Integrity Question.

[redvanguard]

Dear Comrades,

I have a problem that I have been debating over recently and that is the "Integrity principle" Can we as rational creatures driven by our desire to maximise the most welfare through equality still keep our integrity? This is in relation to Bernard, Williams concern of utillitarian's cannot possible be held to thier rational perogative but should be driven by thier one desire of maxim happiness. All feelings of moral certantiy must be ignored. I fear we cant...

[Zingu]

I'll try to tackle this one.....

Well....under Socialism, in theory productivity will be maximized and much more effiencent and productive than the current mode of production, so there would be "more" for everyone I guess.
Plus, since such a system (Revolutionary Socialism) would come during a a period of misery, low wages and conditions for workers and a big wage gap in the division of labor (poor vs. rich), so this problem would then be turned to our advantage, it would incite a revolution to give the worker what they want; more not less!


I don't see any other way around it.

[Guest1]

As far as I know, Communism isn't utilitarian, though the revolution could be considered a utilitarian act in a way.

Utilitarianism takes a sort of "moral calculus", it puts the numbers of those hurt on the one hand, and those made happier on the other. And so long as the happy column is bigger, you've made the "right" decision.

Except that that would justify individual cases of oppression. Sweatshops, are justified by the bigger amount of people who are "helped" by buying cheaply produced clothing, as compared to those hurt by working in the sweatshop. Go on justifying each and every Capitalist wrong on a specific level, and you've got a justification for Capitalism.

Except. Wait. What happens if we put Capitalism itself to the test? It fails of course. Contradictory to the core.

Utilitarianism is pretty useless as a global way of looking at things, there are no catchall formulas for human suffering.

[Zingu]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 20 2004, 04:14 PM
As far as I know, Communism isn't utilitarian, though the revolution could be considered a utilitarian act in a way.

Well, Socialism is not "utilitarian", it about the domination of the working class over society, Communism, a classless and stateless society would be utilitarian once class antagonisms dissaper.

[bur372]

I think what you are trying to say redvangaurd is that by becoming left we will have to make some sacrafices. eg to become equal we must have to sacrafice the part of us that says we know everything we are better than everyone else. I guess we will have to sacrafice something but IMO progressive social policies will make these sacrafices smaller.

Che y Marijuana what do you belive as an Arnacho-marxist?

[redvanguard]

Dear Comrades,

I thank you for your response and I feel I ought to get back to you on this (exams, work and holidays kept me occupied) Firstly I fear we got of the point a little, my concern was on Bernard’s criticism of “integrity” I will try to overly simplify this point. Before I go on, I assumed that communism was naturally utilitarian in its pursuit of maxim happiness, Lenin after all confessed to being a natural utilitarian. (My point is a Utilitarian question in relation to Marxism, not a question of how, why and what Marxism is, I’m sure we could fight till the lumpen-proletariat come home!! as to what Marxism is)

Does Marxism demand too much from us? Do we sacrifice too much for “the greater good” Given that in moral contexts we are solely concerned with the maximisation of welfare, the same reasons will apply to all of us. If there is a famine in North Africa, each and every one of us has a corresponding reason to help alleviate the suffering there (the reason is that we ought to maximise welfare). Reasons cross familial, national and cultural boundaries on a utilitarian thesis; they apply to all people equally.

It is my understanding that morality branches into to concepts of morality, morality as constraining and morality as demanding or determining. Under the first conception, all that morality does is put constraints on the range of actions open to us. We cannot do just whatever we want; there are limits on what is morally acceptable. Within these limits, though, we can get on with whatever we want. I am free to buy a CD for myself if I so choose, as long as this is within the limits of acceptable behaviour. I am not however morally free to remove your civil liberty’s for example. Under this conception, morality is like the law. If we obey the various rules and regulations, we are free to do what we wish with our time, money and selves. A form of morality based in the Ten Commandments would be of this sort.

Some actions will be morally forbidden (e.g., murder, theft); others will be morally obligatory (e.g., telling the truth, helping the injured. All other actions that fall between these will be morally permissible—we can choose whether to do them or not. The space between that which we ought not to do and that which we ought to do is the space in which we spend most of our daily lives, we normally think. After I pay my taxes, tell the truth, etc., I am free to do as I please, as long as it does not constitute a morally wrong act. Buying a CD or a novel presumably fits into this broad class according to customary morality.

However there are strong reasons for holding that Marxist utilitarianism is committed to a determining view of morality. The right action, after all, is the action that maximises the general welfare. At each point in our daily lives, whenever we are faced with a choice, there will be some act that does just this (there may be more than one which achieves the maximal amount of welfare)
Under such a determining theory, there is no space between the obligatory and the forbidden, no real space for freedom of choice to work in. This looks as if it will be true for consequentialist theories in general, it is worth adding. The only exception is when two actions have the same consequences in terms of welfare—then we can choose which to do.

An even stronger point can be made here. It looks very much as if options and constraints disappear altogether on this account. Notice that these notions are absolutely central to everyday life and everyday conceptions of morality. For we are constantly obligated to do what maximises the most utility in the history of humanity.

Let us focus on constraints to see why someone might think this. Consider the normal view regarding murder, namely that this is morally forbidden. Our actions are constrained to the extent that we cannot go around killing those people who wake us up at night by being noisy or those people who claim to be fascist.

Can a liberal thinking Marxist say this? Not obviously. The reason is that if it so happens that murdering someone will bring about the best overall consequences in terms of welfare, then it looks as if we not only can but ought to commit murder in this case.

Now I shall finally get to the crunch…

This originated with Bernard Williams the objections are that:

utilitarianism is a cold, calculating philosophy (and thus Marxism)

utilitarianism is godless ( well that’s a given )

utilitarianism is an expedient philosophy

utilitarianism is impractical as it demands that we spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking through how we should act.

To start with, let us look at Williams’ two famous examples:

George and the weapons of mass destruction

“George is a recently-qualified chemist with a young family to support. He finds it difficult to get a job due to a weak constitution. An older chemist friend tells George that he can get him a well-paid job in a chemical and biological weapons lab. George is not too keen. A child of the sixties, he is opposed to the creation and stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction. The older colleague sympathises and agrees with his view, but notes that the job is not going to go away. If George doesn’t take it, some other chemist who is a zealous advocate of such weapons will get it. This will invariably result in the speedier development of better, more deadly weapons. What should George do?”

Jim and the Indians

“Jim is a botanist on a field trip to some South American country. When he wanders into a small town, he finds a military squad lining twenty Indians up against the wall. After establishing who Jim is, the captain in charge informs him that there have been numerous protests against the military government from amongst the local native population. To quell these troubles, the military has picked out these twenty locals at random and will execute them as a deterrent against further such demonstrations. Since Jim is an honoured visitor from another country, the captain as a mark of respect offers Jim the option of shooting one of the Indians in which case he will let the other nineteen go free. All of the locals understand what is going on, and realise that Jim has the opportunity to save nineteen lives. What should he do?”

The utilitarian answer in both cases is clear. George should take the job, and Jim should shoot a native (we need not concern ourselves here with which one). Is this plausible?

Should we commit acts we feel are wrong for the greater good?

Williams’ main aim was to show that utilitarianism completely fails to take into account what an individual holds to be morally valuable.

I understand that this is a philosophical question regarding utilitarianism, however morally speaking I can see this as the main goal for Marxism, this may not be the case and their be no connection.

I look forward to your response.

Equally, RedVanguard

[CommieBastard]

Firstly, I think that Utilitarianism is a nonsense. Even if it stands against all possible attacks, it still has yet to provide a good method for measuring human emotions or welfare.

As for the issue of our personal integrity, our personal moral code... If we look at philosophies such as utilitarianism what they are seeking to do is replace our personal moral codes. You might think that it is impossible to get rid of our feeling that shooting someone or making WMDs is wrong. However, if we look into our justifications for these feelings, we can see that when we consider something like this to be wrong it is because it doesn't fit in with what is a conditioned response, or a previously thought out moral code.

In the case of conditioned responses, where in previous occasions when we have beaten someone, we have ourselves suffered, the reasons for our finding an act unpalatable is that our subconscious remembers that "Do this and suffer". We can tell when this is the case by the fact that when we ask ourselves why we think an act unpalatable, we find no reasons immediately obvious. I think that in such circumstances we should shed our conditioning for some kind of reasoned arguments for a morality, whether we find reasons that support utilitarianism or any other kind of morality, a reasoned argument is always better than a conditioned one.

If we can think of some reasons for our finding an act unpalatable, then we simply have to think about those reasons and their relevancy. If we have two conflicting thoughts, we have to work out which we think is most likely to be correct. In the case of the scientist making WMDs, he has to consider why he thinks that making WMDs is bad, and if it is because it harms other people, it is an ultimately utilitarian reasoning, and he has to just work out which is best for the most people in his conception.

However, I think there is an issue with the killing of someone for the greater good. When the greater good means survivors, I think there is a very strong case for why we should kill the least people, it just makes sense. However, when it comes to killing someone just to to some extent improve the welfare of others, where it is unrelated to saving their lives, i think there is a form of utilitarianism that will seek other action. We cannot simply say a person is in 'happy state' or 'sad state', we might also have to look at the literal AMOUNT of happiness that people are in. What is more, there is the AMOUNT OF POTENTIAL for happiness that each person represents. If we look at a society each members has the potential to be at the very top end of happiness, and it is only effort which it will cost us to achieve that, it need not cost lives. Given enough effort, with a good enough organisation, then we could realise that potential. After all, expending effort only makes us happier, not sadder.

Either way, what an individual takes to be morally valuable is not set in stone, we can realise this by just examining our own past experiences. Thus, our moral values are a LEARNING process in my view, and we should not pander to people who remain in some way conditioned, though it is not their fault or responsibility for it being the case. It is simply better for them if we help them break the programming.

On another kind of utilitiarianism: I have often said that no experience is negative, it is either positive, or it amounts to nothing. If we have an experience, it has content, and so it provides for a greater understanding of the World. Take a look at if we are looking for our car keys. We do not fear looking in a place, just because it might turn out to be the wrong place. We will try it anyway, so that we may narrow down the number of possible places that might be the right place. If we experience pain, then this is a sign we have learnt something. If we experience anything, we gain. In this view a good utilitarian society will simply try to provide for it's members as many possible different experiences of different intensities, and as many possible different ideas and concepts from which to select.