The Nature of Utilitarianism

The chief advantage of utilitarianism is that it is objective and measurable. The plusses and minuses of an act essentially are entered into an ethics calculator, and voila, an answer emerges.

Also, utilitarianism guides us to contemplate the costs to society before making a decision. Thus, consequentialism forces decision makers to consider the potential adverse impact of an action on others, rather than consider just their own personal gain. The utility of all members of a community must be considered, without regard to their wealth, social status, race, or religion.

Although the concept of utilitarianism may sound daunting, it actually is a simple idea that is enshrined in popular culture. For instance, as Spock approaches his death in a Star Trek movie, he and Captain Kirk proclaim that Spock valiantly will have sacrificed his own life for others because “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few….”

Criticisms of Utilitarianism

Despite its advantages, utilitarianism is subject to several important criticisms.

First, it is extremely difficult to gauge the degree of pleasure, or utility, that people derive from a decision. As a result, it can be challenging in practice to distill the pros and cons of a decision into a simple mathematics exercise.

To illustrate, consider the ethical dilemma that a tobacco company faces in deciding whether to advertise its cigarettes on a billboard located near an elementary school. How can the company quantify the financial benefits of this ad, compared to the potentially harmful health effects that children viewing the billboard incrementally might suffer from seeing this enticement to become cigarette smokers?

A second criticism is that consequentialist philosophies such as utilitarianism approach decisions from the standpoint of their end consequences, regardless of the means used.

Consider a married man who loves his wife deeply, but really wants to have an affair with another woman. He expects to derive great pleasure from a romantic encounter, and he is convinced that his seemingly perfect alibi will prevent his wife from getting hurt by discovering his infidelity. Is it acceptable for him to have an extramarital affair? To a utilitarian, the answer probably is yes. Net societal happiness probably will increase because this man's expected utility is great, and his wife will experience little or no harm. Few, though, would ever contend that having an extramarital affair is an ethical act.

As another illustration, let's examine the perennial question seen in many movie thrillers: Is it ethical to torture a terrorist if the information gained will save the lives of thousands? To a utilitarian, the answer once again is clear. If the societal benefit from saving thousands of lives exceeds the pain suffered by the terrorist, the terrorist should be tortured. The utilitarian view is that the end justifies the means, as long as we collectively are better off.

This very scenario went from fiction to reality when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested for the 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist attack that wounded 200 people. In the aftermath of the bombing, the police feared that other bombs might be set to detonate. Notwithstanding these potentially imminent threats, law enforcement officials ended their interrogation and informed Tsarnaev of his right to remain silent. Reportedly, Tsarnaev stopped talking, potentially allowing fellow conspirators to flee and leaving innocent citizens at risk.

A third criticism of utilitarianism is that by only considering the overall benefit to society, decision makers willingly may sacrifice the rights of a few for the benefit of the majority. To illustrate, assume that a shift in the progressivity of income tax rates will give 10 poor people one unit of economic utility each, but will take 8 utility units from one rich person. A utilitarian would conclude that it is ethical for the tax authorities to confiscate more of the rich person's property because society generates a net gain of 2 utility units. Although protecting the rich rarely evokes great sympathy, protecting minorities from the tyranny of the majority is the hallmark of a just society.

Finally, utilitarianism suggests that a decision should accomplish a net benefit to society. But what stakeholders comprise society? Should decision makers consider the impact on only those members of society who live in their geographic area? Or, should people who live in different cultures elsewhere in the world also be considered? When the U.S. government enacted policies that encourage the production of ethanol from corn, this policy was heralded by some as a first step toward America achieving energy independence. However, this policy bid up the price of corn, which is a dietary mainstay of impoverished Latin Americans. As a result, if only United States stakeholders are considered, this policy arguably generated net positive utility. From a broader perspective, however, it was disastrous globally because it exacerbated the ravages of hunger around the world.

The Nature of Deontology

Nobel Prize-winning author Luigi Pirandello once wrote that “each of us…is clothed with some sort of dignity, but we know only too well all the unspeakable things that go on in the heart.”⁴ Deontology echoes this view, asserting that we all have a moral duty to respect and treat one another with dignity.

The philosophical views of deontology were cogently expressed by philosopher Immanuel Kant. According to Kant, all people owe certain duties to others, which he calls categorical imperatives. Categorical imperatives are obligations that we must abide by at all times, irrespective of the surrounding circumstances.

As we have seen, consequentialists focus on the impact of an action, essentially using cost–benefit analysis. In contrast, deontology focuses on whether we have a moral duty to behave in a certain manner, regardless of societal impact. At its core, deontology focuses on the concept of duty to others, regardless of the consequences.

To illustrate this notion of duty, answer this simple question: Do you voluntarily leave a tip for a food server as you leave a restaurant, even if you do not plan to ever dine at that restaurant again? If so, you are acting out of a sense of duty because your action gains you no benefits whatsoever. Without even knowing it, your actions exemplify deontology.

Deontology is comprised of two elements, called the universality principle and the reversibility principle.

The Universality Principle

Deontology is based, in part, on the universality principle. According to the universality principle, certain duties and corresponding rights apply globally to all people, in all situations.

Although the precise contours of Kant's universality principle are uncertain, believers in deontology generally concur that the following fundamental duties, at minimum, merit universal acceptance: The duty to not cause physical harm, the duty to respect others' privacy, the duty to respect others' freedom of association, the duty to respect others' property rights and agreements, the duty to treat equals equally, and the duty to tell the truth.

1. The Duty to Not Physically Harm Others

   Deontologists believe that we all have a universal duty not to injure or kill others. As a stark example, Kant and his adherents considered torture to be universally wrong as a violation of human dignity. Thus, even if information gained from torturing a terrorist would save thousands of lives, believers in deontology would firmly reject acts of torture.

2. The Duty to Respect Others' Privacy

   You may not have the fame of Miley Cyrus or the charm of Johnny Depp, but you do have something that these celebrities profess to crave: Privacy. As one observer commented about privacy:

   It seeks to erect an unbreachable wall of dignity and reserve against the entire world. The free man is the private man, the man who still keeps some of his thoughts and judgments entirely to himself, who feels no overriding compulsion to share everything of value with others, not even those he loves and trusts.⁵

   Privacy has multiple facets, including the following:

   • Privacy of body, such as the right to be free from airport whole-body searches, dressing room cameras, biometric security checks, and employer-mandated substance abuse testing
   • Privacy of thought, such as freedom from employer-mandated lie detector tests
   • Privacy of communication, such as freedom from intrusions into one's emails and wireless phone calls
   • Privacy of data, such as medical records, credit card purchases, tax returns, and security passwords
   • Privacy of location, such as freedom from having our whereabouts monitored by GPS-based location devices or unmanned drone aircraft
   • Privacy of solitude, which is the right to be left alone, free of unwanted intrusion

   In the workplace, it is easy to understand why employers want to monitor their employees' conduct. However, employers would be well served to remember Doctor Seuss's tale about the imaginary town of Hawtch-Hawtch, where the main industry was a single bee that made honey. According to this fable, to get more honey, the citizens of Hawtch-Hawtch hired a Bee-Watcher because a “bee that is watched will work harder, you see.” When the Bee-Watcher failed to make the bee work harder, the town hired a Bee-Watcher-Watcher to watch the Bee-Watcher. Alas, when that failed, they piled on even more bee-watcher-watchers until the entire town was employed to spy on one another.⁶

   As this bit of wisdom from Doctor Seuss illustrates, employers should consider whether intrusive surveillance cameras and computer monitoring technology unnecessarily, and perhaps counterproductively, interfere with employee privacy rights.

3. The Duty to Respect Others' Right of Free Association

   We have a duty to respect others' right of free association. This encompasses the rights to participate in religious worship, political expression, and social activities without interference. The universality of the right of free association is confirmed by its inclusion in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

4. The Duty to Honor Others' Property Rights and Agreements

   By respecting private property and the enforceability of agreements, society gives people the confidence to trust that mutual promises will be honored. This in turn allows citizens to enter into mutually advantageous exchange transactions that improve their economic well-being.

   In ancient times, business owners principally were concerned with agreements and property rights involving goats, sheep, land, and other physical property.

   Modern businesses, in contrast, often are concerned with acts that interfere with intellectual property rights and other forms of intangible property. These concerns focus on the interception of confidential information, the misappropriation of trade secrets, the improper use of insider stock data, and identity theft.

   Even ancient philosophers understood that ideas and words possess great value. For example, Roman philosopher Horace, born in 65 BC, prophetically foresaw the importance of protecting confidential emails when he wrote that “once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled…a word, once sent abroad, flies irrevocably.”⁷

5. The Duty to Treat Equals Equally, with Justice for All

   Access to impartial justice is a fundamental right. Furthermore, if two similarly situated people commit crimes, their punishment should be identical, regardless of their social class, race, religion, national origin, or other group affiliation.

6. The Duty to Tell the Truth

   Without knowing the truth, people cannot make informed choices about matters that affect their happiness.

   Kant wrote extensively about the immorality of deception and lies. He even wrote about the importance of providing truthful information to lenders and other readers of financial statements:

   A man finds himself forced by need to borrow money. He well knows that he will not be able to repay it, but he also sees that nothing will be loaned to him if he does not firmly promise to repay it at a certain time. He desires to make such a promise, but he has enough conscience to ask himself whether it is not improper and opposed to duty to relieve his distress in such a way.

   Kant continued:

   …A [moral] law which says that anyone who believes himself to be in need could promise what he pleased with the intention of not fulfilling it would make the promise itself and the end to be accomplished by it impossible [because] no one would believe what was promised to him.⁸

Remarkably, Kant expressed these views in 1785, but his timeless belief in truthful financial disclosures remains firmly entrenched in modern-day laws, such as the federal securities acts, Truth-in-Lending laws, the Dodd–Frank Act, and the Sarbanes–Oxley Act.

The Reversibility Principle

Kant believed that ethical behavior also should satisfy the reversibility principle. The reversibility principle essentially expresses the well-known Golden Rule of treating others as you would like them to treat you. It implores people to evaluate their behavior by mentally reversing their role from being the giver of an act to being the receiver, or vice versa.

Criticisms of Deontology

Some contend that the deontological approach to ethics suffers from several shortcomings.

First, deontology's core mandate that people should “respect human dignity” is too abstract and difficult to visualize. Rock artist Bob Dylan's song “Dignity” highlights the elusive and amorphous nature of dignity: “Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed…dignity's never been photographed.”⁹

Consider this quandary: A U.S. company wants to establish a foreign manufacturing plant that will provide jobs to unskilled workers in an underdeveloped country with massive unemployment. Due to competitive market conditions, the company can hire 1,000 workers at poverty-level wages, or it can afford to hire 750 workers at above-market wages. If the company pays poverty-level wages to 1,000 workers, it expects its low-wage policy to be criticized for “failing to respect human dignity.” In contrast, if the company hires 750 workers at above-market wages, it will avoid criticism, but it in effect will have condemned 250 residents to despair and possible starvation. Which of these two alternatives better fosters human dignity?

Second, deontology does not provide any guidance for resolving situations in which opposing moral duties are at issue. For example, a controversy recently arose when wedding chapel owners in Idaho publicly refused to perform gay marriages as a matter of religious conscience. Should they feel compelled to provide services to all customers? Deontology favors both freedom of religion and equal treatment for all, which leaves these wedding chapel owners without a solution to their predicament.

As a more dramatic example, consider the dilemma posed in the movie Sophie's Choice. Early in the movie, Sophie's captors in prison tell her that they plan to kill both of her imprisoned children. However, the captors agree to kill only one of her children as long as Sophie selects which one will die. A believer in consequentialism would unhesitatingly instruct Sophie to select one of her children for death, so she can at least preserve the other child's life. Deontology's mandate against harming others, on the other hand, leaves Sophie without any guidance for resolving this heart-wrenching dilemma.

Agonizing moral choices are not only the product of Hollywood fiction; they arise in business as well. In 1978, for example, paint manufacturer American Cyanamid became concerned that a hazardous substance used in its production processes might cause severe birth defects in unborn fetuses. As a result, the company removed woman of child-bearing age and capability from performing certain factory jobs, some of which were highly paid positions.¹⁰

How should American Cyanamid have balanced an unborn fetus's right to a healthy life against a female employee's right to pursue her chosen career? Both the right of a fetus to good health and female employees' right to a full panoply of job opportunities involve fundamental issues of human dignity. Once again, deontology fails to provide a clear calculus for weighing conflicting considerations.

When Stealing Occurs

When police asked captured bank robber Willie Sutton, “Why do you rob banks?” he reputedly answered, “Because that's where the money is.” Although criminal masterminds of the past may well have focused on robbing banks, in the modern economy, stealing generally is far less visible and far more high-tech. According to the FBI, identity theft annually accounts for nearly 1,000 times more in losses than bank robberies and bank hackers have been known to siphon off millions of dollars without ever walking into a financial institution.¹⁷

The traditional definition of stealing is the taking of others' property without their consent. Viewed through a more modern definitional prism, stealing occurs when one person takes another's rights, freedoms, or wealth without their consent. Are you a thief if, despite being able to afford health insurance, you do not buy it and later go to a hospital emergency room but cannot pay? Yes, because you have taken the services of the physician and hospital that treated you. Moreover, are you a thief if you go to class with a contagious cough, knowing that you are likely to infect a fellow classmate? Although self-denial may prevent you from acknowledging it, you have indeed stolen your classmate's right to enjoy illness-free days.

The digital world has expanded the opportunities for theft. Stealing occurs, for example, when you download copyrighted music or a pirated movie and do not compensate the creators for their efforts. You may not realize it, but digital piracy steals from fellow music fans as well as artists because it degrades the economic incentives for artists to create the works of entertainment and technology that delight us all.

Stealing even occurs when you give your business a name that sounds remarkably similar to another well-known enterprise. A few years ago, for example, a pornographic website operated using the web address ucla.com. Imagine how surprised college applicants to UCLA were when they inadvertently searched for that domain name instead of the correct web address, ucla.edu. Officials at UCLA were not amused, and they forced this deceptively similar site to shut down immediately.

Is It Ever Acceptable to Take Others' Property?

Every society must strike a delicate balance between protecting the rights of inventors and artists and allowing society to enjoy the benefits of their creativity. In the United States, patent and copyright rules generally embrace the moral view that creators of intellectual property ought to retain the exclusive right to profit from their efforts, at least for an extended period of time. This is consistent with deontology's view that property and contract rights must be respected. Thus, posting a copyrighted video on YouTube or sharing a password to single-user software is both unethical and illegal.

However, in some cases, society has adopted a utilitarian view that permits artistic creations to be used without compensation when the benefit to society exceeds the utility loss to the creator. This rule, called the fair use doctrine, allows educators to use portions of a copyrighted work for educational purposes, and it allows a person to take another's creative work to critique or parody it. As an illustration, the pioneering rap group Too Live Crew created a parody of the well-known ballad Pretty Woman that it re-titled Hairy Woman. When the song's composer challenged these performers in court, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the rappers' free speech right to incorporate elements of the original song into their version.¹⁸

EXERCISES

Core Principles

1. “If you really want to do the moral thing, sell most of your worldly possessions, and give the proceeds to those starving in impoverished countries.” Would utilitarians and deontologists agree or disagree with this statement?
2. The Hippocratic Oath that doctors adhere to often is interpreted to say, “First do no harm.” Is this oath consistent with deontology, utilitarianism, or both?
3. Kant believed in respecting “human dignity.” Kant's phrasing does not encompass the dignity of animals. Do we owe a moral duty to respect the dignity of animals? If so, is this duty identical to the moral duty to respect the dignity of humans?
4. X is an ill-tempered man who did not commit a crime and does not want to go to prison. Y, a mild-mannered taxi cab driver, did commit the crime, but he also does not want to go to prison. Ten people believe that X, the innocent man, committed a crime and are very afraid of him. These same ten people are not fearful of Y, even though he actually is the guilty man.

   The government has decided that it will imprison innocent man X, not Y.

   1. From the perspective of utilitarianism, was the government's act ethical?
   2. From the perspective of deontology, was the government's act ethical?
5. In the late 1800s, three individuals were shipwrecked and stranded in the ocean. To survive, they decided to kill the weakest member of the ship's crew, eating his flesh and drinking his blood. If they had not done so, all four passengers on the ship, including the one who was killed, would have died from lack of food and fluids. Was the decision of the three individuals who survived ethical?
6. The deontology concept of the Categorical Imperative implies that certain duties are never subject to exceptions. Can you think of a situation in which it would be ethical to make an exception to the following duties?
   • The duty to always be truthful
   • The duty to never harm or kill another person
   • The duty to never deprive an innocent person of his or her freedom
7. Is privacy an inalienable right that cannot be trampled on or sold? Have you ever, in effect, sold your privacy rights in return for economic consideration?

   Lying, Stealing, and Cheating

8. On a well-known website, a middle-aged accountant posted a photo of herself. The photo was about 6 years old and was far more flattering than her appearance. Was the posting of this photo ethical?
9. “Imagine a world in which a criminal defendant directly pays a judge's salary and the judge then decides if the defendant should escape punishment because he is telling the truth. Or, a world in which students directly pay their professor for reading their essay and the professor gives the students their grade. Well, that is exactly what happens in the world of auditing. A company simply ‘purchases’ its auditor upfront and then the auditor, having closed the sale, decides if the company's financial statements are truthful and deserving of a ‘clean’ audit opinion.” Do you agree or disagree with the implication of this statement that clients pay so much in audit fees that auditors essentially are “bought and sold”?
10. A robber steals Ferrari cars from rich kids who bought these cars with inherited money. When the robber resells the stolen cars, he donates 75% of the proceeds to the American Cancer Society and uses the remaining proceeds to care for his aged mother, who lives in a nursing home.
    1. Are the robber's actions ethical?
    2. Would your answer be any different if the owners of the stolen cars have insurance policies with $1,000 deductibles on their cars?
    3. Would your answer be any different if the robber handed $1,300 to the owners of the stolen cars at the time of the robbery and the owners of the cars had insurance policies with $1,000 deductibles?

    Business Applications

11. You work as an internal auditor for a manufacturer. Your employer has a strict policy against internal auditors engaging in romantic relationships with company employees. All employees frequently are warned that they will be fired if they violate this rule.

    Despite this policy, you secretly have been dating a manager in the company's information systems department. You and this manager always receive excellent performance reviews because you both are talented, experienced employees.

    When a company executive began asking questions about this romantic relationship, you both denied having a romantic relationship. In justifying your lying, you reasoned that the company had not suffered any harm so far, but it would sustain significant harm if it had to replace two valuable employees. You, of course, also would suffer tremendous harm if your lives were disrupted and had to find other jobs elsewhere. From the perspective of consequentialism, was it ethical for you to lie?

12. A corporation originally was formed with only common stock outstanding. If a company suffers financial distress or goes bankrupt, preferred stockholders receive full repayment of their investments before any amounts are paid to common stockholders.

    Would it be ethical for this corporation to issue preferred stock?

13. To qualify for a working capital loan, a bank requires loan applicants to satisfy a specified debt-to-equity ratio. After reviewing your employer's trial balance, you realize that the company had insufficient owners' equity to meet bank requirements. You consider the bank's ratio rules to be unnecessarily strict, so you intentionally increased company owners' equity by capitalizing maintenance costs that should have been expensed.

    If the company fails to obtain the loan, you fear that a wonderful colleague will be laid off and become unable to afford his child support payments. Furthermore, if the company obtains the loan, you are “100% certain” that it will be able to make all required interest and principal payments. From the viewpoint of consequentialism, were your actions ethical?

14. When a competitor introduced a revolutionary new air conditioner, the head of your company's engineering department purchased one of these units and disassembled it, piece by piece, to learn how it was made. After doing so, your company developed a similar product and began selling it in the marketplace. The competitor's product was not patented. Was your company's conduct ethical?
15. During a job interview, a recruiter asked a graduating student if she ranks the recruiter's company as “her first choice.” The student unhesitatingly replies “yes,” even though this potential employer actually is her third choice. Was the student's answer ethical?
16. Your client, Druggacon, Inc., sells a lifesaving drug used by patients with leukemia. Critics have accused the company of producing a drug that “costs 10 cents to make but sells for nearly $800 per dose.” Your client has asked you, their accountant, to issue a press release saying that the drug costs $250 per dose, not 10 cents. For this statement to be truthful, you would have to factor in the Research and Development cost that Druggacon, Inc. incurred in developing this drug. You note, however, that the company expenses Research and Development on its financial statements when incurred and does not capitalize it.

    Can you ethically issue the press release requested by your client?

    The “Trolley” Problems

17. A runaway trolley will kill five people standing on its tracks if the trolley continues on its present course. However, if you push an electronic switch, you can shift the trolley to an alternate set of tracks where one person standing on its tracks will be killed. Should you push the switch?
18. While standing on a pedestrian bridge above trolley tracks, you notice that a runaway trolley will kill five people if the trolley continues unimpeded on its present course. A fat man next to you is leaning slightly over the side railing of the pedestrian bridge. If you push the fat man onto the tracks below, he will die, but his body will stop the trolley from striking others. Should you push the fat man?
19. Five teenagers with a rare disease are hospitalized and will die unless they receive organ transplants today. A healthy teenager visits the hospital for a health checkup and has routine tests. The test results reveal that the healthy teenager's organs can successfully save the five dying teenagers. If the healthy teenager's organs are transferred to the sick teenagers, all five ill teenagers will live full lives, but the healthy teenager has a 5% chance of dying during the procedure. The procedures will be performed under anesthesia, so no one will feel any pain. Should a doctor initiate these procedures without the healthy teenager's consent?

    Comprehensive Problems

20. As the Assistant Controller, you have struggled to balance the books at the hospital where you work. Your employer is a tax-exempt, nonprofit hospital that has a superb emergency room and offers free preventative health care to the low-income community it serves. However, by caring for a large number of uninsured patients, the hospital finds it very difficult to generate sufficient fees to cover its costs. Nurses already work for 20% less pay than they could earn at nearby hospitals, and the hospital can barely afford a badly needed paint job for its hallways.

    To help remedy this problem, you have prepared the following proposal for the upcoming Board of Directors' meeting:

    1. PLAN NUMBER 1: The hospital will hire a top kidney transplant surgeon and begin performing kidney transplants. To ensure that the hospital has an adequate supply of kidneys, the hospital will pay donors up to $8,000 for a kidney. According to your budget, the hospital will be able to charge wealthy patients over $100,000 per kidney, plus also bill at premium rates for its medical staff and facilities. Based on your research, your hospital will be the only one in the area that allocates kidneys based on a patient's ability to pay rather than based on a waiting list or the severity of a patient's medical needs.
    2. PLAN NUMBER 2: The hospital will set up a website that will allow potential kidney donors to directly auction their kidney to the highest bidder. The hospital will simply charge a 10% service fee. An Internet company that resells tickets to sporting events online already has “auction software” that can be readily adapted to sales of human organs and is willing to provide technical advice for this endeavor at a nominal fee.
    3. PLAN NUMBER 3: As a condition of providing free emergency room care, uninsured patients will be required to sign an organ donor card. According to the hospital's outside lawyers, this card will create an enforceable promise that will result in uninsured patients donating their organs to the hospital when they one day die. In defense of this plan, you note that most patients are cremated, which results in their organs going unused by others who could have benefited from their transplantation.
    4. PLAN NUMBER 4: Organs harvested from deceased patients will be offered at no charge to wealthy contributors to the hospital's charitable foundation. Although the hospital will not directly charge for the organs, you forecast that many wealthy individuals in the community will be enticed to become charitable benefactors to gain priority access to this donor waiting list.
    1. How would a utilitarian evaluate these proposals?
    2. How would a deontologist evaluate these proposals?
21. In 2014, Brendan Eich, the CEO of the Mozilla web browser organization, was fired from his job when it was discovered that he had donated $1,000 to a political campaign in favor of a California ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage. Several groups favoring gay rights threatened to boycott Mozilla's services after they noticed disclosures of Eich's political contribution in public records. In defending its decision to terminate Eich's employment, Mozilla issued a press release that said, “Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality.”
    1. Was Eich's conduct unethical?
    2. Was it ethical for gay rights organizations to threaten to boycott Mozilla's services if it did not fire Eich?
    3. Was it ethical for Mozilla to terminate Eich as its CEO?
    4. Do you agree or disagree with the statements in Mozilla's press release?