Introduction:
„Jim and the Indians“ is a fictional case meant to show problems with utilitarianism: Jim comes upon a group of Indians held at gunpoint by soldiers, who plan to kill them to set an example. Jim is given a choice: kill one Indian and the others will live, or refuse, and all will be killed. The author notes that the utilitarian response to such a situation is not obvious; he concludes that the utilitarian could not easily provide Jim with useful advice.
Jim has accepted Pedro’s offer, and been convicted of murder. He has been given the lightest possible penalty on account of the circumstances. Write (a) a short motivation for the sentence from the point of view of the judge; (b) Jim’s appeal against the sentence.
a)
The certainty that utilitarian consequentialism determines one act as uniquely right in scenarios like Jim and the indians makes it very hard to give another action more sense, because decisions look more clearly on the consequentialist view. The human nature is dynamic and the norm of its moral attitudes change from time to time. What about people who disagree to live with the common thoughts? The assumption utilitarian consequentialism is commonly right, and this is basically what Jim thought, would premise everybody agreed to accept its principles. However, we have to reject any moral system that leads to actions which are unacceptable within a society and may stimulates inequality, like a murder. The problem we encounter here is the fact that within any community exist different types of moral system, but usually only one legal system.
There can not be only one system which fits all affected interests of all society members equally. So, on the point of his view of utilitarian consequentialism, Jim was obviously expected to shoot one of the indians. Jim thought in his unfortunate situation that this act is the right decision. Williams argued that there is a crucial moral distinction between somebody being murdered by Jim, and being murdered my someone else, because Jim does not interfere. The man who follows the utilitarian consequentialism doctrine loses that distinction.1 This means it may encourages people to undertake inhuman actions, because we do not care about the consequences which are caused by our particular actions. It is humanly impossible if Jim should have no regrets about the murder of the indian, otherwise it leads to the increasing loss of the moral status. So Williams argued «that moral decisions must preserve our psychological identity and integrity».2 If we ignore our psychological skills we would lose without any doubt an important aspect we need to make a fair judgement towards an action. But this is necessary, because through judgment we can calculate our actions more extensive, so we can decide wheter an action is conform to our reflective thoughts, or not. Another problem that occurs with utilitarian consequentialism is that this concept reduces the making of moral decisions to a few algorithms.3
Jim’s situation is a scenario which demands not to be ensnared by simplistic answers. Hence, the reduction makes moral decisions looking too much obvious and presents outcomes that may are based on superficial criteria. This means, such a doctrine could mislead to undesirable attitudes that may provoke actions that are wrong ultimately, for instance the kill of the indian. So, this would definitely not be what we expect of a person like Jim in the sense of what we call good or right, because this is an absolutely unacceptable and inhuman action. Therefore, utilitarian consequentialism must be wrong.
b)
It was an extraordinary situation, in which I had fallen due to unfortunate external circumstances during one of my expeditions. I would like to point out this situation was not set up by me. So what were the possibilities I had to choose from? The attempt to take the gun is the worst case which causes the murder of myself and the indians standing on the wall, because Pedro implicates. I even had the daredevil idea to defence myself directly against Pedro and to take off the gun from him to kill him. This would might be a surprising shock for his rebels who will escape afterwards I took over the control of the situation. Then, with his gun in my hands, I would have the ability to release myself as well as each one of the indians. This sounds very nice, but what shall I do if Pedro’s rebels will open the fire immediately? It also ends with my death and the murder of the indians. Finally, this is no serious option too.
So what still remains? I can not just walk away due to personal psychological reasons. If I would do so, I am guilty of a mass murder. This is the reason why my conscience tells me ‘do not walk away’. Moreover, walking away would have huge material impacts to the indians, they will be killed by Pedro and his rebels after I am gone. Thus, I stayed on the square. It was utterly obvious to me there is no more hope in terms of a sudden external event out there that can save me in this situation. So I had to begin looking for more practicable solutions. From my perspective, I felt responsible to do something, so I eventually decided that the best possible option in this specific dilemma is to accept captain Pedro’s offer. This decision, to shoot one guy of the indians, appeared more reasonable to me, because saving all other lives easily outweigh the consequences by killing the one. It may objected that a murder is a huge wrong thing to do, but once faced with such a tragedy, I was forced to start seeking for an answer.
On the view of utilitarian consequentialism I can claim it was the best decision to take the gun to shoot one of the indians. This is because it has both less psychological effects to me as well as the smallest possible material consequences to the indians, because most of them survived. It seemed to me that this decision would lead to the best possible result achievable and bring the highest happiness to all people who are involved by my action. Therefore, utilitarian consequentialism must be right.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, there is to state that utilitarian consequentialism does not always recommend the right action we are most convenient with, because it does not automatically lead to act for the greater good. As mentioned, it seems simple for one individual to justify actions based on this moral theory, but there may remain a conflict with the common thoughts regarding the question how we accomplish the greatest good for the greatest number.
Bibliography:
1 ‘Williams Bernard, in J. J. C. Smart and B. Williams (1973) Utilitarianism: For and Against, Cambridge University Press’.
2 ‘ibid.’.
3 ‘Williams Bernard (1985) Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Harvard University Press’.
Dieser Text entstand im dreimonatigen Online-Kurs „Introduction to Philosophy“ am Department for Continuing Education der University of Oxford. Nominierung für den Oxford Philosophical Society Student Essay Prize.
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