It is possible to defend negative utilitarianism against Smart's attack, as he seems to make some assumptions that cloud the meaning of the moral position. The main problem being Smart’s use of the word ‘suffering’, and changing this to ‘harm’ does solve most of his problems with negative utilitarianism.
Negative utilitarianism makes the assumption that it is more important to reduce avoidable suffering than it is to increase the happiness of already happy people. This position was mainly brought about by Karl Popper to replace the positive utilitarian notion of ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number’. Contrary to Smart's attack, however, it does not disregard happiness – it is, rather, a more involved attempt at making everyone happy, rather than the positive utilitarianism view that justifies things like making the rich richer, so long as you ignore the poor. This largely seems to be a more reasonable and approach to morality, because it does seem that you would be making a mistake to ignore those who are suffering in order to further aid those who are already happy, even though everyone only counts as one unit. For example, if a child was going to share his sweets with some of his friends, where two of them already had plenty of sweets and two of them had none – it doesn’t seem reasonable for the child to give all his sweets to the two who already had them. Even though the utility could be measured as the same increase in happiness as if he gave them to the children with no sweets, there still seems to be something intuitively wrong about this.
Smart, in his attack, uses an example of a tyrannical ruler who would painlessly wipe out the human race and suggests that it does not to work under Popper's definition. This is because if the ruler was capable of carrying this act out, Smart claims that under negative utilitarianism, the future and potential suffering that could be avoided by this act would justify it being carried out. (Smart; 1958) Here, however, Smart makes three problematic assumptions: firstly, that people don’t have to make their own choices; secondly, that potential suffering is as bad as actual suffering; lastly, that death is not a bad thing.
The example of the tyrannical ruler seems to be an extreme example, as Popper does clarify his negative utility rule of reduction of suffering with a secondary rule that there should be no tyranny. (Popper; 1952) Aside from this, the decision of the ruler would not be justified because it is not the responsibility of other people to decide that you would be better off dying to reduce your suffering as that seems to be something you would need to decide for yourself. Under liberal principles it seems that the individual is sovereign over their own body and life, so even if someone were to come to the somewhat incorrect conclusion that ending their life would be justified to avoid the suffering they may experience – they would have to make that decision themselves.
Secondly, Smart in his assessment, seems to suggest that painlessly ending a life now, ceases all the suffering they are likely to endure for the rest of your life. This, however, is suggesting that you will suffer in the future and that the potential to suffer in the future justifies death to avoid it and this seems to be simply absurd. Smart goes on to make the claim that 'the amount of toothache and illness in store for a man will usually far outweigh the brief misery of the stiletto to his back.' What he seems to be overlooking here is what 'avoidable suffering’ is. A clear distinction should be made between experiences and suffering, as experiences are a good thing, and that includes pains such as toothache and illness. Not all suffering should or can be avoided as it can have benefits: for example, a burning sensation might hurt in order to make you recoil from what is burning you, to not feel this pain would cause far worse suffering (such as being severely burnt or set on fire). Alternatively, is seems we sometimes seek the experience of pain simply for the experience, such as pricking your thumb with a pin. So it seems that these pains could scarcely really count as suffering, so to suggest that it would be a benefit to avoid them potentially happening does not stand in line with the argument. So with the idea of suffering being much more severe than basic pains and illnesses that most of us accept are okay things to happen in life, what is left is suffering such as poverty, disease, torture, rape, etc. Considering all of these things do not happen to everyone, it would not be justified to say that it would be worth dying to avoid these things possibly happening. Avoidable suffering only makes sense if you’re actually avoiding suffering; for example, rather than dying as an avoidance to never being raped, it would make much more sense to simply take precautions against rape.
Smart’s last incorrect assumption that death is not a bad thing also fits into this. While it objectively makes sense to relieve someone's suffering by killing them, as in death you do not suffer; that is not to suggest that you cannot be harmed by your death. Firstly, your unnecessary death may cause suffering in others such as family members or friends who will be upset by your death. Secondly, and more importantly, it seems that you are still being harmed by removing what might have happened to you if you remained alive. In order to justify the relief of suffering through death you'd have to weigh the harm caused by remaining alive against the harm caused by your death, which seems to be far more harmful than Smart suggests.
Harm is a much broader term than suffering, so it makes more sense to the death argument to replace the term ‘suffering’ with the term ‘harm’ and this is largely owing to the fact that it is possible to be harmed by things that you are unaware of, or are not experiencing. An example of this would be if someone was applying for jobs in an area where someone else was spreading incorrect rumours about them being a thief. This would lower their job prospects and therefore harm the individual without them even having any knowledge that they are being harmed – and is therefore not directly suffering. Similarly to this, when someone dies, they are lacking in opportunities that would have led to happiness and, as stated previously, negative utilitarianism doesn’t ignore happiness. To lose an opportunity does seem to be harming you, and in death you miss all opportunities you may ever have had. As an example of missing opportunities, if someone were to decide they were unhappy and chose to stay in bed for two weeks and cut off their contact with other people on the same week that his boss was intending to give them a promotion, and at a party his friends were to set him up with a potential relationship – but he never showed up to either. It seems he is being harmed here as these things could have made him happier so that he wouldn’t cut himself off from the world, etc. The difference here with the potential of opportunities against the previous notion of potential suffering is that, in death, harm is still coming to you, whilst in life you still have the chance for opportunities – and also can actively avoid harm and seek opportunity. On a scale, given the choice between losing everything and living an eventful life with the potential to suffer – it simply seems that death is the worse option.
In light of this, it seems that in death, harm can come to us, so Smart’s assumption that death is not a bad and thing seems to be a mistake on his part. Death is not justifiable as Smart seems to suggest when you consider the notion of harm over the notion of suffering.
That we have the potential for minor sufferings to happen, such as a colds, or heartburn seems not to be equal to actual suffering, such as severe injury, poverty, depression, etc. Even then, the potential to suffer is not a form of actual suffering, so more harm would be being caused by their death if they were not already being greatly harmed. The focus of negative utilitarianism works much more accurately when you consider harm caused instead of suffering. The moral standpoint becomes what sort of harms you can prevent, rather than just relieving the suffering someone is going through. So to act in such a way that brings about the least amount of suffering for all, seems like a viable way to act as it does not justify death by your own have or by a tyrant who decides to cull the human population. With this, it seems that Smart's attack on negative utilitarianism doesn't work and thus by slightly changing Popper’s definition, it is a very defensible position.
Refrences:
· Popper, Karl: 1952. The Open Society and its Enemies. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press.
· Smart, R.N.: 1958. Negative Utilitarianism. Mind, New Series, Vol 67, p542-543. University of London.
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