7/20/2021 Rawls and utilitarianism
R AW L S AND U T I L I TA R I A N I S M
Class notes for 30 October
Main points
A Theory of Justice tackles many things. But it’s fair to say that it has one
dominant theme. It is an alternative to utilitarianism. The project is motivated
by objections to utilitarianism and utilitarianism is the view that receives the
most scrutiny by far.
The problem with utilitarianism is its tenuous connection with liberalism.
This comes up most prominent in cases where the aggregate good of many
people outweighs the good of a few individuals. In these cases, utilitarians
seem committed to favoring the majority over the minority, even if doing so
seems unfair or in violation of their basic rights and liberties.
The utilitarian retort should be obvious from Bentham. “Unfair? Basic rights
and liberties? What are those? Mere holdovers from outdated and pernicious
moral conventions. After all, why prohibit a society from producing as much
good as it can? Isn’t it better to have more good rather than less?
It’s that kind of argument that Rawls was concerned to rebut. Why does it
make sense to depart from utilitarianism? In particular, can we give a
theoretically sophisticated alternative that is as rigorous and comprehensive
as utilitarianism is while not having its undesirable moral consequences?
Arguments against utilitarianism
There are three layers of argument.
Rawls’s informal arguments come in the first part. He points out the conflicts
between utilitarianism and most people’s beliefs about justice and fairness. He
also offers an unflattering diagnosis of the appeal of utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism is appealing because it takes over the model of making decisions
that individuals would make concerning their own lives. The problem with
applying this model to a society is that those who suffer from sacrifices do not
always reap the rewards. Those often go to someone else.
The official argument is that the parties in the original position would prefer
Rawls’s two principles to utilitarianism. It turns on a choice between two rules
for making decisions under uncertainty: maximize expected utility or maximin.
The rule of maximizing expected utility tells the parties to do the following:
1. List the possible outcomes of each option. Options are what the parties
are choosing among.
2. Note the value of each outcome.
3. Compute the probabilities of each outcome.
4. For each outcome, multiply the values in 2 by the probabilities in 3.
5. Add the results in 4 together.
6. Choose the option with the highest sum.
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7/20/2021 Rawls and utilitarianism
If that’s the rule they’re following, they will choose the option of maximizing
average utilitarianism.
If the parties follow the “maximin” rule, they will choose the option with the
best worst result. That is, they will do the following:
1. List the possible worst outcomes of each option.
2. Choose the one whose worst outcome is better than the others.
The psychological argument backs up the formal argument. It supports
Rawls’s assertion that the parties in the original position would prefer his
principles.
The idea of the psychological argument is that Rawls’s principles do not have
the problem of the “strains of commitment” while utilitarianism does. Rawls
maintains that people who grew up in a society governed by his principles
would come to value the principles and try to comply with them. He is most
concerned with those who are worst off. In a society governed by Rawls’s
principles of justice, the worst off know that their society is committed to their
being as well off as they possible can be. The same is not true of
utilitarianism. Therefore, it is easier to feel allegiance to a society governed by
Rawls’s principles than it is to feel allegiance to a society governed by
utilitarianism. The parties in the original position know this and that gives
them a reason to choose Rawls’s principles over utilitarianism.
This page was written for Social and Political Philosophy, Fall 2006.
Copyright Michael Green
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