Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

Humanism indeed has a utilitarian flavor, or at least a consequentialist one, in which acts and policies are morally evaluated by their consequences. The consequences needn’t be restricted to happiness in the narrow sense of having a smile on one’s face, but can embrace a broader sense of flourishing, which includes childrearing, self-expression, education, rich experience, and the creation of works of lasting value (chapter 18). The consequentialist flavor of humanism is actually a point in its favor, for several reasons.

First, any Moral Philosophy student who stayed awake through week 2 of the syllabus can also rattle off the problems with deontological ethics. If lying is intrinsically wrong, must we answer truthfully when the Gestapo demand to know the whereabouts of Anne Frank? Is masturbation immoral (as the prototypical deontologist, Kant, argued), because one is using oneself as a means to satisfy an animal impulse, and people must always be treated as ends, never as means? If a terrorist has hidden a ticking nuclear bomb that would annihilate millions, is it immoral to waterboard him into revealing its location? And given the absence of a thundering voice from the heavens, who gets to pull principles out of the air and pronounce that certain acts are inherently immoral even if they hurt no one? At various times moralists have used deontological thinking to insist that vaccination, anesthesia, blood transfusions, life insurance, interracial marriage, and homosexuality were wrong by their very nature.

Many moral philosophers believe that the dichotomy from the Intro course is drawn too sharply.¹⁶ Deontological principles are often a good way to bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number. Since no mortal can calculate every consequence of his actions into the indefinite future, and since people can always spin-doctor their selfish acts as benefiting others, one of the best ways to promote overall happiness is to draw bright lines that no one may cross. We don’t let governments deceive or murder their citizens, because real politicians, unlike the infallible and benevolent demigods in the thought experiments, could wield that power capriciously or tyrannically. That is one of many reasons why a government that could frame innocent people for capital crimes or euthanize them for their organs would not produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Or take the principle of equal treatment. Are laws that discriminate against women and minorities unfair by their very nature, or are they deplorable because the victims of discrimination suffer harm? We may not have to answer the question. Conversely, any deontological principle whose consequences are harmful, such as the Sanctity of Life-Sustaining Blood (which rules out transfusions), can be tossed out the window. Human rights promote human flourishing. That’s why, in practice, humanism and human rights go hand in hand.

The other reason that humanism needn’t be embarrassed by its overlap with utilitarianism is that this approach to ethics has an impressive track record of improving human welfare. The classical utilitarians—Cesare Beccaria, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill—laid out arguments against slavery, sadistic punishment, cruelty to animals, the criminalization of homosexuality, and the subordination of women which carried the day.¹⁷ Even abstract rights like freedom of speech and religion were largely defended in terms of benefits and harms, as when Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”¹⁸ Universal education, workers’ rights, and environmental protection also were advanced on utilitarian grounds. And, at least so far, Utility Monsters and rabbit gratification factories have not turned out to be a problem.