Being a rational being, I have unknowingly as a kid and knowingly, as an adult, been a utilitarianist. I have believed that I should do that which would maximise happiness. And intuitively indeed, general happiness.
So whenever I face a situation where I must choose between doing something for somebody, I consider - is doing this thing for this person more important for him/her than the alternative thing I would have done instead, is for me? And if yes, is the effort involved worth the happiness I will get by helping this person? If the answer is yes, I must do that something for him/her. This works fine sometimes, and sometimes, it just makes me feel like I am..ugh.. a utilitarian bitch. Well, obviously there are exceptions to this rule, when whims, timidity or qualms come into play.
A utilitarian is always faced with a dilemma, for the problem that he is trying to solve cannot be formulated mathematically. He is trying to optimize the happiness, given the constraints. But formulating the objective is a bit of an issue here. For, how can one know, in advance, which option is going to fetch how much happiness? To make things worse, the definition of happiness is not stable. There's a double practical difficulty in the utilitarian's optimization objective - neither the coefficient matrix, nor the parameters are fixed!
And so, the utilitarian goal cannot be achieved. Firstly, because he does not really know what he wants. And secondly, if his limited and demeaning definition of happiness( in case he thinks he can define happiness in a definite way) will change the moment he achieves it, when he realises that its not what he thought, after all!
The only hope of attaining life's goal then, seems to be in defining the goal correctly. And the utilitarian must give up his definition. As long as his goal remains to optimize an undefined quantity, he will never achieve it, never rest in peace. But then, what should the goal be? What is it that I desire? What is it that I am trying to achieve, if not the maximum happiness? And why am I doing it?
Nicely written. But I didn't find your conclusion, reader is left with confusion in the end.
ReplyDeleteGenerally Religion discusses such points!
You would like this to read :
http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_2/vol_2_frame.htm
Of course, there is confusion in the end. The title is a dilemma, I don't have the answer, its not so simple! I am exploring the answer...
ReplyDeleteAnd religion, I believe is like forcing a philosophy, rather than letting people discover theirs...
Religion should never be forced. It is always to help people find their views, find the truth and most importantly to remove the miseries, be it any religion.
ReplyDeleteEven the most intolerant religions on this earth, when you discover them by their early preachers you will find they never pressurized non-followers to believe on their faiths. That way simply cannot succeed. In the end, a healthy mind accepts what it wants to, and rejects the rest.
For the link I mentioned, go to Jnana-yoga, and then the necessity of religion, it discusses the utilitarian view. I posted this because your article reminded me of this one.
I guess we all aim to do things which we believe would bring us fulfillment (which might not be the same as happiness). The utilitarian weighing of options is not a perfect process and to criticise it for not being perfect is unfair I think. It's a process of trial and error - we do things and if we like them, we try and repeat them until they get boring. (In a way, when you do something repeatedly, you are always trying to match that first likable experience you had)
ReplyDeleteI doubt if the world runs on certainties. I've tried to confine it to certainty and failed atleast :)
Do keep writing, I'll try and come back as often as possible (and pick your brains whenever I do :))
(p.s. That quote is by Voltaire, "I may not agree with what you say but I'll defend to death your right to say it.")
About the quote: wiki says the biographist of voltaire wrote it to describe Voltaire. Voltaire said something to that effect, but not in these words. So somebody else said it, but I don't really care, its the words that matter... Wat's in a name?
ReplyDeleteHere is an interesting story i was once told in school: a man walking on a beach notices a lot of jellyfish(or some kind of fish!) have been washed to the shore...and someone must put them back in water to save them from dying. the man starts picking up and throwing 1 jellyfish at a time in the water. another man approaches him and says "sir there are too many fishes here..you cannot possibly help all of them". First man continues throwing fish into the water and replies: " but I just made a difference to this one..and this one..."
ReplyDeletebasically...there probably isnt anything called the ultimate(or max) happiness...but i guess 1 can try to bring happiness to as many people as they possibly can...one at a time...without aspiring for anything. 2 things may result from this:
may be the person you just helped also starts helping other people thus initiating a chain reaction that terminates when the world is full of happy people....
or (as general human nature is) after getting what he/she had been longing for the person is momentarily happy..and then starts coveting for something else - which brings him/her back to unhappy state!
Thinktank, the very dilemma you have described is the biggest critique of utilitarianism - the calculus of the quantity of happiness is an optimization problem of undefined variables. With all the pride of being a rational being, you have still proclaimed yourself to be a 'Utilitarian bitch' :P Btw, there is nothing 'bitchy' about utilitarianism, the followers of it would say, that is the way we are. Hedonism might be a bit closer to the 'bitchy'ness.
ReplyDeleteBut the pride you have in being a supposedly 'rational' being, evident in the opening sentence, is the one that may lead you to an endless frustration, one that you are already aware of as suggested by your blog title, frustration of feeling insane.
So what? Anyway the conclusions have never mattered. Only the questions - those that we try to answer and evolve.
@shas morenzo: First, the title rationality to insanity - says what people perceive me as. It also means that thinking too much might take me from rationality to insanity.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I am proud to be rational, and I am rational enough to acknowledge that my utilitarianism is not worth it, it does not take me to the goal.
Thirdly, feeling like a utilitarian bitch is not reason enough to give utilitarianism up. Its not having a goal is.
And that's the reason I am looking for other philosophies - other aims.
@anusha : Your idea of helping ppl and starting a chain is fine, but the question is, I am a rational and selfish being. I really do not feel that its always worth it to help others. I go towards a goal - my happiness. Unless I am convinced that other's happiness gives me happiness worth the alternatives, I am not motivated to help others. I therefore choose to help others when my time is less valuable, so that then the happiness is worth it.
ReplyDeleteI have pondered a lot on the questions you have raised here, since childhood. But I could never reach any convincing answers until I read BhagawadGita and contemplated on its philosophy in the light of my experiences, science etc. It took a lot of time to even understand what is being tried to be conveyed by Krishna. But, now I seem to have very stable answers to many of the questions you have raised. Still exploring. Many queries still left unanswered though.
ReplyDeleteThe answers to these which I find convincing, are too deep philosophically and scientifically to have any discussion on them, on a web forum. Hence, will give no explanations here.
samjh mein nahi aya theek se :P. I haven't read the comments yet
ReplyDelete