How Utilitarian is Utilitarianism?

A couple of blog posts ago I briefly summarized 7 methods used in moral reasoning, figuring out right and wrong choices. Utilitarianism is a form of Consequentialism which is, as the name suggests, based on outcomes or consequences. Now this sounds reasonable and something that could lead to good decisions, doesn't it? If Utilitarianism printed t-shirts the slogan would be, "The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number."

Business commonly uses this process in making decisions. Cost vs. benefit easily slides into this mode. This is not surprising since one of the developers was an economist. This makes me wonder if it really was conceived to be used across the moral spectrum, in other areas of life or just business? Apparently it is applied to non-business situations as it is used to justify use of military force and war.

One of the biggest problems with utilitarianism is our inability to predict the future. We might make a guess, educated or otherwise, what action would produce better or worse consequences but any certainty is questionable. There is also the question of are you considering short-term or long-term consequences or both? I imagine we can name actions businesses have taken that worked in the short-term but ended up with horrible long-term consequences with very high costs. Now I wouldn't say one shouldn't consider consequences when thinking about moral actions, but Utilitarianism fails to account for values such as justice and individual rights. The "greatest good" isn't so good if you are not part of the "greatest number."

Here is a glaring example of a situation in which most, if not all, of us would agree this approach to moral reasoning isn't a good choice. Huh! Perhaps choosing a moral reasoning framework itself is a moral decision.

Example of Utilitarianism - Applied

Four patients need different organ transplants. Would killing 1 healthy person in order to save the life of 4 people be morally right? According to Utilitarianism the answer would be yes...the greatest good for the greatest number. Cringeworthy? Oh yeah!

If we were to explore this framework further, I would ask the question, "Does Utilitarianism look different in different businesses? If yes, then how? But for now where do we go from here? Deontology. Moral reasoning by way of duty.

Thanks for reading!

Source: Utilitarianism - Ethics Unwrapped