Philoso-PEE #1: Utilitarianism

Special thanks to Hypolite and amphetamine tokyo for commissioning this piece

Utilitarianism is often charged with being many things; a pragmatic or realistic

roadmap to the often complex problems of large-scale ethics, a refutation of
divine or natural law in favor of the rights of man, and even a progressive
avenue for the actualization of animal rights. I take a difference stance on what
it truly is…a bunch of fucking reactionary bullshit.

The face of utilitarianism is Jeremy Bentham. Bentham (whose severed and

preserved head is pictured below…seriously) was a late 18th and early 19th
Century advocate for social reform, influencing philosophers from John Stuart
Mill in the 1900’s up to Peter Singer today. Together, Bentham and Mill
represent the most recognizable utilitarians, and their work advocated a
philosophical tradition typically summed up by the maxim, “the greater good.”
Though the phrase now should induce vomiting in someone who hears it and
conjure tired images of masturbatory Harry Potterisms, at the time many saw
utilitarianism as quite progressive. And in a way it was, Bentham, Mill, and
many utilitarians advocated for women’s suffrage, the abolition of slavery, and
rights for non-human animals. It is, therefore, not so much in the policies that
utilitarians often argued for that one should take umbrage, but in their method.

Old Bitch Ass Shrivelhead

In the most infamous section of his work, Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault,
interrogates the Panopticon, an institutional and architectural mechanism of
control which was designed by Jeremy Bentham. Speaking of the Panopticon,
Foucault writes,
“Each individual, in his place, is securely confined to a cell from which
he is seen from the front by the supervisor; but the side walls prevent
him from coming into contact with his companions. He is seen, but he
does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject
in communication”

Bentham's Panopticon

Made manifest in Foucault’s critique of the Panopticon is the veiled force

implied in utilitarianism itself. On the one hand, utilitarianism destroys
collectivity in favor of the individual that can be more easily coopted, subdued,
and/or managed (this is readily apparent in much of Foucault’s other work,
especially in his writings on Biopolitics). Moreover, the insistence on
individualization as a disciplinary mechanism makes contribution to “the
greater good” the ultimate project of the utilitarian institution. All differences
(gender, race, ability, sexuality, class, etc.) are collapsed under the premise of an
assumed equality. Functionally, what this means is that those who cannot or
choose not to support the system of liberal governance that Bentham clamors
for are cast aside at best, and actively eliminated at worst.

It is, therefore, no accident that most of the fiercest proponents of

utilitarianism are some of the most privileged members of society, at times
downright advocating for genocide. To this, modern day utilitarian, Peter
Singer, in a 2009 New York Times article about the scarcity of health care
resources, argued, “we might conclude that restoring to nondisabled life two
people who would otherwise be quadriplegics is equivalent in value to saving
the life of one person, provided the life expectancies of all involved are
similar.” Putting aside the obvious problems with how one might actually go
about quantifying the value of life, Singer makes apparent the supposed
“deficiency” of disabled life, to him a roughly 2-to-1 relation. Singer frames his
argument as a utilitarian approach to personal well- being (while providing no
actual data from disabled people), but actually only solidifies my earlier point
about one’s productive value (itself a very subjective set of metrics) to society
being a measure of the care one should be entitled to.

It is with these frightening examples in mind that I urge each and every one of
you to reconsider even a possible affiliation with utilitarianism. Life is not a
series of trolley problems, but a complex and interconnected series of ethical
assemblages. Don’t waste your time adhering to a bunch of number-minded
dorks.

- ÃⓊηŤᶤ𝒆 𝔬ε𝒹𝓘ｐｕ𝕊