The malleability of morality

If the arguments of the last six sections have any force, the content of the first order moral system is more malleable, more a matter of choice, than utilitarianism, in any form, makes it appear. It may not, indeed, be more malleable than it really is within a utilitarian view, because of the indeterminacies that

are concealed within such terms as and

but there is no merit in pretending that our choices are rationally constrained in ways that they are not. We are, then, free to mould or remould our moral system so as better to pro-mote whatever it is that we do value.

An extreme illustration of this is provided by Smart's science

U T I L I T A R I A N I S M

fictional pleasure machine. Suppose that there were developed a and easily-operated device for stimulating the pleasure centre in one's brain; people might well spend most of their time hooked up to - and hooked on - such a machine, obtaining pleasure directly instead of obtaining it, as they do at present, only indirectly through sex or sport or social inter-course or books or music or controversy or country walks or a host of other activities and entertainments. In this manner hap-piness, considered as a balance of pleasures over pains, might be maximized: but would this be a desirable state of affairs? We are free to say firmly that we do not so regard it, whereas for the utilitarian this is at least an embarrassment. If he is un-willing to accept this, he has to find some plausible reason for rejecting it. This is, of course, only a variant of M i l l ' s problem about whether it is better to be a fool satisfied or Socrates dissatisfied, which he solved by arguing that pleasures differ in quality as well as in quantity, and that the higher pleasures are preferable to the lower ones. But this is a dodge to escape from a trap in which we need never get caught; there is no good reason for even pretending that our moral system is on the maximizing of happiness or pleasure.

Corresponding embarrassments can be created for the desiresatisfaction version of utilitarianism. We can think of devices -physiological or psychological or propagandist - generating easily-satisfied desires and suppressing awkward and expensive ones. People will be able more fully to get what they desire i f they are made to desire what they are going to get. But we need not equate human well-being w i t h such artificially-maximized satisfaction of desires.

It does not on the other hand, that an individual is free to invent a moral system at will. I f morality is to the of function described in Chapter 5, it must be adopted by a group of people in their dealings with one another.

course, there can be and are larger and smaller social circles.

The rules and principles that govern relations within a relatively small group will in general be more detailed than those that

relations between people who are less intimately 147

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i

involved w i t h one another. The morality, or fragment of a morality, of a small group for its internal relations needs to be accepted, on the whole, by the members of that group: but they can change it as long as they manage to keep fairly well in step with one another. The fragment of a morality that regulates dealings between people who are more remote will be not only less detailed but also much less open to change. But in either case a fragment of a morality has to be a social reality, a going concern, and therefore something that some number of people jointly know of and understand, so that each can rely to some considerable extent on the observance of it. Privately imagined rules or principles of action are worthless. It is idle to point out how good (or how bad) would be the results of every-one's doing such-and-such if there is no likelihood that they will. What counts is rules that are actually recognized by the members of some social circle, large or small, and that thus set up expectations and claims. Innovations and reforms are not excluded, but they must be possibly actual, not purely j

The prescription of a set of rules and principles the general adoption of which would best promote what you value and see as worthwhile, and then follow them yourself,

less of what you think others w i l l may well be a recipe for disaster. The prescription of such a set of rules, and try to secure their general may be impractical.

the individual can do is to remember that there are, in different circles of relationship w i t h which he is concerned, various fragments of a moral system which already tributes very considerably to countering specifiable evils he, like others, will see as evils; that he can at once take advan-tage of this system and contribute to its upkeep; but that may be able, with others, to put pressure on some fragments the system, so that they come gradually to be more favourable J to what he sees as valuable or worthwhile.

Chapter 7 Consequentialism and