Here’s Bryan Caplan:
I say utilitarianism is utterly crazy. After all, as Huemer previously told us:
It’s worth taking a moment to appreciate how extreme the demands of utilitarianism really are. If you have a reasonably comfortable life, the utilitarian would say that you’re obligated to give away most of your money. Not so much that you would starve, of course (because if you literally starve, that’ll prevent you from giving away any more!). But you should give up any non-necessary goods that you’re buying, so you can donate the money to help people whose basic needs are not met. There are always plenty of such people. To a first approximation, you have to give until there is no one who needs your money more than you do.
If that’s not crazy, what is?
It seems to me that there are two types of utilitarianism. One type treats utilitarianism as a compassionate but authoritarian religion, demanding that people behave in such a way as to maximize aggregate utility. A second type of utilitarianism is a sort of policy guide or an aspirational religion if you prefer. It describes what we should do to make the world a better place.
To be sure, it’s not completely obvious that the world would be a happier place if I gave away almost all of my money to the poor. There are various costs and benefits to income redistribution. But it’s certainly plausible that the world would be happier if I gave much more money to charity. So for the moment let’s take that as a given. Would utilitarianism then “demand” that I do so? Not my version, which is not the authoritarian religious version.
When Bryan says that behaving in such a way that the world is a happier place is “crazy”, I don’t think he’s saying it would necessarily be a bad thing, rather that it’s unrealistic to expect people to behave that way. Most people are partly selfish and partly altruistic, and thus it’s a bit unrealistic to assume (or “demand”) that people behave as if they are 100% altruistic. That doesn’t mean that being 100% altruistic would be a bad thing, just that one doesn’t observe many people with that sort of personality.
Most people wish to be healthy, but for selfish reasons almost everyone occasionally does things that are unhealthy. Most people wish to be altruistic, but altruism is costly. For this reason, most people exhibit a mixture of selfish and altruistic behavior. For instance, altruism is my only motivation for voting—I don’t actually expect my vote to impact my personal life. So I vote on an altruistic basis—why else would I even bother to show up at the polls? If I were so selfish that I voted for my personal interests, then I wouldn’t bother voting at all.
On the other hand, selfishness is my motivation for not giving more money to charity. (As an aside, the share of your income that you give to charity isn’t really what counts, what matters is the share of your lifetime income that you and your heirs eventually consume.)
I do understand that there is another form of utilitarianism. The version that makes “demands” says that Jeff Bezos should move to a simple room in a monastery and donate his $160 billion to charity. In my version, while the world would be a better place if Bezos were to do this (perhaps), I don’t really expect him to behave this way. If instead he spends $10 billion on consumption and then when he dies donates the other $150 billion to charity, then that’s also fine with me. Not optimal, but I am pretty realistic about human nature. Most of us are a mixture of selfish and altruistic motives.
What if Bezos spent all $160 billion on consumption and didn’t give anything to charity? That’s why I favor a progressive consumption tax. Indeed I favor setting the tax rates at a level that maximizes aggregate utility. On the other hand, I don’t favor a tax system that is so punitive that it reduces most of us to poverty, as I worry that it would so distort incentives that it would even fail in its goal of boosting aggregate utility.
Unlike Bryan, I don’t regard even the “compassionate but authoritarian religion” version of utilitarianism as being crazy. Indeed there are some popular real world religions that make equally unrealistic “demands” of their adherents, without kicking them out of the church when they (inevitably) fall short. Think about a religion that demands that you love your fellow human beings, even if they murdered one of your family members. Not easy to do, is it?
Although I am not religious, I would never call a religion like Christianity crazy just because it’s almost impossible for any normal human being to live exactly as Jesus suggested we should live. Indeed, Jesus might well have agreed with those more demanding utilitarians who insist that the rich should give most of their wealth to the poor. So why the double standard? Why demand more of utilitarianism than we demand of various popular religious creeds?
All utilitarianism is actually saying is that the world would be a better place if people behaved in such a way as to boost aggregate happiness. And that’s true! The fact that it’s difficult to always behave that way doesn’t change that truth.
READER COMMENTS
Kevin Dick
Jul 9 2021 at 4:03pm
I also did not notice a discussion of act vs rule utilitarianism. IIRC, you have made good points on the importance of this distinction in the past.
It seems to me that, at least in the US, the implicit assumption in most policy discussions is that we are using rule utilitarianism.
Scott Sumner
Jul 9 2021 at 6:33pm
In my view, rules utilitarianism is not a separate ideology, it’s an implication of utilitarianism more broadly. If having a 1st amendment makes society happier than not having this blanket rule, then by all means have the rule,
Kevin Dick
Jul 9 2021 at 6:50pm
I must be misremembering your position then.
Act and rules utilitarianism give you rather different prescriptions, as your example of free speech shows.
Under act, each instance of speech is only justified if it individually survives a cost benefit test. And from the government’s perspective, it’s potentially justified in suppressing any particular instances of speech that don’t.
Under rule, it is as you say, whether society is better off with a blanket rule.
But the distinction seems pretty substantial in practice.
Scott Sumner
Jul 10 2021 at 12:04am
Yes, act utilitarianism is different from rules utilitarianism. But it’s an empirical question as to which one is more akin to actual utilitarianism. In my view, rules utilitarianism is likely to give you better results.
If rules give you better results, then rules utilitarianism is true utilitarianism
Kevin Dick
Jul 10 2021 at 2:19pm
Ahh. Yes. Then I am remembering your position correctly.
Then this seems like a pretty big, unaddressed criticism of Bryan’s position on utilitarianism.
John Hall
Jul 9 2021 at 4:44pm
I always get a little uncomfortable with interpersonal comparisons of utility. How do they really know that me giving up some of my money to someone else will maximize utility? Is there not an endowment effect where we care more about things we own than random other things? We should take people’s revealed preferences seriously.
Scott Sumner
Jul 9 2021 at 6:30pm
John, Sure, that’s quite plausible. Those are just some of the many reasons why I favor much less redistribution than many progressives, who often underestimate the costs of redistribution.
nobody.really
Jul 12 2021 at 4:58pm
??
Imagine a mugger takes your wallet, watch, and cellphone–and that you do not engage in muggings. Would this demonstration of revealed preference lead you to conclude that the mugger’s conduct resulted in a socially optimal redistribution of wealth?
David Seltzer
Jul 9 2021 at 5:16pm
Should, the modal verb, is normative. Obligated? Who determines that I’m obligated to give my earnings and wealth away? The state? As I see it, I’m NOT duty bound to provide for another. That does not mean I won’t be charitable. In terms of amiable morality, I voluntarily assume helping those to whom I am close. In terms of mundane morality, my consumption enhances societal utility.
Scott Sumner
Jul 9 2021 at 6:31pm
I’d add that the poor understand this as well. Interview almost any poor person and they’ll tell you that if they had a million dollars, they wouldn’t give 95% of the money to charity.
John Alcorn
Jul 9 2021 at 11:34pm
Re:
In a world of pure altruists, aggregate utility is zero. For altruism to produce utility, the recipient must be at least partly selfish. Even “warm glow” altruism depends on this.
Scott Sumner
Jul 10 2021 at 12:07am
“In a world of pure altruists, aggregate utility is zero. ”
I don’t agree. Altruists can also value their own utility. I define altruists as people that try to maximize aggregate utility, including their own.
John Alcorn
Jul 10 2021 at 12:28am
Why conflate altruism and utilitarianism? In standard usage, the two concepts (and psychologies) are distinct. Altruism is other-regarding. (Root: alter = other.)
Of course, you are welcome to stipulate your own definitions.)
Scott Sumner
Jul 10 2021 at 1:03pm
I think my use is actually pretty standard. If you find someone who regards the well-being of others as equally important to their own well being, almost everyone would regard that person as being altruistic. Indeed, that’s being unusually altruistic.
You are right that it doesn’t work in the other direction–altruism doesn’t equate to utilitarianism. Thus someone who regarded the welfare of others as being 25% more important than their own welfare would be regarded as highly altruistic but not utilitarian. But nothing in my post hinges on utilitarianism being the only valid definition of altruism.
John Alcorn
Jul 10 2021 at 1:04am
Your definition of altruism as utilitarianism in the comment doesn’t square with a standard-usage distinction that you draw in your blog post:
Tiago Ribeiro dos Santos
Jul 12 2021 at 1:08pm
I think it would still be bad because people have a lot more information on how they can improve their own lives than on how they can improve other people’s lives. So caring more for oneself than others is consequence of utilitarianism.
nobody.really
Jul 12 2021 at 5:15pm
Oh, I expect we could find exceptions to this proposition. Through my altruism to you, I generate biproducts that are of no use to me, but are of use to your altruism. Through your altruism to me, you generate biproducts that are of no use to you, but are of use to my altruism. I expect we might each act with pure altruism, yet enhance each other’s “warm glow” utility.
But more generally, I think there’s something to what Alcorn says. I’ve sometimes wondered if, in a highly self-actualized world, the biggest challenge will be helping people find purpose to their lives. In such a world, people with EXACTING standards would become prized because they would be among the last people driving demand. In contrast, ascetic monks would be shunned; by being so self-contained, they contribute nothing to help their fellow man feel useful.
John Alcorn
Jul 9 2021 at 11:45pm
Re:
A standard answer is: To cast an expressive vote. Another standard answer is: To conform. As far as I can tell, these motives are commonplace; and are often intertwined.
Scott Sumner
Jul 10 2021 at 12:05am
In my view, those are truly dumb reasons to vote. But I agree that this is what motivates some people.
Andrew_FL
Jul 10 2021 at 1:01am
There is no such thing as aggregate happiness
Scott Sumner
Jul 10 2021 at 1:04pm
But there is perceived aggregate happiness, which is what matters for policy.
Mark Z
Jul 10 2021 at 4:53am
Is it really altruistic to vote? Taking the time it takes to vote (especially if you count the time it takes to learn enough to make an informed decision that isn’t close to being a coin flip) to volunteer at a homeless shelter or even work as an Uber driver and donate the proceeds to charity may benefit the world more. Even the joy you get from doing something else likely exceeds (in some states, certainly exceeds by a few orders of magnitude) the value to society of voting. I can’t imagine utilitarianism demands one be so altruistic as to give up 10 utils so that someone else may get 1 util.
Scott Sumner
Jul 10 2021 at 1:06pm
I believe that the value to society of democracy greatly exceeds the aggregate cost of voting.
Alan Goldhammer
Jul 10 2021 at 7:33am
I see this type of statement a lot. It’s often used by those who favor low tax rates. Unfortunately, a “punitive tax system” is seldom defined. Remember the outrage at the tax hike that came early in the Clinton Administration? All the usual suspects were claiming this would be the end of growth, yet we saw strong economic growth throughout the remainder of the Clinton term. The Bush-2 and Trump tax cuts were not accopanied by run away growth despite the claims made during the legislative debates.
It’s critical that statements such as the one quoted above be accompanied by sound definitions and reasoning. IMO, it’s nigh to impossible to predict a priori (except at the very edges) what type of distortion any tax system will bring. Certainly raising the rates on capital gains or eliminating the carried interest loophole will not “reduce most of us to poverty.”
Scott Sumner
Jul 10 2021 at 1:09pm
I favor eliminating the carried interest loophole but I don’t favor raising the cap gains rate. So I view each issue on a case by case basis, and use cost benefit analysis. I don’t see any other reasonable approach. Do you have an alternative approach?
BC
Jul 10 2021 at 8:44am
“When Bryan says that behaving in such a way that the world is a happier place is ‘crazy’, I don’t think he’s saying it would necessarily be a bad thing, rather that it’s unrealistic to expect people to behave that way.”
I think Bryan is critiquing utilitarianism as a moral or ethical standard, i.e., that it’s crazy to consider it immoral or unethical for Bezos not to give almost all of his wealth away. That’s more than just saying it’s unrealistic. When you say that you don’t expect Bezos to give away almost all his wealth and that you’re “fine” with that, do you mean that you don’t expect Bezos to act morally and that you’re fine with some immorality? For example, suppose one didn’t deploy the most advanced security system to stop theft because it would be too expensive. One might say that one is “fine” with a little theft because it’s too expensive to stop even though one still believes that theft is immoral. However, many people, including Bryan I think, wouldn’t find Bezos’s refusal to give away almost all his wealth to be immoral. They might think that Bezos “deserves” to consume his wealth because he earned it by providing valuable consumption to others or they might just believe that people have moral natural rights to property. Then, that would imply that there is more to morality than simply acting to maximize global utility.
Scott Sumner
Jul 10 2021 at 1:24pm
BC, You said:
“When you say that you don’t expect Bezos to give away almost all his wealth and that you’re “fine” with that, do you mean that you don’t expect Bezos to act morally and that you’re fine with some immorality?”
This is almost a textbook example of the connotation of words getting in the way of clear thinking. “Immorality” has a literal meaning, and also a (quite different) connotation.
Suppose I park somewhere and put a quarter in the parking meter. Then I overstay the hour I’ve purchased. I’ve broken the law, and should be punished by the meter maid if I’m caught. Is my action “wrong”? Yes, obviously. Am I behaving in an “immoral” way? It depends if you use ‘immorality’ in a literal sense of doing something wrong, or with the everyday connotation of “a great evil”. Parking violations are not great evils.
I’m fine with people being guilty of a few parking violations, but I also think people who are caught should be fined. I’m fine with people being somewhat selfish with their vast wealth, but also think there should be a progressive consumption tax, a sort of “fine” or sanction on selfish wealthy people.
Spencer Hall
Jul 11 2021 at 11:41am
Utilitarianism means driving the banks out of the savings business, perpetuating the circular flow of income not spent. That is the error in macro.
In “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”, John Maynard Keynes’ opus “, pg. 81 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.), gives the impression that a commercial bank is an intermediary type of financial institution (non-bank), serving to join the saver with the borrower when he states that it is an “optical illusion” to assume that “a depositor & his bank can somehow contrive between them to perform an operation by which savings can disappear into the banking system so that they are lost to investment, or, contrariwise, that the banking system can make it possible for investment to occur, to which no savings corresponds.”
In almost every instance in which Keynes wrote the term “bank” in the General Theory, it is necessary to substitute the term non-bank in order to make Keynes’ statement correct.
This is the source of the pervasive error that characterizes the Keynesian economics, the Gurley-Shaw thesis, the elimination of Reg Q ceilings, the DIDMCA of March 31st, 1980, the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982, the Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act of 2006, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, sec. 128. “acceleration of the effective date for payment of interest on reserves”, etc.
dmm
Jul 11 2021 at 3:00pm
Simple egalitarian wealth distribution is in no way, shape or form “utilitarianism”, although some would have everyone think so.
“Utilitarian” public policy is bunk. It is the province of the paternalistic, egotistical egalitarian, who believes he knows what actions will make other people (and even himself) happy IN THE LONG RUN.
The unseen lurks in the shadows.
Tiago
Jul 12 2021 at 11:35am
Great post. You are one of the few people who consistently point out the difference in the substance of an ethical theory (“what makes an action ethical”) and the demand for ethical behavior (“how adherent one should be to those ethics”). As you point out, it is perfectly possible to be a deontologist and think it is never ethical to lie, or switch the path of a trolley when it would kill someone, etc, but still deviate from it because people do not follow their ethical theories all of the time.
I would go even further. What I like about utilitarianism is that it brings everything together. The very fact that it would be crazy to expect (or worse, demand) that Bezos donate everything he has to charity makes such a demand non-utilitarian by definition. If we start to live in a world in which everybody demands that all people are treated by everyone with the exact same priority, the total amount of happiness would significantly decline, thereby refuting that such a strategy was utilitarian in the first place. The utilitarian view is the one that maximizes happiness when everything, including people’s natural selfishness, is considered.
Scott Sumner
Jul 14 2021 at 5:39pm
Good point.
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