Philosophical Review

Morality and Utility by Jan NarvesonReview by: Thomas E. Hill, Jr.The Philosophical Review, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Oct., 1969), pp. 547-549Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2184214 .

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BOOK REVIEWS

MORALITY AND UTILITr. By JAN NARVESON. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, i967. PP. ix, 302. $7.50.

Mr. Narveson has set himself the formidable task of rescuing utili- tarianism both from critics and from recent advocates. The history of utilitarianism since Mill and Sidgwick, he believes, has been un- fortunate. Mistaken objections have become widely accepted, and their acceptance has given undue support to Moore's "ideal" utilitarianism and to various forms of "rule" utilitarianism. Narveson contends that these theories are themselves open to serious objection and that the modifications which they introduce are unnecessary. Their plausibility rests upon the fact that they seem to meet standard objections to older forms of the utility principle, but these objections, Narveson argues, are the result of misunderstanding and misapplication of the principle. The main aim of the book is to explain and defend a version of this principle of "act" utilitarianism. Narveson believes that his formulation is more or less in accord with the intentions of Bentham and Mill, but he says that he is more concerned to show its truth than to establish its heritage. His defense of the principle has two parts: first, a re- examination of a long list of now familiar objections to utilitarianism and, second, an argument designed to "establish the theory all at once."

The utility principle is stated in general terms as follows: "One alternative has more objective moral value than another if and only if it produces a greater net amount of what is valued by those affected than the other produces" (p. 93). The term "moral value" here stands in for both "morally obligatory" and "morally good," which are dis- tinguished later. Roughly, an act is obligatory, rather than merely good, for a person to do if its omission warrants the use of "negative reinforcement" by others-that is, if such use has more moral value than any alternative. An important feature of the general principle is that, unlike Moore's, it makts no mention of what is intrinsically good. What counts for moral purposes, according to the principle, is not what (if anything) is intrinsically valuable but rather what par- ticular men value for its own sake.

Several traditional ways of classifying moral theories are rejected. For example, the distinction often made between psychological and ethical hedonism, with "egoistic" and "universalistic" subdivisions, is challenged as suggesting the misleading picture of utilitarianism as a "philosophy of life" and as distorting the premises on which early utilitarians based their principle. What is called "psychological hedon-

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BOOK REVIEWS

ism," Narveson argues, is not really a psychological theory. It is vacuously true, if true at all. Similarly, he charges that the usual way of distinguishing "teleological" and "formalist" theories is confused. According to this, he says, theories are teleological if they determine the moral value of an act by its consequences and formalist if they require the moral value to be determined by the "intrinsic nature" of the act. Narveson contends, however, that even utilitarianism, the paradigm teleological theory, is compatible with the belief that certain acts are morally good (obligatory or wrong) on account of their "in- trinsic nature." Moreover, he maintains that virtually all of the standard counterexamples to utilitarianism involve acts of this kind. His point is that the very description of some acts (for example, as instances of promise-keeping, gratitude, reparation, lying, or stealing) implies that they are x-producing, where x counts as utility. Thus to describe acts as of these kinds implies that they are prima facie good, obligatory, or wrong by the utility principle (supplemented with inter- pretative principles).

This last contention is not of course sufficient by itself to dismiss the usual counterexamples. These are discussed more specifically in the last half of the book. Although this discussion deserves attention, the result, I think, is disappointing. For example, Narveson argues unconvincingly for the principle that "we are never justified in harm- ing the innocent in order to benefit others" (p. i64). This plays an essential part in his reply to several objections. The first step in the argument for this principle is an attempt to show that a utilitarian would necessarily classify his own desires to harm others as intrinsically illegitimate, other things equal. (This qualification, which apparently means "unless for a greater benefit for others," is discarded later.) Why should this be so? The reason offered is this. Since having a moral principle presupposes a readiness to classify some of one's desires as illegitimate, a utilitarian must be willing to discount some of his desires. Which ones? Since, as a utilitarian, he desires the greatest happiness of the greatest number, the paradigm of illegitimate desires for him would be a desire to harm others. This conclusion, however, is unwarranted. The desires which a utilitarian should discount are desires to do what, all considered, is incompatible with the utility principle. To identify these with desires to harm others is to beg the question at issue-namely, whether acting to satisfy a desire to harm others is always condemned by the principle of utility.

Narveson wisely doubts that we should try to balance the satis- faction a person gets from harming another against the suffering of his

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BOOK REVIEWS

innocent victim. He contends, less convincingly, that a utilitarian viewpoint allows, and even requires, us to discount the first sort of satisfaction at the outset of moral deliberation. He seems to find support for this in the consideration that acting (successfully) on a desire to harm another is, by its very description, disutility-producing and so is, for a utilitarian, prima facie bad "on account of its intrinsic nature." Unfortunately, this reflection gives us no reason for refusing to attach weight to the satisfaction of desires to harm others. In fact, a similar line of argument points the other way: since the acts in question are also necessarily acts of satisfying a desire to harm another, they are, by their description, satisfaction-producing, and satisfaction is a positive utility. It follows that they are also, for a utilitarian, prima facie good on account of their intrinsic nature. Thus we have, so far, as much utilitarian reason to act on our desires to harm others as to discount, or to suppress, them.

In his defense of utilitarianism, Narveson touches on a wide range of recent work in ethics. His arguments and interpretations sometimes seem rough and hurried, but the approach is critical, honest, and original. Even if, as I suspect, he is often trying to defend the in- defensible, his book should stir up a useful debate.

THOMAS E. HILL, JR.

University of California, Los Angeles

IN DEFENSE OF FREE WILL: WITH OTHER PHILOSOPHICAL ESSArS. By C. A. CAMPBELL. New York, Humanities Press, i967. Pp. 277. $7.50.

The writings of C. A. Campbell are important because they are contemporary statements of some classical philosophical positions which are seldom heard today. The present work is a reprinting of twelve essays written from I935 to i962. Eight are on moral philos- ophy, five on the philosophy of knowledge. In them we find defended libertarianism on the question of free will and determinism, self- realization as an ethical position, and an idealist epistemology. His method of doing philosophy relies heavily upon the data of psycho- logical introspection, which is out of fashion in philosophy today, but his essays contain arguments against contemporary objections and contain critical analyses of alternative positions, which make them important contributions to the ongoing dialectic of philosophy. He

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