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Originally Posted by Chainsawkitten
As I am an utilitarianist I believe that an action is good if it leads to more happiness/pleasure than unhappiness/pain. This means the total pleasure and/or pain that the action causes throughout time.
Would the suffering of the animal be equal in both the cases I would say that the moral implications of both scenarios would be equal. In fact, I would argue that, given the conditions that in both cases the corpse of the animal is treated likewise, the best, most moral scenario would be the one with the sadist as he/she recieves pleasure from the action.
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A major problem with using utilitarianism to guide moral choices is that no universal system for quantifying pleasure and pain exists. Thus people following utilitarianism can end up supporting horrid scenarios like the one you imagined: you said it is moral for a sadist to torture an animal since you view the pleasure gained by the sadist to be greater than the pain experienced by the tortured individual.
I rank physical pain as being much, much worse than someone's psychological pleasure, so by using utilitarianism I would say it is very immoral for a person to torture an animal for fun. And if someone tortures an animal, I would want that person in jail to prevent further harm to other beings.
Chainsawkitten, I feel utilitarianism is best used when deciding how to divy up money or time to *help* people. I do not feel utilitarianism should be used to decide whom to viciously hurt or kill. Utilitarianism is very scary in some ways because it can be used to violate rights (right to life, property, etc.). A utilitarian would and could argue that it is good to kill 100 people to save 1000. A lot of horrible political decisions have been made based on utilitarianism (U.S. dropping atomic bombs for example).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chainsawkitten
I think that utilitarianism is always the correct way to define the morality of an action. Using it in everyday life is quite impossible though, as imagining all the consequences of a specific action is way too hard and complex to be done in a matter of seconds, or even minutes or hours. Sometimes utilitarianism does indeed confront one's feelings. I feel that that's inevitable with any true moral system as I believe that feelings can not determine morality.[/SIZE]
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Like I wrote above, a problem with using utilitarianism isn't, I feel, that we can't imagine all the consequences, but that people do not have an agreed-upon way to quantify the "value" of a pleasurable or painful experience.
I feel moral systems originate out of human feelings, so it is incorrect to say that feelings do not determine morality. Yes, people usually want moral systems to be consistent, which requires logic, but the whole reason for wanting logic (or for following the principle of justice) is that humans have a strong
feeling of what is fair or not fair.
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Originally Posted by tore
I've myself used utilitarian arguments to defend stemcell research and abortions in discussions here and I think utilitarianism is sometimes good when it comes to making the really tough choices such as who lives and who dies, but as a moral theory to follow in everyday life? .. Not so much.
To be a devout utilitarianist might mean having to make moral decisions that come into conflict with your feelings which try to guide you in such dilemmas. Basically, any action considered immoral by other normative theories can become morally good as long as the consequences are and our emotions generally don't work that way.
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I agree with your view of utilitarianism, Tore. I do use it in real life to help make choices, but mostly I fall back on the ethical theory of Rights.
For example, even if I might get lots of pleasure from something I could steal from someone, I don't steal it because doing so violates the person's right to own property. Also, I put myself in that person's shoes and imagine how sad I'd feel, and I don't want that person to feel sad. So, I try to follow the principle of non-maleficence...do not harm others.
My veganism is based partly on the ethical theory of Rights: I feel animals (including human animals) have the right to be free from pain and suffering caused by people, and so I try to minimize the pain and suffering I cause to animals. I also use utilitarianism as part of my rationale for why I don't kill or want animals to be killed (and eaten). The pleasure gained by eating veal, for example, is much, much less than the pain and loss (of life) experienced by the calf. The utilitarian goal is to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of individuals. I feel vegetarianism fulfills this utilitarian goal better than meat-eating does.