcomes are unlikely to be achieved by following 'utilitarian' decision making procedures.
Why?

• Constraints on information, time and uncertainty which mean that it will be impossible to calculate and weigh all the consequences of all the alternatives.
• Indirect results of absence of rules of justice e.g. insecurity.
• Collective choice problems: In a number of situations if individuals pursue actions that aim to maximise happiness, the result will not maximise happiness. Consider paradoxes of altruism. In a marginally overcrowded and sinking life-boat each individual thinks they will make the difference and jumps out to maximise the total good. The result is that everybody drowns. Some standard rule of priority, say of the youngest to stay, will produce a better result than each acting in terms of a utilitarian calculation. (See also the tragedy of the commons)
• Corruption on moral sensibilities: to engage in consequentialist reasoning may corrupt the individuals' moral sensibilities and dispositions. The best utilitarian outcomes are produced by communities that are not inhabited by instrumental reasoners.
  Hence, it may be that utilitarians should not use utilitarian decision making procedures.

For example: the indirect utilitarian might argue that the best decision rule for achieving the maximum of welfare is one that accords rights recognises the special importance of certain basic interests as essential components of happiness. Consider the following argument of Mill's for rights to protect those interests of an individual which are fundamental to his or her welfare.

When we call anything a person's right, we mean that he has a valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of it, either by the force of law, or by that of education and opinion. If he has what we consider a sufficient claim, on whatever account, to have something guaranteed to him by society, we say he has a right to it. . . Justice is a name for certain classes of moral rules, which concern the essentials of human well-being more nearly, and are therefore of more absolute obligation, than any other rules for the guidance of life; and the notion that we have found to be of the essence of the idea of justice, that of a right residing in an individual, implies and testifies to this more binding obligation. (J.S. Mill Utilitarianism ch 5)

2. Extend the account of the good:

The problem with the counter-example may lie in the particular account of what is intrinsically valuable rather than consequentialism. That is they are objections to the welfarism and maximising components of utilitarianism, not the consequentialism.

So one might say – certain rights (‘goal rights’ Sen), personal integrity, equality, etc. are valuable in themselves. The counter-examples show up a restricted account of what the ultimate goods are, not a problem in consequentialism as such.

Question:

How adequate are the responses made on behalf of consequentialism to counterexamples?