After reading Smart’s article, I agreed that extreme utilitarianism is more rational than restricted utilitarianism—and I agreed even more as I began to compare restricted utilitarianism to worship, and as I applied each of these ideologies to an argument for embryotic stem cell research that I read for another class.
Smart opens his discussion of restricted utilitarianism by stating:
The restricted utilitarian regards moral rule as more than rules of thumb for short-circuiting calculations of consequences. Generally, he argues consequences are not relevant at all when we are deciding what to do in a particular case. In general, they are relevant only to deciding what rules are good reasons for acting in a certain way in particular cases. (Smart 92)
As I read this (and as I continued to read Smart’s argument against restricted utilitarianism), I was reminded of our discussion on Rachels’ article “God and Moral Autonomy.” Rachels asserts: “to deliver oneself over to a moral authority for directions about what to do is simply incompatible with being a moral agent” (Rachels 118). This line of thought applies to restricted utilitarianism. The same way that one gives a godly figure full ruling over one’s moral thoughts, one gives “moral rule” this power in restricted utilitarianism. The parallelism between these two articles helped me follow along (and agree with) with Smart’s arguments against the lack of rationality in restricted (or rule) utilitarianism.
This lack of rationality was further supported within an article titled “Stem Cell Research and the Claim of the Other in the Human Subject,” which I was assigned to read for an IDS class. This article discusses different frameworks for bioethical deliberation and the different positions within each (and how these relate to the use of embryotic stem cells). As I read this article, one argument (the “Discarded Embryo”/“Nothing is Lost” position of the Embryo Protection moral framework) in particular stood out to me as an excellent application of extreme utilitarianism (and an excellent example of its greater rationality as expressed by Smart). The “Discarded Embryo” position argues for the use of embryotic stem cells, on the grounds that:
To date, the preponderance of embryonic stem cell research has been conducted on “excess” embryos originally created for purposes of in vitro fertilization. If not placed into a woman’s uterus, they are frozen and eventually discarded. … Those who hold the discarded embryo position believe it is morally licit to use for research embryos that will otherwise be destroyed. What is illicit is the deliberate creation of embryos that will be destroyed for research purposes. (Bennett and Peters 188)
This point is furthered in the “Nothing is Lost” perspective, which goes into more depth by “appeal[ing] to exempting conditions to destroying human life such as (a) observing that existing embryos will be discarded anyway and (b) observing that as research material they could be indirectly life-saving” (Bennett and Peters 188). Based off of the generally accepted moral rule that one should not kill (and acknowledging that this framework states that use of an embryo as research is killing), a restricted utilitarian would object to the use of embryotic stem cells for research. However, an extreme utilitarian would support this research based off of the grounds that this research could ultimately save more lives.
Overall, I find extreme utilitarianism a reasonable moral ideology, though I am sure a more in-depth analysis would bring problems with the system to light.
Works Cited
2 responses to “Restricted and Extreme Utilitarianism”