Utilitarianism

Charles Taylor, in, Sources of the Self, write about “affirmation of the ordinary life” as the major theme. He asserts that human welfare has some origins in religious sources and as one of the central themes of Christian spirituality. Modern utilitarianism is  a secularized variant of it. He argues that Utilitarianism and Deontology are systematized and organize everything around one basic reason, whereas Aristotelian ethics sees us as pursuing a number of goods, i.e., virtues, even though we can speak of a single complete good. He points out that in Utilitarianism that when we give a reason for a certain moral principle, we relate A to B if B brings about a desirable end and we could be morally committed to doing A. He points out an example of paying taxes for the general good.

But if the taxes aren’t being used appropriately, this relationship has failed. When speaking of the good or goods, Taylor makes qualitative distinctions between hyper and higher goods that should have a place in moral life. He does acknowledge that utilitarians do accord rationality and benevolence higher motives, (Taylor, 76-78).

 In Chapter 19 of Sources of the Self, Taylor discusses that in the radical Enlightenment, the radical Aufklaer had an ethic based on utility rather than a providential order. Judgments of right and wrong are not based on a providential design e.g., the Laws of nature, right reason or natural justice or equity. It is obvious that Taylor has a problem with the principle of utility where the moral foundation is maximizing happiness. Stating Lockean disengagement, the state of nature is where no one is born good, nor bad according to the mutual interests or opposing interests that unite or divide them, servicing the general happiness. The radical utilitarians rejected the constitutive good of Deism and the providential order, but did accept the life goods that underpinned Deism. These goods are the ideal of self-responsible reason, the ideal of universal and impartial benevolence and the notion that the ordinary fulfillments that we seek, the pursuit of happiness in what we desire is worthy of being pursued. This focus on utility alone promised a single-minded pursuit of happiness, as during this period of history, there was a move from Deism to materialism and from providentialism to utilitarianism. There was a shedding of the vestiges of old spiritual beliefs in God, immortality, providential guidance, the immortality of the soul to the attraction of the pursuit of happiness, benevolence and the image of nature which underlay them.