I don’t see the necessity. Can you expand on that?
I think you’re right not to see it. Valuing happiness is a relatively recent development in human thought. Much of ethics prior to the enlightenment dealt more with duties and following rules. In fact, seeking pleasure or happiness (particularly from food, sex, etc.) was generally looked down or actively disapproved. People may generally do what they calculate to be best, but best need not mean maximizing anything related to happiness.
Ultra-orthodox adherence to religion is probably the most obvious example of this principle, particularly Judaism, since there’s no infinitely-good-heaven to obfuscate the matter. You don’t follow the rules because they’ll make you or others happy, you follow them because you believe it’s the right thing to do.
Valuing happiness is a relatively recent development in human thought. Much of ethics prior to the enlightenment dealt more with duties and following rules.
This just isn’t true at all. Duty based morality was mostly a Kantian invention. Kant was a contemporary of Bentham’s and died a few years before Mill was born. Pre-enlightenment ethics was dominated by Aristotelian virtue theory which put happiness in a really important position (it might be wrong to consider happiness the reason for acting virtuous but it is certainly coincident with Eudamonia).
Edit to say I’m interpreting ethics as “the study of morality” if you mean by ethics the actual rules governing practices of people throughout the world your comment makes more sense. For most people throughout history (maybe including right now) doing what is right means doing what someone tells you to do. Considered that way your comment makes more sense.
The Ancient Greek concept of happiness was significantly different from the modern concept of happiness. It tended to be rather teleological and prescriptive rather than being individualistic. You achieved “true happiness” because you lived correctly; the correct way to live was not defined based on the happiness you got out of it. There were some philosophers who touched on beliefs closer to utilitarianism, but it was never close to main stream. Epicurus, for example, but his concept was a long way from Bentham’s utilitarianism. The idea that happiness was the ultimate human good and that more total happiness was unequivocally and absolutely better was not even close to a mainstream concept until the enlightenment.
Oh, some of Socrates’ fake debate opponents did argue pleasure as the ultimate good. This was generally answered with the argument that true pleasure would require certain things, so that the pursuit of pure pleasure actually didn’t give one the most amount of pleasure. This concept has objectionable objective, teleological, and non-falsifiable properties; it is a very long way from the utilitarian advocacy of the pursuit of pleasure, because its definition of pleasure is so constrained.
Much of ethics prior to the enlightenment dealt more with duties and following rules.
Virtue ethics was generally about following rules. Duty was not the primary motivator, but if you did not do things you were obliged to do, like obey your liege, your father, the church, etc., you were not virtuous. Most of society was, and in many ways still is, run by people slavishly adhering to social customs irrespective of their individual or collective utilitarian value.
I did not claim that everyone operated explicitly off of a Kantian belief that duty was the ultimate good. I am simply pointing out that most people’s ethical systems were, in practice, simply based on obeying those society said should be obeyed and following rules society said they should follow. I don’t think this is particularly controversial, and that people can operate off of such systems shows that one need not be utilitarian to make moral judgements.
As I added in my edit, I find it plausible (though not certainly the case) that the ethical systems of individuals have often amounted to merely obeying social rules. Indeed, for the most part they continue to do so. I don’t think we disagree.
That said, as far as the scholarly examination of morality goes there wasn’t any kind of paradigm shift away from duty-based theories to “happiness” based theories. Either theories that dealt with duty and following rules means something like Kantian ethics or Divine Rule in which case the Enlightenment saw an increase in such theories OR duty-based theory just refers to any theory which generates rules and duties in which case utilitarianism is just as much a duty-based theory as anything else (as it entails a duty to maximize utility).
Virtue ethics “was generally about following rules” only in this second sense. Obviously virtue ethics dealt with happiness in a different way then utilitarianism, since, you know, they’re not the same thing. I agree that the word that Ancient Greek word that gets translated as happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics means something different from what we mean by happiness. I like “flourishing”. But it certainly includes happiness and is far more central (for Aristotle Eudamonia is the purpose of your existence) to virtue ethics than duty is.
Bentham and Mill were definitely innovators, I’m not disputing that. But I think their innovation had more to do with their consequentialism than their hedonism. What seems crucially new, to me, is that actions are evaluated exclusively by the effect they have on the world. Previous ethical theories are theories for the powerless. When you don’t know how you the effect the world it doesn’t make any sense to judge actions by the effect. The scientific revolution, and in particular the resulting British empiricism were crucial for making this sort of innovation possible.
Its also true that certain kinds of pleasure came to be looked down upon less than they were looked down upon before but I think this has less to do with the theoretical. innovations of utilitarianism then with economic and social changes leading to changes in what counts as virtue which Hume noted. After all, Mill felt the need to distinguish between higher (art, friendship, etc.) and lower pleasures (sex, food, drink) the former of which couldn’t be traded for any amount of the lower and were vast more valuable.
Anyway, I definitely agree that you don’t have to be a utilitarian to make moral judgments. I was just replying to the notion that pre-utilitarian theories were best understood as being A) About duty and B) Not about happiness.
My reading of that sentence was that Kaj_Sotala focused not on the happiness part of utilitarianism, but on the expected utility calculation part. That is, that everyone needs to make an expected utility calculation to make moral decisions. I don’t think any particular type of utility was meant to be implied as necessary.
I think you’re right not to see it. Valuing happiness is a relatively recent development in human thought. Much of ethics prior to the enlightenment dealt more with duties and following rules. In fact, seeking pleasure or happiness (particularly from food, sex, etc.) was generally looked down or actively disapproved. People may generally do what they calculate to be best, but best need not mean maximizing anything related to happiness.
Ultra-orthodox adherence to religion is probably the most obvious example of this principle, particularly Judaism, since there’s no infinitely-good-heaven to obfuscate the matter. You don’t follow the rules because they’ll make you or others happy, you follow them because you believe it’s the right thing to do.
This just isn’t true at all. Duty based morality was mostly a Kantian invention. Kant was a contemporary of Bentham’s and died a few years before Mill was born. Pre-enlightenment ethics was dominated by Aristotelian virtue theory which put happiness in a really important position (it might be wrong to consider happiness the reason for acting virtuous but it is certainly coincident with Eudamonia).
Edit to say I’m interpreting ethics as “the study of morality” if you mean by ethics the actual rules governing practices of people throughout the world your comment makes more sense. For most people throughout history (maybe including right now) doing what is right means doing what someone tells you to do. Considered that way your comment makes more sense.
The Ancient Greek concept of happiness was significantly different from the modern concept of happiness. It tended to be rather teleological and prescriptive rather than being individualistic. You achieved “true happiness” because you lived correctly; the correct way to live was not defined based on the happiness you got out of it. There were some philosophers who touched on beliefs closer to utilitarianism, but it was never close to main stream. Epicurus, for example, but his concept was a long way from Bentham’s utilitarianism. The idea that happiness was the ultimate human good and that more total happiness was unequivocally and absolutely better was not even close to a mainstream concept until the enlightenment.
Oh, some of Socrates’ fake debate opponents did argue pleasure as the ultimate good. This was generally answered with the argument that true pleasure would require certain things, so that the pursuit of pure pleasure actually didn’t give one the most amount of pleasure. This concept has objectionable objective, teleological, and non-falsifiable properties; it is a very long way from the utilitarian advocacy of the pursuit of pleasure, because its definition of pleasure is so constrained.
Virtue ethics was generally about following rules. Duty was not the primary motivator, but if you did not do things you were obliged to do, like obey your liege, your father, the church, etc., you were not virtuous. Most of society was, and in many ways still is, run by people slavishly adhering to social customs irrespective of their individual or collective utilitarian value.
I did not claim that everyone operated explicitly off of a Kantian belief that duty was the ultimate good. I am simply pointing out that most people’s ethical systems were, in practice, simply based on obeying those society said should be obeyed and following rules society said they should follow. I don’t think this is particularly controversial, and that people can operate off of such systems shows that one need not be utilitarian to make moral judgements.
As I added in my edit, I find it plausible (though not certainly the case) that the ethical systems of individuals have often amounted to merely obeying social rules. Indeed, for the most part they continue to do so. I don’t think we disagree.
That said, as far as the scholarly examination of morality goes there wasn’t any kind of paradigm shift away from duty-based theories to “happiness” based theories. Either theories that dealt with duty and following rules means something like Kantian ethics or Divine Rule in which case the Enlightenment saw an increase in such theories OR duty-based theory just refers to any theory which generates rules and duties in which case utilitarianism is just as much a duty-based theory as anything else (as it entails a duty to maximize utility).
Virtue ethics “was generally about following rules” only in this second sense. Obviously virtue ethics dealt with happiness in a different way then utilitarianism, since, you know, they’re not the same thing. I agree that the word that Ancient Greek word that gets translated as happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics means something different from what we mean by happiness. I like “flourishing”. But it certainly includes happiness and is far more central (for Aristotle Eudamonia is the purpose of your existence) to virtue ethics than duty is.
Bentham and Mill were definitely innovators, I’m not disputing that. But I think their innovation had more to do with their consequentialism than their hedonism. What seems crucially new, to me, is that actions are evaluated exclusively by the effect they have on the world. Previous ethical theories are theories for the powerless. When you don’t know how you the effect the world it doesn’t make any sense to judge actions by the effect. The scientific revolution, and in particular the resulting British empiricism were crucial for making this sort of innovation possible.
Its also true that certain kinds of pleasure came to be looked down upon less than they were looked down upon before but I think this has less to do with the theoretical. innovations of utilitarianism then with economic and social changes leading to changes in what counts as virtue which Hume noted. After all, Mill felt the need to distinguish between higher (art, friendship, etc.) and lower pleasures (sex, food, drink) the former of which couldn’t be traded for any amount of the lower and were vast more valuable.
Anyway, I definitely agree that you don’t have to be a utilitarian to make moral judgments. I was just replying to the notion that pre-utilitarian theories were best understood as being A) About duty and B) Not about happiness.
My reading of that sentence was that Kaj_Sotala focused not on the happiness part of utilitarianism, but on the expected utility calculation part. That is, that everyone needs to make an expected utility calculation to make moral decisions. I don’t think any particular type of utility was meant to be implied as necessary.
Well, there was Epicurus...