The Implications of Utilitarianism Within The Lathe of Heaven
“This is a tough-minded world we’ve got going here, George. A realistic one. But as I said, life can’t be safe. This society is tough-minded, and getting tougher yearly; the future will justify it. We need health. We simply have no room for the incurables, the gene-damaged who degrade the species; we have no time for wasted, useless suffering” (Le Guin 122). Le Guin illuminates the ambition of utilitarianism to reduce suffering for the greatest number of people. The quotation illustrates the harshness of utilitarianism to exclude those who do not conform to society in order to achieve the greatest amount of human pleasure in favor of the majority. The psychiatrist Dr. Haber aspires
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Utilitarianism aims to perfect society by correcting traits that separate those in society and create conflict. Dr. Haber looks to perfect the human race by riding the world of race, disabilities, and disease; however, he does not take into account the implications of changing reality. The exclusion of Miss Lelache in the new reality proves to be a consequence of removing race, “That’s why she’s not here, he thought. She [Miss Lelache] could not have been born gray. Her color, her color of brown, was an essential part of her, not an accident. Her anger, timidity, brashness, gentleness, all were elements of her mixed being…She could not exist in the gray people’s world. She had not been born” (Le Guin 113). Dr. Haber removes personality defining aspects of individual people that conflict with society’s standards, which results in ostracizing the individuals from reality. Laurence Davis describes the effectiveness of a demanding society that operates by disregarding the individual, “A society may demand sacrifice of the individual and similarly a moment of contingency may be unavoidable. Things get in the way of the best laid plans. But a society that compels individual action based on the optimal functioning of society is in Le Guin’s organic terms, unhealthy” (Davis 173). Excluding those who represent the “Other” creates a slippery slope that allows …show more content…
Since this code of ethics bases decisions on the overall pleasure of the group, this thinking leads to a sense of supremacy of humans towards nature and all other species. Dr. Haber looks to perfect reality without any regard to the impacts on nature or the Aliens; Tony Burns interprets the goals and traits of Dr. Haber, “Haber represents what Le Guin refers to as the ‘Judeo-Christian-Rationalist’ Western tradition, which is also, of course, the scientific tradition, committed to the idea of controlling first nature then society” (Burns 225). The Lathe of Heaven exemplifies anthropocentricism when society sacrifices nature for the entertainment and benefits of the group, such as the lottery for plots of land from national parks. In addition to neglecting nature, Dr. Haber places the value of peace among humans above the Aliens. The Alien’s existence relies solely on symbolizing a common enemy for humans to oppose. Once the Aliens prove to be harmless and peaceful, the sea turtles conform to the Americanized ideals and norms. By reinforcing human exceptionalism, humans limit themselves to their own beliefs and echo chambers, which precludes any other ideals that do not represent their own.
Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven castigate utilitarianism’s ostracizing of those who do not conform to society and encourage human centric beliefs in a pursuit of a “perfect world”. The utilitarian
Jeremy Bentham, one of the founders of Utilitarianism, believed his philosophy could provide for the “greatest happiness of the greatest number of people”. However benign it may sound, at the heart of Utilitarianism is a cold, teleological process which reduces happiness to a mere commodity. It is even worse that Saul Alinsky would extend this philosophy to a point where the truth becomes relative, justice becomes a tool of those powerful enough to wield it, and any means are justified to reach one’s desired ends.
Nielsen, Kai. “Traditional Morality and Utilitarianism.” Ethics: The Big Questions. Ed. James Sterba. Blackwell Publishers, 1998. 142-151.
...ahlquist’s sacrifice highlights Heinlein’s belief, that the same self-sacrificing impulse that Winston had, might facilitate positive social change. Contrastingly, Le Guin highlights the continued anomalies in human morality where society willingly sacrifices its morals to meet selfish needs. Overall, people’s capacity to effect social change is relative to the prevailing social conditions, their ability to impact critical aspects of the prevailing conflict and their capacity to accept self-sacrifice as morally justifiable. Consequently, moral ambiguity prevails.
Tom Harpur, in his 1990 article in the Toronto Star - "Human dignity must figure in decisions to prolong life" - presents numerous arguments in support of his thesis that the use of advanced medical technology to prolong life is often immoral and unethical, and does not take into consideration the wishes of the patient or their human dignity. However, it must be noted that the opening one-third of the article is devoted to a particular "human interest" story which the author uses to illustrate his broader argument, as well as to arouse pity among readers to support his view that human life should not always be prolonged by medical technology. This opening section suggests that a critical analysis of Harpur 's arguments may find widespread use of logical fallacies in support of the article 's thesis. In this essay I will argue that, given how greatly
Utilitarianism tells us society should be ran on impartiality. Also, that in society justice cannot foreclose the sacrificing the innocent for the good of humanity. I believe in the film Gattaca the happiness or in other the words utility of utilitarianism, of the lives of those deemed invalid was sacrificed. Utilitarianism is also the basic idea that one person’s consciousness is as worthy of consideration as any others. The film Gattaca is about a world where your life is pre-determined by your D.N.A. I will further discuss how the main theme of the film Gattaca, genetic engineering’s role in society, is the root cause of natural fallacy within the new world Gattaca exhibits and does not cure the imperfect world. Then to conclude I will explain how for these same reasons genetic engineering’s use of utilitarian views is a contradiction of utilitarianism.
John Stuart Mill believes in a utilitarian society where people are seen as “things.” Moreover, in utilitarianism the focus of the goal is “forward-looking”, in looking at the consequences but not the ini...
John Stuart Mill argues that the rightness or wrongness of an action, or type of action, is a function of the goodness or badness of its consequences, where good consequences are ones that maximize the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. In this essay I will evaluate the essential features of Mill’s ethical theory, how that utilitarianism gives wrong answers to moral questions and partiality are damaging to Utilitarianism.
Act-utilitarianism is a theory suggesting that actions are right if their utility or product is at least as great as anything else that could be done in the situation or circumstance. Despite Mill's conviction that act-utilitarianism is an acceptable and satisfying moral theory there are recognized problems. The main objection to act-utilitarianism is that it seems to be too permissive, capable of justifying any crime, and even making it morally obligatory to do so. This theory gives rise to the i...
During the mid-nineteenth century in Great Britain, the industrial revolution was in full swing and ideas were beginning to exponentially grow. These philosophical and practical ideas changed the way people thought, worked, and lived their everyday life. A few of the many ideas and inventions that arose were the railroad, steam power, powered machines, and utilitarianism. Utilitarianism was coined by John Stuart Mill and has been a popular way of thinking for over a century. In this paper, I will argue that John Stuart Mill’s idea of utilitarianism provides citizens with freedom along with a strong protection of their rights, and without it people would be oppressed by their government.
Many traditions and values of the American society are beneficial, but some are harmful. Acceptance of utilitarianism will preserve beneficial traditions while replacing the harmful ones. As a result, new traditions, grounded in reason, will emerge, and future generations may wonder how the irrational and unnatural non-utilitarian values had survived for so long.
As a philosophical approach, utilitarianism generally focuses on the principle of “greatest happiness”. According to the greatest happiness principle, actions that promote overall happiness and pleasure are considered as right practices. Moreover, to Mill, actions which enhance happiness are morally right, on the other hand, actions that produce undesirable and unhappy outcomes are considered as morally wrong. From this point of view we can deduct that utilitarianism assign us moral duties and variety of ways for maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain to ensure “greatest happiness principle”. Despite all of moral duties and obligations, utilitarian perspective have many specific challenges that pose several serious threats which constitute variety of arguments in this essay to utilitarianism and specifically Mill answers these challenges in his work. These arguments can be determinated and analyzed as three crucial points that seriously challenges utilitarianism. The first issue can be entitled like that utilitarian idea sets too demanding conditions as to act by motive which always serves maximizing overall happiness. It creates single criterion about “being motived to maximize overall happiness” but moral rightness which are unattainable to pursue in case of the maximizing benefit principle challenges utilitarianism. Secondly, the idea which may related with the first argument but differs from the first idea about single criterion issue, utilitarianism demands people to consider and measuring everything which taking place around before people practice their actions. It leads criticism to utilitarianism since the approach sees human-beings as calculators to attain greatest happiness principle without considering cultural differ...
Mill, J. S., Bentham, J., & Ryan, A. (1987). Utilitarianism and other essays. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books.
In Philosophical Ethics, Utilitarianism is the doctrine that our actions are right if the outcome of our actions generate the greatest happiness amongst the majority. However, in “What is Wrong with Slavery?” some objectors of utilitarianism have tried to dismiss this moral reasoning as to having any importance by blaming the awful actions of slave traders and slave owners on utilitarianism. They attack this doctrine by saying that utilitarianism is a belief system that can either praise or condemn slavery, and utilitarianism easily commend slavery if a majority of the people visualize a slave-owning society as the most beneficial and generate greatest happiness. In this matter, the slave owners and slave traders can say that slavery is the right action because it generates the greatest happiness amongst themselves, because they may be in the illusion that they represent the majority. In response to these anti-utilitarian’s, R.M. Hare defends Unitarianism through the rebuttal of the anti-utilitarian’s claims. Hare agrees that the nature of utilitarianism can either commend or condemn slavery, but a key factor that anti-utilitarians forget is that utilitarianism shows what is wrong with slavery through reasoning, instead of just bluntly saying slavery is wrong without any proof.
As human beings, we often have desires that are not always consistent with yielding the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. Utilitarianism would argue that putting one’s own desires first and pursuing one’s own interests is wrong and immoral behavior. While some moral theories acknowledge that pursuing one’s own interests can be morally optional, in Utilitarianism, it is always forbidden (Moral Theory, p. 135). This makes the theory overly demanding because one is constantly forced to consider others. Utilitarians can respond to this objection by challenging the claim that pursuing one’s own desires cannot ever be consistent with the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. Certainly there can be times when pursuing one’s own desires is also consistent with producing the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. Utilitarians might also point out that moral theories are meant to be demanding because they are teaching individuals how to act morally and acting morally is not always the desirable course of
...terests of all who could be affected by the course our actions. Obviously, as human beings we can never consider all possible choices, calculate and compare consequences quantitatively, and be without bias. Your obligation is to do the best you can, while considering as many choices as possible. One could argue that, amidst the capitalist climate of our current world, utilitarianism calls upon us to look beyond the self for the greater good. Wouldn't it be admirable if all governments could follow this maxim? To conclude on the same point at Mills, “Whether it is so or not, must now be left to the consideration of the thoughtful reader”.