Should Humanists Be Utilitarians?

Does rejection of God-based morality--that is, commandments from really on high--leave utilitarianism as the only reasonable approach to ethics? Some atheists think so. Let's start with the definition. Utilitarianism holds that we ought to pursue the greatest happiness/pleasure/good for the greatest number. It sounds reasonable and simple enough, but philosophical critiques of utilitarianism abound. I'll briefly touch on a few points.

We could begin by asking why that ought to be our goal. Is this a subjective preference, or can an objective case be made? If it's subjective, then why that one rather than something else? We may wonder whether it's a problem for the theory that people have different ideas about happiness and pleasure. To pick an extreme example, think of the masochists and sadists. Do they count? And do only people count? Moreover, isn't it possible that the two parts of the principle might conflict? Why the greatest happiness for the greatest number? Why not the great happiness, full stop? Or the greatest number, full stop? What is one to do if these pull one in different directions? These are formidable problems.

Then we have to decide which kind of utilitarianism to adopt. Which kind? Philosophers have identified two possibilities: act (or direct) utilitarianism (AU) and rule (or indirect) utilitarianism (RU). AU says that every action should aim to fulfill the utilitarian principle. But it's long been noted that this is easier said than done. How could any of us calculate which of our many daily options will promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number? We simply lack the knowledge needed to perform such calculations. Since ought implies can, AU is a nonstarter. 

There's also the problem of trade-offs. Let's say an action would make an equal number of people happy and unhappy? What should you do? One thing you can't do is compare degrees of happiness or well-being among people. It's long been understood that we cannot make interpersonal comparisons of utility. We have no access to other people's internal states, and we have no unit of utility like inches or ounces. Utility isn't actually one homogeneous thing. So there can be no measurements and no comparisons. Each of us ranks, not measures, our values. As the economists say, the numbers relevant to values are ordinal, not cardinal, and you can't subject ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.) to arithmetical operations.  

Okay, utilitarians have responded, fair enough. So let's try this: instead of applying the utilitarian principle to every act, we ought to use it to select the social rules we all observe--hence rule utilitarianism. We should embrace rules that tend to promote the greatest good for the greatest number. That does seem more practical; much can be said about which rules would tend to make a better society. RU might also extricate utilitarianism from a classic sticky problem. AU would seem to justify a doctor killing one patient so he may save, say, five other people with the deceased's organs. But wouldn't that be repugnant despite the greater number of beneficiaries? An advocate of RU would reject the doctor's action on the grounds that the practice, if adopted, would reduce overall happiness because of the fear it would generate. Well, maybe, but can we be sure how it would all sort out?

But even it gets sorted, the utilitarian isn't out of the woods. We cannot exclude the possibility that following a rule that tends to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number is nevertheless unlikely to so in a particular case. What should one do then? If one ignores the rule in that case, then one is no longer an RU, but rather is an AU. On the other hand, if one vows to remain true to the rule come what may, then one would cease to be an RU. How can that be? If one vows to abide by a rule come what may--even if that rule was initially embraced on utilitarian grounds--then one passes from utilitarianism to deontology, or what has been derided as rule fetishism. Put another way, one could no longer claim to be a consequentialist if one sticks to a rule regardless of its consequences. 

Thus RU is unstable: it either lapses back to AU or transforms into a deontological ethics.

More could be said, but I'll leave it at that for now.