This content explores the philosophical underpinnings of utilitarianism, particularly Jeremy Bentham's principle of maximizing general happiness, and its practical application through cost-benefit analysis, highlighting the ethical challenges and controversies that arise when human life and rights are quantified.
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[Music] last
last
time we
argued about the case of the queen
versus Dudley and
Stevens the Lifeboat case the case of
cannibalism at Sea and
with the arguments about the Lifeboat in
mind the arguments for and against what
Dudley and Stevens did in mind let's
turn back to the
the
philosophy the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy
Jeremy
benam benam was born in England in 1748
at the age of 12 he went to Oxford at 15
he went to law school he was admitted to
the bar at age 19 but he never practiced
law in instead he devoted his life to
jurist prudence and moral
philosophy last time we began to
consider bentham's version of
utilitarianism the main idea is simply
stated and it's
this the highest principle of
morality whether personal or political
morality is to
maximize the general welfare or the
collect of happiness or the overall
balance of pleasure over pain in a
utility benam arrives at this principle
by the following line of reasoning we're
all governed by pain and pleasure they
are our Sovereign Masters and so any
moral system has to take account of them
how best to take account by
maximizing and this leads to the
principle of the greatest good for the greatest
greatest
number what exactly should we
maximize benam tells us happiness or
more precisely
utility maximizing utility is a
principle not only for individuals but
also for communities and for
legislators what after all is a
community benam
asks it's the sum of the individuals who
comprise it and that's why in deciding
the best policy in deciding what the law
should be in deciding what's
just citizens and legislators should ask
themselves the question if we add up all
costs the right thing to do is the one
that maximizes the balance of of
suffering that's what it means to
maximize utility now today I want to
see whether you agree or disagree with
it and it often goes this utilitarian
logic under the name of cost benefit
analysis which is used by
companies and by governments all the
time and what it involves is placing a
value usually a dollar value to stand for
for
utility on the costs and the benefits of various
various
proposals recently in the Czech
Republic there was a proposal to
increase the excise tax on smoking Philip
Philip
Morris the tobacco
company does huge business in the Czech
Republic they commissioned a study a
cost benefit analysis
of smoking in the Czech Republic and
what their cost benefit analysis found
was the government gains by having Czech
citizens smoke now how do they gain it's
true that there are negative effects to
the Public Finance of the Czech
government because there are increased
health care costs for people who develop
smoking related
diseases on the other hand there were
positive effects and those were added up
on the other side of the Ledger the
positive effects included for the most
part various tax revenues that the
government derives from the sale of
cigarette products but it also included
Health Care savings to the government
when people die early pension savings
you don't have to pay pensions for as
long and also savings in housing costs
for the
elderly and when all of the costs and
benefits were added
up the Philip Morris study found that
there is a net Public Finance gain in
the Czech Republic of $147
$147
million and given the Savings in housing
and health care and pension costs the
government enjoys the saving of savings
of over
$1,200 for each person who dies
prematurely due to
smoking cost benefit analysis
analysis
now those among you who are Defenders of
utilitarianism may think that this is an unfair
unfair
test Philip Morris was pillared in the
press and they issued an apology for
this heartless
calculation you may say that what's
missing here is something that the
utility itarian can easily incorporate
namely the value to the person and to
the families of those who die from lung
cancer what about the value of
Life some cost benefit analyses
incorporate a measure for the value of
life one of the most famous of these
involved the Ford Pinto case did any of
you read about that this was back in the
1970s you remember what the Ford Pinto
anybody it was a small car a subon
compact car very popular but it had one
problem which is the fuel tank was at
the back of the car and in rear
exploded and some people were killed and
some severely
injured victims of these injuries took
Ford to court to
Sue and in the court case it turned out
that Ford had long since known about the
vulnerable fuel tank and had done a cost
benefit analysis to determine whether it
would be worth
it to put in a special Shield that would
protect the fuel tank and prevented from
exploding they did a cost benefit
analysis the cost per part
to increase the safety of the
part and here's this was the cost
benefit analysis that emerged in the
trial $11 per
part at 12.5 million cars in trucks came
to a total cost of
137 million
to improve the safety but then they
calculated the benefits of spending all
this money on a safer car and they
counted 180
deaths and they assigned a dollar value
$200,000 per
death 180 injuries
injuries
67,000 and then the cost to repair the
replacement cost for 2,000 vehicles that
would be destroyed without the safety
device 7 $700 per vehicle so the
benefits turned out to be only 49.5
million and so they didn't install the
device needless to say when this memo of
the Ford Motor Company's cost benefit
trial it appalled the jurors who awarded
is this a counter example to the
utilitarian idea of calculating because
Ford included a a measure of the value of
of
life now who here wants to
defend cause benefit analysis from this
apparent counter example who has a
defense or do you think this completely
yes okay well I think that once again
they've made the same mistake the
previous case did that they assigned a
dollar value to human life and once
again they failed to take account things
like suffering and emotional losses by
the families I mean families lost
earnings but they also lost a loved one
and that uh is more valued than
$200,000 right and wait wait wait that's
good what's your name uh Julia Roto so
if 200,000 Julie is
to too low a figure because it doesn't
include the loss of a loved one and the
loss of those years of
life what would be what do you think
would be a more accurate
number I don't believe I could give a
number I think that this sort of
analysis is shouldn't be applied to
issues of human life I think can't be
used monetarily so they didn't just put
too low a number Julie says they were
wrong to try to put any number at all
all right let's hear someone
who inflation you have to adjust for [Laughter]
inflation all right fair enough so what
would the number be now this was 30 this
was 35 years
ago $2
million you would put 2 million and
what's your name vo vo Tech says we have
to allow for inflation we should be more
generous then would you be satisfied
that this is the right way of thinking
about the
question I guess unfortunately it is
for there needs to be a number put
somewhere like I'm not sure what that
number would be but I do agree that
there could possibly be a number put on
uh human life all right so VCH says and
here he disagrees with Julie Julie says
we can't put a number on human life for
the purpose of a cost benefit analysis
Vortex says we have to because we have
somehow what do other people think about
this is there anyone prepared to defend
cost benefit analysis here as accurate as
as
desirable yes go ahead I think that if
Ford and other car companies didn't use
cause benefit analysis
they'd eventually go out of business
because they wouldn't be able to be
profitable and millions of people
wouldn't be able to use their cars to
get to jobs to put food on the table to
feed their children so I think that if
cost benefit analysis isn't employed the
greater good is
sacrificed in this case all right let me
add what's your name Raul
Raul there was recently a study done
about cell phone use by driver when
people are driving a car and there's a
debate whether that should be banned yeah
yeah
and the figure was that some 2,000
people die as a result of accidents each
year using cell phones and yet the cost
benefit analysis which was done by the
center for risk analysis at Harvard
found that if you look at the benefits
of the cell phone
use and you put some value on the live
it comes out about the
same because of the enormous economic
benefit of enabling people to take
advantage of their time not waste time
be able to make deals and talk to
friends and so on while they're
driving doesn't that suggest that it's a
mistake to try to put monetary figures
on questions of human life well I think
that if the great majority of people try
to derive maximum utility out of a
service service like using cell phones
and the convenience that cell phones
provide that sacrifice is necessary for
satisfaction to occur you're you're an outright
outright
utilitarian in yes
okay all right then when last question rul
rul
okay um and I put this to voidtech what
what dollar figure should be put on
human life to decide whether to ban the
use of cell
phones well I I don't want to
arbitrarily calculate a figure I mean
right now I think
that you want to take it under
advisement yeah I'll take it under Adis
but what roughly speaking would it be
you've got 2,300 deaths okay you've got
to assign a dollar value to know whether
you want to prevent those deaths by
Banning the use of cell phones in cars okay
okay
so what would your hunch be how much a
million 2 million 2 million was voyex
figure yeah is that about right maybe a
yeah you know the uh that's good thank you
you
okay so these are some of the
controversies that arise these days from
cost benefit analysis especially those
that involve placing a dollar value on
everything to be added
up well now I want to turn to your
objections to your objections not
necessarily to cost benefit analysis
specific specifically because that's
just one version of the utilitarian
logic in practice
today but to the theory as a whole to the
the
idea that the right thing to
do the just basis for policy and
utility how many disagree with the
utilitarian approach to
law and to the common good how many
agree with
it so more agree than
disagree so let's hear from the
critics yes my main issue with it is
that I feel like you can't say that just
because someone's in the minority what
they want and need is less valuable than
someone who's in the majority um so I
guess I have an issue with the idea that
the greatest good for the greatest
number is okay because there's still
what about the people who are in the
Lesser number like it's not fair to them
they didn't have any say in in where
they wanted to be all right that's an
interesting objection you're worried
about the effect on the minority yes
what's your name by the way Anna uh who
has an answer to Anna's worry about the
effect on the minority what do you say
to Anna um she said that the minorities
value less I don't think that's the case
because individually the minority's
value is just the same as the individual
of the majority it's just that the
numbers outweigh the um minority and I
mean at a certain point you have to make
a decision and I'm sorry for the
minority but sometimes it's for the
general for the greater good for the
greater good Anna what do you say what's
your name younga what do you say to
yanga yanga says you just have to add up
people's preferences and those in the
minority do have their preferences
weighed can you give an example of the
kind of thing you're worried about when
you say you're worried about
utilitarianism violating the concern or
respect do the
minority can you give an example so well
with any of the cases that we've talked
about like for the Shipwreck one um I
think the boy who was eaten still had as
much of a right to live as the other
people and um just because he was the
minority in that case the one who maybe
had less of a chance to keep living that
doesn't mean that the others
automatically have a right to eat him
just because it would give a greater
amount of people the chance to live so
there may be certain rights that the
minority members have that the
individual has that shouldn't be traded
off for the sake of
utility yes do I yes Anna yand this
would be a test for for
you back in ancient
Rome they threw Christians to the lions
in the Coliseum for
sport if you ran think how the
utilitarian calculus would go yes the
Christian thrown to the lion suffers
enormous excruciating pain but look at
yand well
um in that time I don't if um I in
modern day of time to Value the um to
give a number to the happiness given to
the people
watching I don't think any like policy
maker will say the pain of one person of
the suffering of one person is much much
is in comparison to the happiness gain
it's no but you have to admit that if
there were enough Romans Delirious
enough with happiness it would outweigh
even the most excruciating pain of a
handful of Christians thrown to the
lion so we really have here two
different objections to
utilitarianism one has to do with whether
whether
utilitarianism adequately respects
individual rights or minority rights and
the other has to do
with the whole idea of aggregating
utility or preferences or values is it
possible to aggregate all values to
translate them into dollar
terms there
1930s an an
psychologist who tried to address this
second question tried to prove what
utilitarianism assumes that it is
possible to translate all Goods all
values all human concerns into a single
uniform measure and he did this by
conducting a survey of young recipients
of relief this was in the
1930s and he asked them he gave them a
list of unpleasant
experiences and he asked them how much
would you have to be paid to undergo the
following experiences and he kept
track for example how much would you
have to be paid to have one upper front
tooth pulled
out or how much would you have to be
paid to have one little one little toe cut
off or to eat a live earthworm six six in
in
long or to live the rest of your life on
Kansas or to choke a straight cat to
death with your bare
hands now what do you suppose what do
you suppose was the most expensive item
Kansas for for Kansas people said they'd
$300,000 what do you
think what do you think was the next most
most
expensive not the
cat not the
tooth not the
people said you'd have to pay them
$100,000 to eat the
worm what do you think was the least expensive
expensive
item not the
cat the tooth during the Depression
people were willing to have their tooth
$4500 now here's what Thor here's what Thorndike
Thorndike
concluded from his
study any want or satisfaction which
exists exists in some amount and is
therefore measurable the life of a dog
or a cat or a chicken consists of
appetites Cravings desires and their
gratifications so does the life of human
beings though the appetites and desires
are more
complicated but what about thorndike's
study does it
support bentham's
idea that all Goods all values can be
captured according to a single uniform
measure of value or does the
Preposterous character of those
different items on the
list suggests the opposite
conclusion that maybe whether we're
talking about life or
Kansas or the worm
maybe the things we value and cherish
can't be captured according to a single
uniform measure of value and if they
can't what are the consequences for the
utilitarian theory of morality that's a
question we'll continue with next time [Applause]
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