Utilitarianism

Moral and ethical decisions relating to environmental issues are made on the basis of ethical principles that tend to either privilege individuals or the good of the society or consider all the systems of life on the planet including those nonhuman goods or plants and animals. Utilitarianism tends to reflect the influence of democratic principles that determine policy based on majority rule and to value the greatest good of the society. Principles of utility are also reflected in economic considerations of cost-benefit analysis and free market values.

Utilitarianism was initially defined as an ethical concept of valuing an action for its contribution to happiness or pleasure and later expanded to advocate for the “greatest good for the greatest number.” The liberal philosophical perspective purported by Jeremy Bentham was refined by John Stuart Mill. Advocating for societal norms rather than for the self-interest that was advanced by John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Adam Smith, the utilitarian position was one that supported norms that would deem the good perceived by the majority as the best practice.

Utilitarianism is often cited in situations involving quantitative measurement, economic models, and pragmatic approaches to decisions involving humans. This form of ethical analysis is influential in the areas of economics, public policy, and government regulation. If a policy tends to maximize good consequences, it is often regarded as effective. The ethical theory most commonly associated with free market economic theory is frequently called preference utilitarianism. A frequently cited example would be the conservation movement supported by agencies like the U.S. Forest Service that would argue that the environment is an instrumental value that should serve the greatest good of human interests. Preservationists argue for the intrinsic and aesthetic value of the forest that serves the needs of thousands of wildlife species and want humans kept out of many wilderness areas so that they do not corrupt the natural ecological balance. Agencies like the Forest Service rely on experts who can measure and compare options to make decisions that maximize the overall good.

Often these decisions have economic consequences. Some examples might be decisions about the development of ski areas on wilderness lands, the mining of Hopi and Navaho lands by Peabody Coal that dramatically lowered the water table, or decisions about mountaintop removal in the process of mining the Appalachians. In these cases, the highest and best use was determined to be the one that produced the highest economic yield. However, using this methodology to determine the value of clean air, clean water, or species protection is problematic because it requires expressing all values in economic terms to perform a cost-benefit analysis on outcomes. Valuing one species over another or determining that one group is more entitled to clean water than another often brings up issues of environmental racism or anthropocentrism.

[Page 427]The type of utilitarianism that emphasizes pleasure, or the absence of pain, is termed hedonistic utilitarianism. Animal rights advocate Peter Singer expanded the definition to include the happiness and suffering of animals. He argued that all sentient beings, those that feel pain, should have the same consideration as human beings. Singer asserted that although both humans and animals deserve equal moral consideration, humans have sophisticated mental and emotional capacities that render them more sensitive to certain types of suffering and would not grant animals identical treatment or consideration.

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