Can humans act utilitarian?
One of the most important schools of ethical thought is consequentialism, which holds that the best actions (or rules, or ways of making decisions) are simply the ones that lead to the best outcomes. When acts are bad (hitting someone with a stick, for instance) it is not because of the deed itself but because of the results that follow — pain, injury, lost friendships. Failing to intercede to prevent something bad from happening to someone else is almost as bad as taking the action yourself.1
The largest branch of consequentialism is utilitarianism. Utilitarians hold that the “best” outcomes are those which are the best for people collectively: “the greatest good for the greatest number”, as Bentham put it.
Utilitarianism calls for two things: altruism and calculation. It tells us, “if you know that the benefit that you would get from this hundred dollar note is less than the benefit that your impoverished friend Susan would get from a second-hand bicycle, you should buy her the bicycle.” And it tells us, “if you know your $100 could save a life in Darfur, you should send it to an humanitarian organisation there instead”. In fact, if lives can be saved for such small amounts, maybe we should be sending more than $100.
A recent study by Deborah Small, George Lowenstein and Paul Slovic demonstrates that, although human beings are capable of altruism, our altruism is in some sense psychologically incompatible with the kind of rational calculation we’d need to perform to be good act-utilitarians.
The experiment by Small et al. shows clearly that human beings2 donate significantly more money to help the victims of catastrophes when two conditions hold: (a) the victim is an identifiable individual, rather than an undetermined individual or a large group in need; and (b) the donor is reasoning emotionally.3
When the experimental subjects were told about the human tendency to donate to indentified individuals in need (rather than large groups in need), they stopped reasoning emotionally. That change halved donations to identified individuals, but did not affect the alread-low donations to groups!
When the authors “primed” some experimental subjects with emotion-based tasks (`how does the word “baby” make you feel?’), and others with mathematical tasks, they observed that the emotionally-primed subjects gave twice as much to identified individuals. Both groups gave similar, low amounts to groups in need.
There are some powerful logical arguments in favour of act-utilitarianism and similar ethical positions. But until we find a way to train, trick, or teach ourselves to live by them, these philosophies will remain incomplete.
- Read the article
- Read more about consequentialism and utilitarianism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Thanks to Toby Ord for suggesting this paper.
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From a consequentialist perspective, the main difference between sins of commission (hitting someone with a stick) and sins of omission (failing to stop a branch falling on someone) is that we can’t usually predict events precisely when we aren’t causing them, and we can’t be sure of our ability to prevent them. There are psychological differences too: we might lose a friend for the first action but not the second. ↩
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The results apply to human beings or, at least, to students sitting on their own in a cafeteria at a “University in Pennsylvania”. It would be worth repeating the experiment with other demographics, especially those with more experience of philanthropy. ↩
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Both (a) and (b) were already in the preceeding literature; Small et al. show that altruism increases only when they both hold. ↩
Poofy Apr 27
Utilitarianism is a prime cause of our prison mess. The doctrine of “small offenses deserve small punishments and large offenses large punishments” undergirds our judicial system.
Science has shown that this is an amazingly effective way to train people to take punishment breeding “hardened criminals”.
These studies you site are short on science and long on hype. Operationally defined “altruism”? This is essentially an inference of an internal quality, and the study is an attempt to hypothesize relationships about this quality. Useless.
You claim this study says something about “human capacity to act” – but where did it get such amazing external validity? How do you know it’s not just “those people” in the study? How do you know its not contamination from the situation itself?
pde Apr 27
Poofy,
I disagree that utilitarianism can be blamed for the state of the criminal justice system. The theory that “small offenses deserve small punishments and large offenses large punishments” is grounded in Judeo-Christian theories of justice, not utilitarian ones.
According to utilitarianism, incarceration makes sense for protecting society from people likely to re-offend, and it may make sense as a deterrent if and only if it works as one. The communicative function is important, too. But none of these grounds for punishment match your claim.
I don’t believe these results show that humans have no capacity to act differently than the experiment suggests. I think it only shows a tendency for people (or maybe just the tested demographic) to act in this way.
Other experiments should test whether the same results occur in other contexts. Even if they do, I’m sure there will be ways that people can learn to be strongly altruistic independent of the (a) and (b) condition.
I hope I haven’t bitten a troll!
Tony May 26
This finding would suggest that an endeavour like Kiva will be more successful than most traditional organizations that attempt to help those in need.
Jana Asia Jun 23
My biggest hang up with utilitarianism is rooted in our tendency as humans to rely on other people to do our thinking and moral decision making for us (this is clearly evident in the prevalence and success of religion around the world).
The danger here is that this opens the door for power centers to create a majority view via persuasion and propaganda and thus justifying any of their actions as creating the greatest good for the greatest number.
Utilitarianism is fine if we were all free thinking individuals, but sadly we are not.
Alex Jun 26
Interesting stuff… I think altruism and self-interest are at some point linked: One is best able to be altruistic if one has amassed a store of wealth first. Thus it could be argued that many altruistic actions are only made possible by previous self-interest, either intentional or not – paradoxically. Yet mark how different is “enlightened self interest” from “purely selfish self-interest”. I agree that the best part of utilitarianism is the “win-win”. I think self-preservation is to be seen as an important part of philanthropy. One is able to do the most good by keeping oneself in the best possible condition to be able to do, create and give.
Giochi Mario Jul 4
I agree with Poofy
Utilitarianism is a cause of our prison mess. The doctrine of “small offenses deserve small punishments and large offenses large punishments” undergirds our judicial system.