Contrasting S/P reasoning with Utilitarian Philosophy

One way of making clear the purpose and method of Socratic reasoning is to contrast it with a type of moral thinking called "utilitarianism." The British philosophers Jeremy Bentham and James Mill are generally thought to be the modern pioneers developing and popularizing this point of view.
    Utilitarianism is the view that what makes behavior morally good is that it promotes the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Here are some major contrasts in the aims and methods of utilitarian philosophical thinking.

#1. Utilitarianism is primarily concerned with social and political questions: What rules should we teach to people to produce the best kind of society? What should be the ultimate aim of political institutions and laws that will be enforced on all? What kind of rules would I like other people to follow, to make them most pleasant for me to be with? What should I do, to do my part to make life most pleasant for other people?
    The concern motivating S/P reasoning is the concern for fundamental life-questions, addressed on an individual level. It assumes an idealistic individual who wants to life not just an OK life, but a great life. What is it that is going to make my life a great life? What for me will make the difference between a great life, a mediocre life, and a wasted life? At the end of my life, what will I want to look back on as what it is that I can be most proud of, what will have made my life a great life? What do I want on my tombstone?
    A person engaged in S/P reasoning must play the part of someone who thinks that her own admirable character -- the kind of person she is, with particular "virtues" she has -- is the thing that she can be most proud of. A "virtue" consists in the habitual motives, attitudes, skills, priorities for concern and attention that make up a person's character. A virtue spontaneously manifests itself in admirable behavior when the situation calls for it.
    A virtue-concept is something you yourself would want to use for self-evaluation (not evaluating others.)  What can you be justly proud of? Which of your feelings of worthlessness or meaninglessness are justified, and which are not? Using a virtue-concept for self-evaluation is different, for example, from letting things beyond your control serve as the basis for your sense of self-worth and meaning in life. For example, habitual concern to promote the good of all might be a virtue-concept I could use for self-evaluation. It doesn't seem good to feel I am worthless and my life is meaningless if I try hard but fail to actually benefit many people because of circumstances beyond my control.


#2. Utilitarian reasoning is a kind of "deductive" reasoning. Deductive moral reasoning assumes that general moral principles are what we can be most sure about. General moral principles define the nature of moral goodness, so whatever is in accord with the general principles are good by definition.
    Utilitarianism tries to establish a single moral principle by which to define moral goodness: "Moral goodness consists in promoting the greatest good for the greatest number." Once accepted, moral reasoning just consists in deducing particular conclusions from this general principle -- i.e. showing what conduct would be prescribed by this principle in any particular situation one wants to consider. If personal perceptions in particular cases conflict with what the general principle says, the personal perceptions must be mistaken.
    S/P reasoning by contrast is a kind of "inductive" reasoning. Inductive moral reasoning assumes that personal moral perceptions in specific cases are what we can be most sure about. General principles, or general virtue-concepts, are only trustworthy to the extent that they are generalizations from -- generalizations based on -- such perceptions in specific concrete cases. If some new perception occurs in a very clear case ("counterexample") which conflicts with some general principle previously arrived at, the presumption should be that this shows a weakness and imperfection in the general principle (not that the perception is mistaken because it conflicts with the general principle.)  General principles and general concepts are always what are to be put in question in the light of counterexample-stories.


#3. Taken completely seriously, utilitarianism is Absolutist. It proposes a single principle as the one and only definition of moral goodness. Cast in virtue-terms, it says that concern to promote the greatest good for the greatest number is the only virtue there is, the only character-trait that can make a person an admirable person leading an admirable life. Other so-called virtues are only admirable insofar as they promote the greatest good for the greatest number.
    The "inductive" character of S/P reasoning necessarily results in a virtue-pluralism. S/P reasoning is ultimately based on personal perceptions of what is admirable and not-admirable in the case of clear concrete stories. Since there are so many possible stories illustrating so many admirable character-traits, it is impossible to limit ahead of time the number of virtues there might be, or to exclude some possible virtue on the grounds that it falls outside some general principle one has decided on as the single definition of what a virtue is.
*********


    Platonism and utilitarianism are not completely incompatible.
    First, an habitual concern to promote the greatest good for the greatest number is one possible virtue, one possible admirable character-trait. Treatment of this as a virtue would need to focus on the central Platonist question:
    That kind of concern to promote the greatest good that is admirable, what is the essence of what makes it admirable?
    The essence of this concern as a virtue can't consist in a set of rules for what such a person does, external behavior perceivable from the outside. It must consist in something internal and invisible, such as motives, attitudes, skills, priorities for attention and concern. So a Socratic discussion of this virtue would have to focus ultimately on answering questions like:
-- What is the best kind of motivation that motivates this kind of concern?
-- What skills does a person need to cultivate to improve the quality of her concern to promote the greatest good?
 

Secondly, one could consider that Utilitarianism and Platonism address different questions, and serve different purposes. For example: A person could be a utilitarian for social and political purposes, holding that "promote the greatest good of the greatest number" is the best basis for political institutions and laws to be passed. The same person could be a Platonist on a more personal and individual basis, concerned about her own internal transformation, becoming a different and better person inside, with better habitual internal motivations, skills, and attitudes.  Most likely such a person would regard "concern for the greatest good of all" as just one among many virtues she would want to cultivate -- along with other virtues that she might cultivate just for personal fulfillment for its own sake (such as being a creative artist, being a great lover, love for wild nature, and so on).
    "Absolutist" utilitarianism would necessarily exclude all supposed virtues that are not social-virtues, virtues not directly beneficial to other people, or not cultivated only because they are beneficial to others. The early Buddhist spirituality we will be studying next focuses entirely on such non-social virtues.
    In this connection, students who want to pursue the history of utilitarian philosophy further might want to consider the case of John Stuart Mill. James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill, was a prominent utilitarian philosopher, and raised his son according to this philosophy. He did produce a prodigy of learning and dedication to public service. But his philosophy gave no place to emotion, and John Stuart Mill had a nervous breakdown in his early twenties. Following this, after having been a public proponent of his father's philosophy, John Stuart discovered the importance of things like poetry and romantic love excluded from his father's thought. He also spoke a great deal of the importance of "self-cultivation," cultivating one's own inner life for its own sake. He did not give up entirely on utilitarianism, but broadened the concept of what constitutes "the greatest good of all." Whereas Jeremy Bentham and James Mill tended to define "the greatest good" as the greatest pleasure of all, John Stuart Mill broadened to concept to include virtue itself. Designing a society on this broadened utilitarian principle meant producing a social environment most conducive to the development of virtue on the part of all citizens -- the virtue of "personal autonomy" (thinking and deciding for oneself) being the primary virtue that he valued most.