Maximization and equality: An examination of utilitarian responses to Rawls and other critics

The primary purpose of the present study was to investigate several important reactions to the modern criticisms of utilitarianism. Since the publication of John Rawls\u27 Theory of Justice (1971), the contrast between utilitarian approaches to social decision-making and any rights-based social philosophy has spawned a large literature. Rights-based theorists have typically claimed that the utilitarian rule of maximization is bound to be indifferent to distributional issues, and also that no substantial human rights can be embraced within the scope of “utility,” however broadly it could be defined. In their reactions to this, some utilitarians as well as some thinkers sympathetic to the person-neutral morality have proposed some ingenious interpretations of the role of maximization in the utilitarian approaches. These interpretations may be divided into two branches. The first is concerned with the compatibility of utilitarianism and the notion of equal regard for persons. On the interpretations belonging to this branch, the first principle of utilitarianism is not the principle of maximization but the Benthamic formula of equality, “everyone counts for one and none for more than one.” The second is concerned with the possibility that substantial rights may be grounded in utilitarianism. On the interpretations belonging to this branch, maximization is regarded as a general standard of evaluation, not as a principle for practical decision-making. However, my view is that none of these redefinitions of the role of maximization can represent a viable alternative form of utilitarianism. Maximization is the first principle of utilitarianism; and it is the utilitarian principle of decision-making. These two propositions express the essence of utilitarianism. Thus, any utilitarian theory that denies one or the other, or both, is self-contradictory. I suggest that the right answer to the modern criticisms of utilitarianism should be found, not by formulating some deflationary notion of maximization, but by correctly understanding the use of maximization in the utilitarian theories of social choice. One fundamental use of maximization is to tell when sacrificing one person for another is justified. That is, utilitarianism utilizes the principle of maximization to answer the question to which our moral concerns about distribution converge. In this sense, maximization is a principle of distribution. And this is the crucial point which modern critics have failed to recognize