Question

Hello Rabbi Michi,
I am currently writing a paper on Mill’s utilitarianism, in which I am required to analyze a test case and determine what the most proper act is.
The test case, for present purposes, is this: suppose a person is in the middle of a voyage at sea and the ship encounters an unexpected storm. It intensifies, keeps raging, and eventually all the passengers are told that they must abandon ship and line up to wait for the lifeboats. At a certain point, the person realizes that by chance one line has formed consisting of weaker people—families with babies and the elderly—and a second line consisting of a stronger group—young single people. The question is this: should one help the weaker group, since such help will of course benefit them, while at the same time reducing one’s own personal chances of survival? Or, alternatively, should one go with the stronger group, with whom the chances of surviving are greater, and give up helping the group that truly needs help?
From my understanding of Mill and from thinking about it, my conclusion is that it is not really possible to derive an answer to the question, “What ought one to do?” Therefore, I also argue that utilitarianism is not really a moral theory at all. The basic assumption in moral philosophy is that a moral view must ultimately motivate me to act, since that is the most basic goal—to understand what is proper and to act accordingly. Therefore, if a certain view—utilitarianism in this case—does not lead me to an understanding of what it is proper to do, then either I have not understood it correctly or it is not a moral view. In my opinion, I understand the foundations of Mill’s view fairly well, and therefore my conclusion is that it is not a moral view, because it does not help me create moral practices as described above.
I will now try to justify why utilitarianism does not really help derive moral principles, but only complicates things. According to Mill, the foundation of morality rests on the principle of “the greatest happiness.” Basically, one can put it this way: a moral act is considered an act that causes as many people as possible to have the greatest happiness, where happiness is defined, from his perspective, as pleasure and the absence of pain. In other words, the question “What shall I do?” must be addressed solely on the consequentialist plane, examining which action will contribute as much as possible to the general good, which is that happiness just mentioned—that is, maximum pleasure and minimum suffering.
One must therefore present a great many factors connected to the dilemma that are not necessarily visible at first glance, which makes the analysis complex. One must understand, for example, who these passengers are; what they do and what benefit they bring to the world; how many family members are waiting for them at home; what the passengers’ chances of survival are; and so on. After such an assessment, one is supposed to make the proper decision, even at the price of giving up one’s own life. The basic assumption in this dilemma is that the group of young people has a greater chance of surviving, but let us also say for the sake of argument that there is not really anyone waiting for them at home—no friends and no family—whereas for the second, weaker group, there actually are people waiting for them who would suffer from their deaths. In that situation, one can see that quantitatively there is much more benefit in saving the weaker group, even at the price of one’s own life as stated, since such an action would cause happiness to a larger group of people. One can of course qualify this and say that the weaker group may indeed have many more relatives, but who says their survival will bring them happiness? Maybe it will actually cause them suffering because of a lack of healthy relationships and mutual hatred. One can also add more factors. It is clear, for example, that quantitative variables are not the only thing that matters, but qualitative variables as well. As mentioned, the passengers’ contribution to society is also important. That is, there could be a young passenger who is a doctor engaged in saving lives, whose life is worth more from a utilitarian perspective than that of several elderly people who do not contribute to society. These factors therefore make the picture complex, and as can be understood, there are many of them that must be taken into account. Therefore, my central conclusion is that this is not the kind of calculation that can be applied in practice, and so using this approach in a dilemma of this kind is not useful.
As implied, my basic claim is that a serious calculation of overall happiness is not feasible. When one takes the logic to its extreme, the conclusion is that it is impossible really to understand how to act, since there are so many variables that there is no chance of integrating them. Of course, Mill is much more complex. He has many rules and laws that are supposed to help us understand what the proper thing to do is, such as the intensity of suffering, the duration of suffering, certainty (preferring the act that certainly brings pleasure over the act that only might bring it), proximity (whether the pleasure is close to being realized), the extent of the pleasure (that is, quantitatively), and so on. In my opinion, a serious attempt to take these components into account creates even greater complications, and as stated leaves us with the question—”What ought one to do?”—still very far from an answer. And for that reason I too reject it as a moral theory.
Of course, the dilemma presented above is just an example for the sake of discussion; in my opinion this could be true of any complex dilemma. I also know that the Rabbi does not subscribe to any moral view other than a deontological one. Therefore, my question is whether you agree with the argument I have presented—that is, whether this is the reason you too reject utilitarianism. And if that is not the reason, then what is?
 
Thank you