Intergenerational Justice

Lukas H. Meyer, Lukas H. Meyer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351927048
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Diritto
• Subtopic: Giurisprudenza

The essays selected for this volume show how relations between past, current and future generations have become a major subject of philosophical research since the 1970s. The relations between people alive today with people who may exist in the future and people now deceased, differ from relations between contemporaries and in ways that raise new conceptual, logical and substantive questions. Among the questions addressed in this volume are: what is the status of people now deceased and people who may exist in the future? Can the latter be harmed by the actions of people alive today? What duties of justice do we have towards people with whom we can neither interact nor co-operate, and can people who are indirect victims of past injustices legitimately claim compensation? Answers to these questions are relevant in a number of policy areas, most notably in issues regarding reparations for historical injustice and responding to climate change and its consequences.

Part I
Foundations

[1]
UTILITARIANISM AND NEW GENERATIONS

BY JAN NARVESON

ONE of the stock objections to utilitarianism goes like this : “If utilitarianism is correct, then we must be obliged to produce as many children as possible, so long as their happiness would exceed their misery” It has always seemed to me that there is a certain air of sophistry about this argument, and in this paper, I shall endeavor to demonstrate this by exposing the fallacies upon which it is founded. I shall also consider in its own right the question of the nature and extent of our duties in the line of procreation, if any, on the utilitarian principle. To this end, three preliminary matters must be explained.

To begin with, there are two radically different questions here, of which the first is the crucial one. On the one hand, there is the question of whether we should produce person X because X would be happy if produced. Let us call this the question of the ‘direct effects’ upon the general happiness ; clearly, it is what is in point. The other question is this : should we produce person X, if we can foresee that X’s existence will have a favorable effect on the happiness of other people besides X, e.g. his parents, or people who might benefit from his activities. Later on, I shall suggest that the appearance of plausibility to the objection probably stems from a subtle confusion between these two different questions. I shall spend most of my time on the first question, reserving the second until the final section of the paper.

In the second place, there is some difference of opinion about the way in which the utilitarian theory is to be formulated. Those who have put the objection are assuming that according to the utilitarian, there is a certain sort of mental state called “pleasure ” or “happiness ”, of which it is our obligation to produce as much as possible, by whatever means. Let us call this the “greatest total happiness” formulation. But it is obviously not the one which Bentham and Mill had in mind. Their formulations, as everybody knows, have it that the “greatest happiness of the greatest number” is the end of morality. This view Smart and Flew call the “greatest average happiness” view, though as I shall show below this characterization is somewhat misleading. Now, it supposedly follows directly from the “total” view that we have a duty to produce children if they would be happy ; though I am inclined to think that the view involves a further confusion which, if taken account of, might clear even it of this charge to some extent. But at any rate, it is much less clear that the classical view has any such implication. For that we are to aim at the greatest happiness of the greatest number, does not imply that we are to aim at the greatest happiness and the greatest number. In order to make this perfectly clear, note that the classical utilitarians’ view may be put this way : everyone should be as happy as possible. Cast into modern logical form, this reads, “For all persons x, x should be as happy as possible”, and this is equivalent to, “if a person exists, he should be as happy a possible”. This last shows clearly that the classical formulation does not imply that as many happy people as possible should be brought into existence.

The third point is to be clear about the general idea of the utilitarian theory about morality. It is often thought that according to that theory, if we like jam, then we have a duty to eat jam. This is nonsense. The whole point of the utilitarian theory is that people should be permitted, in so far as possible, to do as they please. As in all moral theories, utilitarianism picks out as duties those acts which you should be constrained to do. You may or may not like doing your duty, but if you do not, that is irrelevant. Now, it makes sense to say that you have a duty to do something which you happen to enjoy doing anyway ; but it does not make sense to say that you have a duty to do something on the ground that you like it. To assert a duty is to deny the permissibility of the opposite. Consequently, if you say that I have a duty to do whatever I like, there is nothing whose permissibility I am denying : if I liked doing A, I still could not have a duty to do A, since I could also do not-A if I liked.

What is true is that for the classical utilitarian, the sole ground of duty is the effects of our action on other people, and from this it follows that whenever one has a duty, it must be possible to say on whose account the duty arises—i.e. whose happiness is in question. In deciding what we are to do, the only consideration which is morally relevant, according to utilitarianism, is how others would be affected. If we cannot envisage effects on certain people which would ensue from our acts, then we have no moral material to work on and we can do as we like.

II

We are now in a position to throw light on the problem before us. The oddity in this kind of question, of course, consists in the fact that if a person is not born, he does not exist. I am neglecting the question about the point at which a person comes into existence. Those who would wish to consider embryos as a kind of person may simply replace ‘born’ and ‘birth’ with ‘conceived’ and ‘conception’ throughout. And as we all know, non-existent people are not just a special kind of people ; therefore, unborn people are also not just a special kind of people. Further, “people” are among the things you can point to, see, hear, and so forth. There is no such thing as an “abstract person ”, though we may indeed talk in the abstract about people (concrete).

Consider now the sentential form, “if x were born, x would be happy ; therefore, x ought to be born ”. We assume the utilitarian principle as the suppressed major premiss. Now, there are two types of logical expression which can be substituted for ‘x’ in such an argument, namely, proper names and descriptions. Let us examine each in turn. To begin with, no sensible proposition can be formed of the consequent in the minor premiss of an argument of this form, by replacing the blanks (x’s) with proper names, since, for example, “Hiram Jonesought to be born ” makes no sense. If ‘Hiram Jones’ refers, then he already is born and there is no open question left as to whether he “ought to be born”; and if, on the other hand, it does not refer, then it is not (logically) a proper name, there being nothing for it to name.

Notice, incidentally, that the point just made does not depend upon the temporality of personal existence. The name ‘Hiram Jones’ refers, logically speaking, no matter when Jones is alive. But whether or not Jones lives in the future, it is still true of him, whenever he may live, that he was born, and consequently it is in any case nonsense to say that he ought to be born.

Nor am I denying that we may sensibly ask, once he is born, whether he should have been born. This is in many cases an interesting question, though not a very practical one under the circumstances. Some people should not have been born ; and as there are other people whose existence is a good thing, we may say of them that they, in the same sense, “should have been born ” ; though of course they were, and it is not a point of much practical importance so far as it concerns the individual the desirability of whose birth is in question. Hitler should not have been born, Churchill should have been born, and there are other cases where it is debatable—though I admit that all such questions, are, as we say, “merely theoretical ”. What I am claiming is that, if we regard ‘Hitler’ and ‘Churchill’ as proper names, Hitler’s mother and Churchill’s mother could not have presented themselves, prior to their conceptions, with sensible questions of the form, “ought we to give birth to Hitler? ”, “Ought we to give birth to Churchill? ” The latter appear to be parallel to, “ought I to spank Adolph? ”, “Ought I to spank Winston? ” ; but they plainly are not.

Suppose, on the other hand, that we complete the argument- forms by replacing our ‘x’ with descriptions. Thus we might say, “someone should be born who would bring peace to the world” ; and supposing that we could know that our boy, if born, would bring peace to the world, we might argue that this is a good reason for bringing him into existence. As indeed it is, but we have shifted our question here, and are no longer answering the one we set out to discuss. For we began by resolving to discuss the question, whether the direct effects of bringing someone into the world could be a reason for so doing, and “bringing peace into the world” is not of this kind. I said at the outset that the distinction between direct and indirect effects in reference to this question was a vital one, and I am about to show why. So far, then, the question is whether we could argue as follows : “our boy, if born, would be very happy ; therefore we ought to produce him.” In order to show why this argument is not sanctioned by the principle of utility, whereas the former perhaps is, we must turn again to the third point argued above.

III

Three possible outcomes of an act are of interest from the utilitarian point of view. The act either will (1) increase the general happiness, (2) decrease the general happiness, or (3) have no effect on the general happiness. Neglecting such interesting but here irrelevant questions as how you decide which in fact will result, there is an important question as to just which of the three is such as to give rise to a duty, if any ; but let us say for purposes of the present discussion that, in cases where the different things we can do would some of them eventuate x in (1), others in (2), and others in (3), it is our duty to avoid (2) and prefer (1). In other words, it is only with increases and decreases in the general happiness that we are morally concerned if we are utilitarians. And this means that when we specify the individuals who would be affected by our actions, as we must on the utilitarian view, the characteristic about those people with which we are morally concerned is whether their happiness will be increased or decreased. If an action would have no effects whatever on the general happiness, then it would be morally indifferent : we could do it or not, just as we pleased. Hence whether to do it or not would be a non- moral question, which could only be solved by non-moral considerations. If I were to have a candy bar, this would normally have no effect on the happiness of others ; hence whether I am to do it or not is entirely a question, according to the utilitarians, of whether I want to or not, which is not a question about what I morally ought to do but rather one about what I like to do. Now, to which of these types does our present question belong : is it a moral or a non-moral one? I will show that it is ordinarily a non- moral one, and that in the case where it is a moral one, then it is because of its indirect effects. “Direct effects,” I shall show, can only give rise to the duty not to have children and can never give rise to a duty to have them. Having children, in other words, is normally a matter of moral indifference. Let us see why this is so.

In order to show that the general happiness would be increased by our having a child, the argument would have to go as follows. Imagine that the total number of people is N, and that the total happiness is H, the average happiness therefore being N/H = 1. Now suppose that we have good evidence that any child produced by us would be twice as happy as that, giving him a value of 2.

Then the average happiness after he is born will be

, which would be somewhat larger, therefore, than before. Does this give us a moral reason to produce children? No. We have committed a fallacy.

Suppose that we live in a certain country, say, Fervia, and we are told by our king that something is about to happen which will greatly increase the general happiness of the Fervians : namely that a certain city on Mars, populated by extremely happy Martians will shortly become a part of Fervia. Since these new Fervians are very happy, the average happiness, hence the “general happiness ” of the Fervians will be greatly increased. Balderdash. If you were a Fervian, would you be impressed by this reasoning? Obviously not. What has happened, of course, is simply that the base upon which the average was calculated has been shifted. When the Fervians are told that their happiness will be affected by something, they assume that the happiness of those presently understood by them as being Fervians will be increased. The king has pulled the wool over their eyes by using, in effect, a fallacy of four terms : ‘Fervians’ refers to one group of people on one occasion—“The general happiness of the Fervian₁ will be increased ”,—and another on another occasion— “Hence, the general happiness of the Fervians₂ has been increased ”. Because the Fervians₂ are a different group from the Fervians₁ although including the latter, it is a mere piece of sophistry to say that an increase in the happiness of the Fervians has come about as a result of this new acquisition of Martian citizenry. The fraud lies in the fact that no particular Fervian’s happiness has been increased ; whereas the principle of utility requires that before we have a moral reason for doing something, it must be because of a change in the happiness of some of the affected persons.

The argument that an increase in the general happiness will result from our having a happy child involves precisely the same fallacy. If you ask, “whose happiness has been increased as a result of his being born? ”, the answer is that nobody’s has. Of course, his being born might have indirect effects on the general happiness, but that is quite another matter. The “general populace ” is just as happy as it was before ; now, what of our new personnel? Remember that the question we must ask about him is not whether ...