Right and Wrong Is Not About Personal Pleasure
(Monroe)
What is right and what is wrong? In the 20th century a major theory about this was called utilitarianism. Utilitarianism has to do with “usefulness.” The question was: what is most useful when it comes to giving the most people pleasure, and eliminating pain from the most people. A crude version of utilitarianism said, “If it feels good, do it.” But this idea didn’t take into account the pleasures and pains of other people.
In 1971 Harvard philosopher John Rawls wrote a ground-breaking book called A Theory of Justice. In his book Rawls rejected utilitarianism. Again, utilitarianism seeks to answer the question: how can we maximize people’s preferences? How can we achieve the most satisfaction possible for everyone? But utilitarian theory “has some odd consequences.” Why, e.g., is rape “wrong?” The utilitarian answer would have to be that the pain to the victim outweighs the pleasure to the rapist. But this cannot be why rape is “wrong.” Surely the pleasure the rapist gets shouldn’t be counted at all, and the whole thing sounds ridiculous.
Consider this example. Executing a few Danish cartoonists may bring pleasure to a Muslim mob, giving them pleasure. Doing this would achieve greater satisfaction for a greater number of people. A utilitarian would have to endorse the execution. And that’s the problem with utilitarianism as an ethical theory. Rawls says, “there is a sense in which classical utilitarianism fails to take seriously the distinction between persons.””
Here’s a nice essay explaining this in more detail.
Note: From the Jesus POV “right” and “wrong” is defined in relationship to the being of God. Moral values are not merely subjective preferences and tastes, but are objective. For an explanation of this go to William Lane Craig’s website here and click on his article “Can We Be Good Without God?”