(or appropriate). This is a distinct and narrower notion of ‘moral theory’ which I use in this paper unless otherwise specified. Classical utilitarianism no doubt provides an ethical or moral theory on both definitions just discussed. In the statements of Jeremy Bentham and J.S. Mill, though, it appears more obviously to be a moral doctrine or - to use Mill’s word - creed. As Mill puts it: ‘[t]he creed that accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.’ Mill goes on to explain what he means by happiness and its reverse, but adds that ‘[t]o give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said’ and adds that ‘these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded – namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only desirable ends’ (Mill, 1962, 257). Henry Sidgwick’s use of terms is a little different. In The Methods of Ethics Sidgwick starts by noting that ‘Utilitarianism is, at the present day, in common use, and is supposed to designate a doctrine or method with which we are all familiar’ (Sidgwick, 1981, 411). Nonetheless, Sidgwick notes that ‘it seems to be applied to several distinct theories’ so that he needs to give a more precise definition. His definition runs: ‘[b]y Utilitarianism is here meant the ethical theory, that the conduct which, under any given circumstances, is objectively right, is that which will produce the greatest amount of happiness on the whole; that is, taking into account all those whose happiness is affected by the conduct’ (Sidgwick, 1981, 411). Here ‘ethical theory’ might easily be replaced by ‘moral principle’. Nonetheless, Sidgwick also thinks that ethics must provide a ‘positive ethical theory’ of the sort Williams has in mind since for him: ‘[t]he aim of Ethics is to systematise and free from error the apparent cognitions that most men have of the rightness or reasonableness of conduct, whether the conduct be considered as right in itself, or as the means to some end commonly
Sen’s Criticisms and Proposals: Incomplete Theory or Approach? In ‘Utilitarianism and Welfarism’ Sen (1979a) decomposes utilitarianism into three component parts. The initial decomposition is of ‘act-utilitarianism’, but it can be generalised so that it applies to rules or motives instead. The first component of utilitarianism is consequentialism, and he defines act-consequentialism as follows: Act consequentialism: an action α is right if and only if the state of affairs x resulting from α is at least as good as each of the alternative states of affairs that would have resulted respectively from the alternative feasible acts (Sen, 1979a, 464). On Sen’s account, act-utilitarianism combines act-consequentialism with a second principle: Outcome Utilitarianism: Any state of affairs x is at least as good as any alternative state of affairs y if and only if the sum total of individual utilities in x is at least as large as the sum of utilities in y. (Sen, 1979a, 464) This in turn is factorised into the following principles: Welfarism: The judgement of the relative goodness of alternative states of affairs must be based exclusively on, and taken as an increasing function of, the respective collections of individual utilities in these states. (Sen, 1979a, 468) and Sum-ranking: One collection of individual utilities is at least as good as another if and only if it has at least as large a sum total. (Sen, 1979a, 468). Sen 468) rejects sum ranking – as Rawls (1972, 77) does – on the grounds that it is ‘indifferent as to how a constant sum of benefits is distributed’. He also rejects welfarism. In ‘Utilitarianism and Welfarism’ this is primarily because welfarism, by definition, excludes all
Nonetheless, there are various senses in which Nussbaum’s approach remains, like Sen’s, ‘incomplete’. First of all, when she advances her list of central human capabilities, Nussbaum invariably reminds us that her list is open-ended. As she puts it: ‘I consider the list as open-ended and subject to revision and rethinking in the way that any society’s account of its most fundamental entitlements is always subject to supplementation (and deletion)’ (Nussbaum, 2006, 78). As a consequence, her approach also makes space for democratic deliberation. Indeed, she also thinks that ‘the list ought to be specified in a somewhat abstract and general way, precisely in order to leave room for the activities of specifying and deliberating by citizens and their legislatures and courts’ (Nussbaum, 2006, 79). And Nussbaum states from the outset that her approach ‘does not even claim to be a complete political doctrine, since it simply specifies some necessary conditions for a decently just society, in the form of a set of fundamental entitlements of all citizens’ (Nussbaum, 2006, 155). In referring to its lack of completeness here, Nussbaum is emphasising the restricted scope of the theory. Nonetheless, Nussbaum articulates her approach so that it covers our relations with non-human animals in a way that Rawls does not, at least in A Theory of Justice. There, as we saw, Rawls initially restricted the scope of his theory and argued that even if ‘justice as fairness’ might be extended to ‘rightness as fairness’ ‘this wider theory fails to embrace all moral relationships, since it would seem to include only our relations with other persons and to leave out of account how we are to conduct ourselves toward animals and the rest of nature’. In this particular respect, Nussbaum’s account is more complete than Rawls’ early theory. Sen agree with some of the core elements of Nussbaum’s ‘capabilities approach’ which go beyond providing a ‘general perspective’? It is clear from his earlier writings that this is unlikely. Sen has earlier been critical of aspects of Rawls’ theory which Nussbaum endorses. In particular, Sen (1992, 76-79) thinks that the notion of a ‘political conception of
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