I've asked myself a hypothetical question that has kind of plagued me in regards to Mill's Greatest Happiness Principle over and over and haven't really been able to take a definitive stance on it. We all know that the GHP promotes the greatest happiness for not only yourself, but also the maximum pleasure for the most amount of people. What if I was a starving, homeless person that stumbles into a busy marketplace filled with tons of different food stands. All food stands are stocked to the brim, and all stands are up to their necks with customers during rush hour. It would not matter a single bit to the food stand managers if they had one piece of their product taken because they would not have a clue. I steal a banana, they have no idea about it, and I am no longer starving. I feel like we can all pretty much agree that stealing is wrong. Would Mill say that it's wrong? I am not hungry any more, and the vendor wouldn't know. But what about the other customers? Am I preventing someone else from making themselves or their family happy? Would it be more wrong if it was the last banana in the stand, or does that matter at all? How do we measure whose happiness is more valuable (us or them) in these ethical dilemmas? What if the manager did know and suffered from the theft: would our own personal happiness be more valuable than his unhappiness?
Saturday, October 12, 2013
There's Always Money (to be Taken) In the Banana Stand
I believe that the greatest end goal that every human strives for is their own personal happiness. While taking the ethics Midterm exam, I felt confident when answering all of the question. But what if I hadn't? What if I wasn't particularly prepared for the exam? Failing it would no doubt bring me a humongous amounts of displeasure, so would Mill say that cheating is morally acceptable? I would guess probably not, because cheating on the exam would be seen as a far less pleasure (if you could even call cheating to pass a pleasure in itself) in comparison to studying the material, retaining the knowledge, and passing the test.
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For Mill that matters of consequences are especially important, so I do think the context counts a great amount. For example, if you were starving, that probably causes a huge amount of displeasure and pain for you--an amount likely to surpass the pleasure of eating a banana for enjoyment rather than survival. It would also prevent more pain (for you to steal/eat it) than it would cause the vendor if he or she found out, unless the had some abnormal anger issue...In conclusion, I think all these things (how many bananas left, if the manager knew or not) do matter, because these factors would change the result of the utilitarian calculus.
ReplyDeleteI think Mill would be against cheating, because of the comfort afforded by the Honor Pledge, and theoretically the entire pledge is voided once one person breaks it. The honor pledge brings an implied trust taken in any scholastic institution that no one will cheat or steal from each other. The honor pledge assures academic honesty, breeding trust among the students, and comfort with each other through this. This is a greater pleasure than one good grade gained through dishonesty.
ReplyDeleteOkay, Aladdin, let's go along with this banana scenario. Let us say that you and you alone are starving. You resolve to steal a banana, knowing in your conscience that doing so is morally wrong (because stealing, as an objective rule, is morally wrong) yet simultaneously determining that serving your own interest and ending your hunger is both harmless and necessary, and is therefore okay. You steal the banana. You have just violated the Greatest Happiness Principle proposed by Mill, because you have put your own good before the good of the whole. To unpack this violation, let us consider the economic toll of your theft. Even supposing that the bananas in the marketplace were not unreasonably inflated in price, stealing one might be that big of a deal. But - what if you are not the only "starving" person around and your action perpetuates a sort of monkey-see-monkey-do effect of stealing bananas? If a significant portion of the banana vendor's product is stolen, he and his family (and likely a chain of other economic interests) will be negatively affected. You will therefore have begun a chain of disruption to the economic balance of the marketplace, and therefore will have disrupted the greater good of the whole. Is that what you want? Is that upset worth one little banana? Don't look to Kant to defend you, since your will from the beginning of this scenario was entirely selfish. Stay hungry, my friend.
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