Is the "separateness of persons" objection to utilitarianism successful?

Utilitarianism is a moral theory that takes as the good to be promoted total happiness in a society, regardless of individual happiness (Brink, 2020). On the other hand, the objection of “separateness of persons” is the objection to this moral theory as it argues that each one of us’ happiness cannot always be transferred to other people as the pain suffered now will not be rewarded with benefits later on. For example, if a person were to die, unwillingly, to save a few others, utilitarianism would consider this a good outcome, as total happiness is maximised, more people survive than they die, while through the objection of the “separateness of persons” it could be argued that the life belongs to each individual, and if he does not want to take it to save others, he should not.

I think this objection is very successful, because there are things that belong to us and us only, and once we lose them, or give them up, we can never get it back, such as life. This essay will look at the reasons behind this objection being successful.

A clear example of how this objection is successful is what is known as the “Survival Lottery”. John Harris states that, all things being equal, was there two ill patients who would be saved by the death of a third citizen and the donation of his organs, the doctors ought to save the two ill patients, thus kill the third, healthy, citizen (Harris, 1975). Two lives would be saved while only one would be lost. He also states that were the doctors not going to kill the healthy citizen for the survival of the two ill patients, they would be killing two people (Harris, 1975). The “separateness of persons” objection to this is that the healthy, “innocent”, citizen should not be forced to die for the survival of two other citizens just because they happened to fall ill. His organs and his life are his, and his only, once those are taken away from him, he cannot get it back, ever. Nozick expresses this idea well, by saying that by sacrificing myself, he does not get some “overbalancing good for his sacrifice” (Nozick, 1977).

Therefore, just because the total outcome of lives and deaths it is better when a healthy individual is killed for the survival of two people, does not mean it is the optimal outcome, as a person who had nothing to do with the ill patients would lose everything, their life.

Moreover, this also raises the question of what kind of moral authority does a doctor have that gives him the right to decide who gets to live and who gets to die. While it is clear that a doctor should, and hopefully would, keep working to save the lives of his patients, he should not have the power to decided that an innocent person should die for his patients to survive.

John Stuart Mill himself says that “each is the proper guardian of his own health” (Mill, 1859). This implies that our health, therefore our body, belongs to us and us only. Therefore, only we can decide what we do with it, therefore, a doctor does not have the moral authority to decide we ought to die so that ill patients can be saved.

One could argue that indeed we are the only ones that can decided what to do with our body, but if the total outcome were to be better with us giving up our organs, we ought to do it. Nevertheless, Mill, again, says that no one has a “moral right to our generosity or beneficence, because we are not morally bound to practise those virtues towards any given individual” (Mill, 1864). Therefore, we should not be expected to give up life for others, especially when these are total strangers, which is the case in the “Survival Lottery”.

This shows how the “separateness of persons” objection to utilitarianism is successful, as it clear that we are individual people with different bodies that belong to us only, and we should not be expected to give it up to strangers in exchange for nothing.

Utilitarianism sees human beings as mere holders of utility, with no moral status (Zwolinski, 2008). Through this, utilitarianism consider a good outcome for an innocent person to get convicted of a crime just to appease the general population. If the police are not able to find the perpetrator, and there is social unrest because of it, it is considered a good outcome for this person to go to jail. Nevertheless, if that is the case, it means the judiciary system is does not have a reductional purpose, or even the purpose to punish, but just the purpose of making the population feel, not be, safe. It is clear that there are many objections to this. The repercussions the innocent person, and all of his family and friends, will face, will be massive. Their lives will be ruined for something he did not do. That’s where the “separateness of persons” comes into play. Just because society needs appeasing and ruining the life of the innocent is seen as less bad as having social unrest, this does not give the state the authority to convict someone just to accommodate its people. The innocent also has a moral status which needs to be preserved.

Moreover, if we were to apply this utilitarian view in real life, police work would become useless, they would not need to look for criminals, they would just need to fabricate information to convict innocent people.

It could be argued that this would only happen when it is clear that the perpetrator would not commit the crimes again, and thus there is no threat of more people suffering. Nevertheless, this begs the question of what is the point in convicting people at all if they are not going to commit crimes again? Which brings us to the conclusion that there is also a punishment side in convictions. Therefore, the actual perpetrator of the crime would also need to be convicted instead of the innocent person because it is believed they deserve punishment.

Therefore, this shows how successful the objection of separateness of persons is to utilitarianism because, it is not fair to convict an innocent person for someone else’s crimes, and it is not fair nor right either, to let the perpetrator go free just because the police cannot find him. If there is social unrest because the perpetrator cannot be found, it is the job of the state to make the changes necessary inside the police so that the issue is resolved, not just get an innocent person and convict them.

To conclude, it is clear that the “separateness of persons” objection to utilitarianism is more than successful. Utilitarianism wants us to just be some mere holders of utility, without taking into account our own personal feelings about the issues and how they would impact us, our moral worth. Therefore, the claim that we are different people, and that some harm that might be done to us for the good of the society will never be “payed” back, is a solid opposition to utilitarianism. Moreover, applying utilitarian practices in society could have detrimental effects, for those directly involved but also for society as a whole, as they would not be sure the extent to which every decision made by the government would be made in their interests or in the interest of the government to simply appease them.

Bibliography

Brink, D. O., 2020. Consequentialism, the Separateness of Persons, and Aggregation. The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism.

Harris, J., 1975. The Survival Lottery. Philosophy, January, 50(191), pp. 81-87.

Mill, J. S., 1859. On Liberty. s.l.:Cambridge University Press.

Mill, J. S., 1864. Utilitarianism. 2nd ed. London: s.n.

Nozick, R., 1977. Anarchy, State and Utopia. s.l.:Basic Books.

Singer, P., 1977. Utility and the Survival Lottery. Philosophy, April, 52(200), pp. 218-222.

Zwolinski, M., 2008. The Separateness of Persons and Liberal Theory. The Journal of Value Inquiry, Volume 42, pp. 147-165.