Introduction
John Taurek is the most effective critic of Jeremy Bentham’s aspect of morality approval in utilitarian theory. Even though both philosophers were connected with utilitarianism, they had a significant confrontation regarding the fundamental values of their vision: community prevalence. In his theory, Taurek objectively argues that utility is a relative value, and objectively judging individuals cannot consider this factor as definitive. Taurek’s response to Jeremy Bentham would be emphasized the purpose of augmenting the happiness of the community by neglecting the issues of any distinct individual. More specifically, Taurek applies an individualistic approach to resolving the issue of happiness maximization so that the number of people is unimportant. However, the value of individual happiness and particular specifications would be the definitive factors of the decision. For instance, if one person is required to make a prevailing decision between their friend or a group of people who wants to maximize their utility, Taurek would defend those who choose to support their friend. This is because any other individual would make the same decision in a similar situation so that nobody can judge a decision-taking person as an intermediary in any given case. Morality cannot be approved by the tendency to increase the community’s well-being when they are counterparts with personal sufferings. Every individual should be taken into consideration of morality and analyzed in the specific decision-making context to define personal motives and consequences.
Main body
To support one of the utilitarianism analyses, it is critical to fundamentally consider the two philosophical arguments concerning the augmentation of community happiness. On the one hand, Bentham defines the community’s interest as the willingness of distinct individuals to maximize their subjective utility of specific actions so that the overall well-being would be at its peaked. In the study named “Bentham’s binary form of maximizing utilitarianism,” Gustafsson (2017) emphasizes that Bentham’s theory is often misinterpreted due to the non-distinguishing of personal satisfaction and utility maximization. As a result, his claims might be perceived as those that put above satisfaction over the non-suffering of an individual rather than prevailing group interest over a particular willingness to maximize personal utility. On the other hand, Taurek’s vision of utilitarianism is focused on avoiding personal sufferings or prevailing the group interest instead of utility maximization. More specifically, Wasserman (2021) represents in their research named “How to compromise on saving the most lives: A commentary on Hellman and Nicholson” one of the most specified opinions about the nature of the individualistic approach to utilitarianism. In fact, the author claims that Taurek notices the absence of the purpose of maximizing the general utility by the decision-makers. Any personal desires should be counted even though they might be confronted by a group of people. As a result, there should be no group prevalence since, in this case, minority groups would always be sacrificed for the utility maximization of the majority.
In my opinion, even though Taurek’s vision is more equitable, I would agree that Bentham’s theory is more adapted to social realities. As a result, I would admit that in standard situations, people would prevail community’s well-being over individual suffering with the clause that a decision-taking person would not be affected by the result. This claim is limited to the exposure of particular cases that might influence the decision maker’s motives, such as prevailing close people to the rest of the community or being reimbursed by considering one of the socially-inequitable decisions. This is due to the fact that Taurek criticizes common happiness as an estimating concept by adjusting the situation to different parameters that make Bentham’s theory self-contradicting and non-realistic.
For example, by identifying the less numbered party as a preferred one, which might be a close person, Taurek prevails one willingness and appreciation over the group of others. With the same intentions, this practice might be considered immoral since this vision would morally justify slavery, where a white person considered the life of another white person as more ‘valuable’ than a group of African American representatives’ lives. Consequently, many theories might be turned into self-contradiction when applying specific situations or criteria that change the initial logic of actions. Taurek provided objectively logical and effective critics of utilitarianism in terms of community happiness definition but did not demonstrate the alternative vision that would fit all the particular situations, so it cannot be considered as a general theory.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would admit that Taurek effectively criticized Bentham’s approach to defining utilitarianism in communities in terms of providing the logical analysis of particular cases and putting the minority interests on the same scale of importance as the majority ones. At the same time, after analyzing Taurek’s critics, I would consider Bentham’s general interest prevalence as the more realistic and general case. Due to the impossibility of investigating all the particular instances in the one theory, the utilitarianism approach should be presented in initial Bentham’s form and adjusted to Taurek’s explanations when it comes to explaining the non-general cases where the individual motives were misaligned.
References
Gustafsson, J. E. (2017). Bentham’s binary form of maximizing utilitarianism. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 26(1), 87–109. Web.
Wasserman, D. (2021). How to compromise on saving the most lives: A commentary on Hellman and Nicholson, “Rationing and Disability.” Washington and Lee Law Review Online, 78(1), 182–191. Web.