Gemty, good post. Because you discuss the slippery slope, I think your argument is a lot more reasonable and potent than if you had cried “torture is wrong” at the outset. I’ll address it more specifically below.
Imp, you may not agree with Utilitarianism, and you might find its hedonic calculus offensive - that’s fine. I was just pointing out that your objection, as stated, wasn’t a good one. According to my argument, no slavery is acceptable, as I’m sure you will understand if you re-read the very last line of what you quoted.
Someone, your example is entirely equivalent to Imp’s. Just because either of you generate a situation in where a majority of people are power dominant, and have the ability to enslave / kill / whatever, doesn’t mean Utilitarianism would advocate it. The misery of the rest of the population would in just about all cases extremely overbalance the equation, and render the situation immoral.
Old_Gobbo, it’s quite true that to consider all the variables in a Utilitarian calculation, even one as simple as “should I tie my shoes today?”, is impossible for us poor limited humans. But this isn’t a good objection for two reasons. First, Utilitarianism doesn’t SAY that we should consider all the factors. In fact, since most people do better things with their time than consider the long-term effects of tying their shoe-laces, trying to consider all the useless factors is generally non-Utilitarian, since it’s a waste of time and a decrease in happiness. Second, there are ALWAYS these extra factors to consider in almost ANY moral system. Utilitarianism is NOT unique in this. In everyday morality, we are taught to consider the consequences of our actions as far as is reasonable, and to not worry about the rest. This is exactly what Utilitarianism asks - it just asks that you try to evaluate “consequences” more precisely than in other moral systems.
Delboy, she isn’t missing the point of Utilitarianism at all - her example is right on. Utilitarianism isn’t about “if everybody had your beliefs”. Utilitarianism doesn’t even necessarily claim that all people should be Utilitarian. Presumably it would advocate that those with lower analytic abilities adopt a preset group of imperatives, like “don’t kill” and so on, and do their best to stick to those.
Gemty,
Yes, this is certainly true. Of course, this is by no means unique to Utilitarianism. I know many non-Utilitarians who would agree that, in the case of the individual, torture is the correct action. I know only a few individuals who would claim otherwise.
Gemty, I agree with everything in your post. However, I don’t think this constitutes a valid objection to Utilitarianism, or any other moral theory in which slippery slopes exist. It merely poses a note of caution to those who use such theories: be careful, lest misjudgment allow you to cause pain.
Really, our society (and our lives) are filled with slippery slopes. We jail those cause harm to us. Where does this stop? Do we jail everyone who offends us? Those whose religion we don’t agree with? There’s a big slippery slope there, but we’ve drawn the line somewhere, and it’s a place that most are comfortable with. We allow abortion. Where do we draw the line? Can a woman abort in her last month of pregnancy? Do we allow post-birth abortions? Do we not allow abortions, because of this slippery slope?
In many cases like this, like with the jailings, we don’t think of there being a slippery slope, because we’re all pretty sure that it’s a good thing to draw the line somewhere near where it’s already drawn. Your torture example is more extreme because there is no official line drawn; torture is officially condemned in all cases. One of your objections is, if you allow one torture, you must draw the line somewhere. This is true; if you imagine a larger and larger group of terrorists about to nuke a city, how big would the group have to be before I wouldn’t condone torturing them?
I think your example is great, but that it isn’t a valid objection to Utilitarianism - just a valid concern.
While it’s true that a line seems to exist somewhere, you shouldn’t expect me to be able to tell you WHERE it is. A Utilitarian might well say, “abortions make for intentional, happier families, and significantly reduce crime rates; thus, they are good things. However, post-birth abortions are terrible ideas, and essentially amount to murdering a newborn.” This Utilitarian is saying that a line must be drawn; however, it is a difficult situation to say WHERE it must be drawn, and that cannot be established without significant analysis. Even then, the conclusion will be very debatable. One trimester? Two, three? It’s difficult to say with any certainty.
However, in this case, I think I can confidently give you an answer. If the question is, “how many terrorists responsible for this atomic bomb would I torture to save a million innocents”, the answer is “all of them”. It’s true that the happiness of the terrorists is an important Utilitarian calculation. However, when performing any Utilitarian calculation, it should be remembered that you maximize happiness over ALL TIME, not just now. Because of this, if you establish a precedent of not tolerating certain behavior (like terrorism) and punishing it severely, fewer people are likely to become terrorists in the future. (Of course, you have to balance this with a foreign policy that doesn’t make Muslims hate us… unfortunately our current administration doesn’t seem to have realized that at all.)
This is precisely the reason that if Person A punches Person B, and A is made happier by the punch than Person B was made miserable, it is STILL most likely not a Utilitarian outcome, because allowing the punching encourages the behavior of punching, which generally causes more harm than good.
Now, in a Utilitarian sense, you may disagree with my assessment. If you find the idea of torturing five million terrorists just to save one million innocents intolerable, remember that I may have made a mistake, overlooked an important factor, and there may be a good reason to not torture all or any of those five million. Conversely, you may be overly sentimental, caring too much about the well-being of murderers and not enough about innocent people. It’s a difficult question in any sense, but not one that really argues against Utilitarianism.