Utilitarianism – Most Likely, You Believe in It

In a city like Hong Kong, with so many people believe in the democratic system, I am always very amused by the fact that a lot of people do not exactly know what they are believing in (although they claim that they do know what they believe in, that what makes it interesting).

Take Utilitarianism, for example. It is a simple ethical belief, which says that, an action is right as long as it tends to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. In many respects, a democratic society is working based on that principle (and that is why we want everybody to vote right?) However, not a lot of people realise (or care much), that under such system, the minority group will only have as much right as the majority group is willing to give. For my friends in Hong Kong, I would say a majority of them are utilitarians (without consciously knowing it).

One famous criticism of Utilitarianism is the scenario of the train-and-tracks. It has many versions that most people had probably read about before, but my favourite version is as follows:-

There are two railroad tracks of which one of them is closed down for maintenance while the other is operational and trains will be running on that track. At the moment, there are 10 kids playing at the operational track and 1 kid playing at the inoperative track. A train comes suddenly with insufficient time for the children to run off to safety. You are at the junction where you have the control lever to decide that: i) if you do nothing, the train will run into the operational track where the 10 kids are playing and kill them all, or ii) if you pull the lever and divert the train to the maintenance track, only 1 kid will be killed and all the other be saved.

You might think that this scenario is so hypothetical that has nothing to do with real life, but I say that otherwise. Many real life situation are just like that:- you are dealing with a majority group and a minority group, and what is the right action for the entire society, usually is the course that benefit the most (although it may be the fact that, the single kid on the inoperative track knows that the track is inoperative, and therefore he is safe to play on that side. So he is doing a smart and right thing, while being killed off). Unfortunately, our society, most often than not, believe that the minority group are either wrong, or can be ignored (eg. Look at the Tibetian activist in hk), or on the other hand, for the poor people, the society will want to care for them to the extent that it is willing to (not that the poor people can fight for their right at all).. That is the essence of democracy, whether you like it or not.

My recommendation? Study more on what the minority is thinking about and what kind of situation they are under, before we make any judgement.

(Note: there are some other more interesting criticism on Utilitarianism, such as the ‘utility monster’. Look up the web if interested)