Law and order (part 5)

The series on justice systems continues with a discussion of the relationship between justice systems and utilitarianism. Last time, I briefly delved into the subject of which is more desirable in a justice system, utilitarianism or fairness. I now realize that I was somewhat biased towards utilitarianism, and I assumed that it is true in order to use it to refute the justification of revenge-based justice systems. Today, I would like to delve into this topic in more detail.

Utilitarianism can be defined as “the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all persons.”

So, the first question we must ask is: Is utilitarianism in the best interests of the general public, and if yes, should it be the goal of the justice system to achieve this?

Though the answer might seem obvious to some, I am somewhat suspicious of this concept. Utilitarianism and the conservative interpretation of fairness are at opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum; the former ignores personal responsibility and free will, while the second puts far too much emphasis on these concepts. I have already discussed my distrust of extreme focus on fairness as defined in “Law and order part 4,” and I have similar sentiments toward extreme utilitarianism. I should also add that such extreme utilitarianism is impractical. It would most likely require either a centralized, powerful government or a sudden wave of idealism to sweep the world. The latter is highly unlikely, and the former probably couldn’t stay in power long enough to implement a utilitarian system. Why are these requirements? A truly utilitarian system cannot be implemented overnight, and to be effective it must have public support.

Furthermore, utilitarianism seems to be linked to justice systems that are based on treating society deterministically and ignoring the concept of free will. The Brave New World system is essentially utilitarian, since its main goal is to create the most amount of happiness at the expense of certain moral and social constructs. It also uses brainwashing techniques to keep society stable, which clearly follows the utilitarian belief of “greatest good for the greatest number.” This raises the question which I touched on briefly in “Law and order part 2” and “Law and order part 3”: Is it acceptable to treat society as if it is deterministic (for the purpose of implementing utilitarianism) even if we do not know if we have free will? Treating society as if it is deterministic has its obvious benefits, namely, the potential for an enormous amount of happiness to be created (i.e. Brave New World).  Even so, there are still some problems with practicality, but far fewer than in other systems.

Furthermore, I would like to explore some of the negatives of a society based on utilitarianism. An infinity number of types of utilitarian societies could possibly exist, but most could be placed on a spectrum between a strong centralized system and utilitarian anarchy. There are clear flaws to both systems. The centralized side is more focused on the State conditioning people to be happy, like in BNW. Though this can be effective, in the case of a catastrophe the society would collapse because this conditioning must be highly specialized. On the other hand, a utilitarian anarchy would be focused on people finding their own kind of happiness, but there are problems here too. For example, what if a particular person’s brand of happiness was sadism? There are no institutions in place to protect the society from this, or from any of the other problems that usually befall anarchy. Instead, the most effective utilitarian society would probably be more in the middle. A government could keep the peace, but on the whole it would not intrude into people’s lives unless they harmed others. But what kind of justice system would this middle-range utilitarian society have? My bet is on the rehab system. This system is the closest to utilitarianism, since it is focused on not causing any unnecessary pain. 

For those enjoying this series on justice systems and their justifications, I am sorry to say I am going to take a break from it (at least for now). Though I have been far from laconic when it comes to this subject, I can’t think of much more to add at the moment. However, I doubt this will be the last time the issues discussed in this series are mentioned on this blog—many of them are far too important to forget entirely.