Exotic Journeys: A Tourist's Guide to Philosophy

brought to you by Ron Yezzi

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy

Minnesota State University, Mankato

(Author's Note: The account below, with slight modifications, is taken from Ron Yezzi, Philosophical Problems: The Good Life (Mankato: G. Bruno & Co., 1994), pp. 138-142.)

Topics

John Dewey

Jeremy Bentham

Controversies: Some Objections and Possible Replies

Creative Excursions

Sources

Positive Answer:

Science

Not all advocates of the supremacy of scientific knowledge take the position of logical positivists. Some philosophers maintain that scientific method provides the most successful way by which to acquire and accumulate knowledge; moreover, they maintain that the scientific method is applicable to ethics.

Biographical Sketch

John Dewey (1859 - 1952 C.E.), the best known and most influential American philosopher, was born in Vermont. He performed good, but not outstanding undergraduate work at the University of Vermont—followed by much more impressive graduate work at Johns Hopkins University where he received a doctorate in philosophy, in 1884. He then embarked upon his academic career—teaching nine years at the University of Michigan, one year at the University of Minnesota, ten years at the University of Chicago, and a quarter of a century at Columbia University. After his retirement in 1930, he remained philosophically active until near the time of death.

Dewey's philosophy was extremely influential in promoting development of the social sciences and in promoting democracy as a moral ideal. His educational theories also had great influence. Dewey took an intense interest in current events, writing on many social issues and espousing numerous social causes. In the words of one admirer, “. . . more than any other American of his time, Dewey expressed the deepest hopes and aspirations of his fellow man. Whether dealing with a technical philosophical issue or with some concrete injustice, he displayed a rare combination of acuteness, good sense, imagination and wit” (Richard J. Bernstein).

Although not likely to win awards for his literary style, Dewey indeed was a prolific writer. Human Nature and Conduct and Reconstruction in Philosophy are two of his better known works.

John Dewey

As an example of scientific method in ethics, consider the following remarks by John Dewey from Reconstruction in Philosophy:

Inquiry, discovery take the same place in morals that they have come to occupy in sciences of nature. Validation, demonstration become experimental, a matter of consequences. Reason, always an honorific term in ethics, becomes actualized in the methods by which the needs and conditions, the obstacles and resources, of situations are scrutinized in detail, and intelligent plans of improvement are worked out. Remote and abstract generalities promote jumping at conclusions, “anticipations of nature.” Bad consequences are then deplored as due to natural perversity and untoward fate. But shifting the issue to analysis of a specific situation makes inquiry obligatory and alert observation of consequences imperative. No past decision nor old principle can ever be wholly relied upon to justify a course of action. No amount of pains taken in forming a purpose in a definite case is final; the consequences of its adoption must be carefully noted, and a purpose held only as a working hypothesis until results confirm its rightness. Mistakes are no longer either mere unavoidable accidents to be mourned or moral sins to be expiated and forgiven. They are lessons in wrong methods of using intelligence and instructions as to a better course in the future. They are indications of the need of revision, development, readjustment.¹

According to Dewey, an American pragmatist, the worth of an action depends upon its consequences—satisfactory consequences signifying a good action. Since scientific method provides the most adequate study of consequences, he advocates its use.

Working hypotheses, experimentation, and direction of actions according to observed consequences become the tools of ethical study. For example, we should look upon a new government social program scientifically. That is, the program is conceived as a working hypothesis; its implementation is a social experiment; and the program is continued, modified, or discarded according to observed consequences of its implementation. By using such a method, Dewey thinks that we can achieve progress in the area of values similar to the progress made in the physical and biological sciences during the past three or four centuries. His advocacy of scientific method, often referred to in later writings as the method of experimental intelligence was influential in bringing about the application of the social sciences—for example, sociology, psychology, economics, and anthropology—to human affairs.

The following excerpt from a 1928 article, written following a visit to the Soviet Union, captures the nature and novelty of Dewey's approach:

. . . Indeed, it seems to me that the simplest and most helpful way to look at what is now going on in Russia, is to view it as an enormous psychological experiment in transforming the motives that inspire human conduct.

There are, of course, two points of view from which it is not a genuine experiment, since its issue is foredoomed. The fanatic of individual capitalistic business for private gain and the Marxian dogmatic fanatic both have the answer ready in advance. According to the first, the attempt is destined to failure; it is fated to produce, in the words of Mr. Hoover, an “economic vacuum;” according to the latter, the transformation from individualism to collectivism of action is the absolute and inevitable result of the working of laws that are as positively known to social “science” as, say, the law of gravitation to physical science. Not being an absolutist of either type, I find it more instructive to regard it as an experiment whose outcome is quite undetermined, but that is, just as an experiment, by all means the most interesting one going on upon our globe—though I am quite frank to say that for selfish reasons I prefer seeing it tried in Russia rather than in my own country.²

Jeremy Bentham

Biographical Sketch

Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832 C.E.), an English philosopher, studied to be a lawyer but never actually practiced law.

Instead, he became a legal theorist particularly concerned with codification of laws, judicial organization, prison reform, and voting rights. He was the intellectual leader of a group known as the Philosophical Radicals and was very influential in bringing about legal reforms in Great Britain during the nineteenth century. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation is his best known work.

Another advocate of scientific method, with some qualifications perhaps, is the Utilitarian Jeremy Bentham. To determine whether a proposed action is right or wrong, that is, pleasurable or painful, Bentham advocated use of a hedonic calculus based upon the following seven factors:³

(a) The intensity of the pleasure of pain;

(b) Its duration,

(d) Its nearness or remoteness;

(e) Its fecundity (that is, the likelihood that sensations of the same kind will follow later);

(f) Its purity (that is, the likelihood that sensations of the opposite kind will not occur later);

(g) Its extent (that is, the number of persons to be affected).

By assigning numerical values to each factor, positive ones for pleasures and negative ones for pains, we can then calculate the rightness or wrongness of the proposed action. If the sum comes up positive, then it is a right action

Although Bentham does not insist upon use of the hedonic calculus prior to every action, he thinks that we should keep it in view and that moral judgments become more exact as their determination approximates more closely to the hedonic calculus. Moreover, he does not look upon the hedonic calculus as being especially novel or far-fetched: People normally consider factors like the ones he includes when they make decisions anyway; so he regards the hedonic calculus as simply a more comprehensive, more exact way of making decisions.

Since the assignment of numerical values to the various factors in the hedonic calculus is subject to test and refinement through experience, presumably a scientific account of ethical judgments is possible. There may even come a time—once scientists can measure exactly the intensity, duration, etc., of pleasures and pains—when we can program computers to make ethical decisions for us. We should be aware however that no science of pleasures and pains, with exact measurements, exists currently.

Controversies: Some Objections and Possible Replies

(Note About Objections and Possible Replies: You should look upon the objections and possible replies as opportunities for further thought rather than as definitive statements. Holders of the original position are not likely to be overwhelmed by the objections; and critics of the original position are not likely to be convinced by the possible replies. These objections and possible replies accomplish a proper goal if they push you to think more deeply about an issue, leading you to seek more clarity and justification in drawing your own conclusions.)

(1) The Limits of Scientific Method in Ethics

Science can establish facts and show how to accomplish some goal; but it cannot establish what goal ought to be sought. For example, science (with its accompanying technology) can tell us how to get to the moon, but it cannot tell us whether or not we ought to go. Similarly, it can establish the effects on the body of smoking marijuana or of ingesting DDT; but it cannot establish whether or not each ought to be banned. Scientific method cannot establish the adequacy or inadequacy of values.

A Possible Reply: Most practical problems in ethics, by far, involve how to questions and facts. Scientific answers to how to questions lay out the practical means to achieve ethical ends; so they constitute an integral part of the ethical enterprise. Furthermore, facts about the effects of marijuana and DDT on the human body are certainly relevant to any ethical decision about banning such substances.

(2) Experimentation on Human Beings

Dewey's advocacy of scientific method fails to recognize the difference between human beings and inanimate objects or lower animals. You cannot experiment with people in the way you experiment in a laboratory. Human beings are not “guinea pigs.” For example, you can experiment with controlling an insect population using sterilized males; but ethically you cannot justify using similar sterilization procedures with human beings.

A Possible Reply: All sorts of actions are taken in society where the consequences are unknown or seldom evaluated. The use of scientific method just introduces much greater rigor in proposing and testing actions. Furthermore, not every experiment is ethically justified; but some are. And these experiments provide excellent, morally acceptable means of serving the best interests of society.

(3) Against the Hedonic Calculus

Bentham's hedonic calculus cannot be truly scientific until there is an exact, quantitative measurement for units of pleasure and pain. Yet there is no measurement of this sort presently available or any likely to be discovered in the near future.

A Possible Reply: Since we cannot predict the future progress of science, we cannot preclude the possibility of exact, quantitative measurements for pleasure and pain. In the meantime, the hedonic calculus offers a reasonable approximation in assessing the pleasure and pain involved in proposed actions; the calculus is more scientifically exact than the usual ways of deciding upon right action. It calls our attention to articulated consideration of factors that may otherwise be overlooked.

Thought Excursions

4.60 Dewey's position exemplifies the use of scientific method in ethics. How might you apply this method to an issue such as society's approach to capital punishment? Marijuana laws? A proposed tax cut to stimulate the economy? Calls for a no-growth economy? Citizens' initiative and referendum? Do you think that Dewey's suggested method is an excellent way to deal with such issues?

4.601 What do you think that Dewey might say about the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s?

4.61 Try to apply Bentham's hedonic calculus in the following situation:

Situation: You are a student who must choose between two alternatives: (1) spending the evening in study for an important exam tomorrow or (2) going out for a night of drinking with your friends. Assume that not studying for the exam will cost you at least two letter grades for the course.

Also consider, in terms of the calculus, how your assessment may be affected by each of the following special conditions:

(a) When you go drinking with your friends, it usually means a hangover the next morning;

(b) You do not like the course and consider it a waste of time;

(d) Your parents will be extremely disappointed if you do poorly in a course;

(e) There is one chance in four that the exam will be postponed because of the instructor's illness at the previous class session;

(f) You are broke and must borrow any money you want to use for drinking;

(g) The instructor has given you some special assistance in the course and will be disappointed if your performance on the exam does not match your potentiality for doing well;

(h) You will be better able to do well in a job, having once had this course; and

(i) There is an extremely good chance that you will be able to cheat by looking over the work of your friend, who just happens to be the best student in the class.

In applying the hedonic calculus, you should consider each of the seven listed factors and should assign numerical values, as best you can. (Possible scale: +1 to +10 for differing amounts of pleasure; -1 to -10 for differing amounts of pain.)

4.611 Bentham thinks that people normally take into account the sorts of factors he lists in the hedonic calculus when they make decisions. Thus, rather than offering a startling new method, he is simply suggesting a way for people to do more adequately (that is, more exactly and more comprehensively) what they do already. Explain why you agree or disagree with him here. You may want to offer some examples to support your reasoning.

4.612 Suppose there does come a time when scientists can measure units of pleasure and pain exactly and can program computers to make ethical decisions for us based upon the hedonic calculus. Would you find it desirable to leave the decisions to computers? If, in fact, the computers can determine the maximization of pleasure and minimization of pain more exactly and more efficiently than we can do so ourselves, ought we to leave the decisions to computers?

4.62 Evaluate the various objections to scientific method in ethics, mentioned in the text. Be sure to consider the possible reply to each objection, in your evaluation. Which is the strongest objection? The weakest? Would you offer other objections besides those mentioned in the text? If so, what are they? What is your general evaluation of this method?

Sources

Footnotes

1. John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957), pp. 174-175.

2. Dewey, “Characters and Events,” Popular Essays in Social and Political Philosophy (New York: Octagon Books, 1970), Vol. 1, pp. 423-424.

3. See Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, op. cit., Ch. IV.

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