Topics Ethics

Question Imagine this situation. For some reason, Jack knows that by committing suicide in a very painful way, he can make Jill a little bit happier. Jack wants to do this. In a few minutes we will have our memories erased of this situation & Jack will continue to live a happy life. Now I have control over whether I allow Jack to go through with the suicide. What is the moral thing for me to do? On the one hand, if I let him commit suicide, there will be less net happiness (Jack suffers much while Jill gains little) but more preferences satisfied (one). On the other hand, if I prevent him from doing so, there will be more net happiness (Jack much more happy, Jill a bit worse off) but less preferences satisfied (one less). I suppose this is a complicated way of asking which is more important (or which is important full stop)- preference satisfaction or happiness? I'm not entirely sure why, but I wanted to illustrate the question in this way, even if it is a little confusing! Worth a shot. Thanks, Holly M.

Accepted:
March 15, 2008

Comments

There are a number of challenging issues here, in part because there are a number of different ways in which things (such as happiness or the satisfaction of preferences) can be important. One way in which such things can be important is by contributing to an individual's well-being (that is, by making a person's life go better for that person). So, you might be asking the following question: In what does a person's well-being consist, happiness or the satisfaction of desires (or preferences)? The answer might be: Neither! Of course there are plenty of philosophers who defend desire-satisfaction theories of well-being, and there are also a few who defend hedonistic theories (according to which well-being consists in being happy). But there are also views according to which well-being is a function of having certain objective goods--friendship, knowledge, health, and so forth--regardless of whether one wants these goods and regardless of whether these goods make one happy. If you're interested in some of the arguments for and against these different views, take a look at this helpful article.

Of course, the question of what you should do in this situation may be a moral question. Now, one familiar moral theory (namely, utilitarianism) holds that the morally right action is the one that produces the most well-being. If this is the moral theory you adopt, then the question of what you should do in the situation you've described will be determined entirely by which theory of well-being you accept. That said, many philosophers (namely, those who reject utilitarianism) believe that morality involves more than the matter of which action would produce the most well-being. For example, if you think (as Kant did) that coercion is always morally wrong, then you might conclude that you ought not to interfere with Jack's plan to commit suicide (regardless of whether such interference would produce the most well-being).