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\title{Hare's Defense of Utilitarianism}
\author{Marc Horowitz}
\date{29 November 1995}
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In Hare's discussion of utilitarianism, he attempts to show how moral
reasoning about moral terms will lead to the same kind of
utilitarianism as Rawls's ideal impartial spectator.  I believe he
presents a convincing argument for a form of ethical thought, but it
does not seem to be utilitarianism, and it is certainly not the same
as Rawls's.

Rawls states that the fundamental characteristic of any utilitarian
system is one where the ``good'' is specified, and the ``right'' is
then defined as that which maximizes the ``good''.  The classical view
of good, to which Rawls ascribes, is that which results in the
satisfaction of rational desire.  It seems obvious that that an
individual rational person, in deciding his own state of affairs, will
attempt to maximize the satisfaction of his own desires.  This would
mean choosing the satisfaction of the highest desire, sometimes
trading a small satisfaction now for a larger one later.

Rawls then generalizes this principle from man to society, from
satisfaction of rational desire to aggregate utility.  If the
satisfaction of rational desire is the goal of an individual, then
this principle should be the goal of society as a whole.  By choosing
the greater satisfaction and sacrificing small satisfactions for the
greater good, we arrive at the ``right'' moral end by maximizing what
is good for all society, rather than the individual.  Rawls defines an
ideal impartial spectator as the embodiment of the decision-making
process which results in the greatest good for the society.  The
spectator considers all the desires of the members of the society as
if they were his own, compares their relative intensity, and decides
on behalf of the society which course of action will maximize the good
in the society.  Thus, the spectator acts for society as a single
person acts for himself.

Hare takes a different approach to utilitarianism, beginning by
asserting the formal properties of moral statements.  He believes that
moral statements take the form of universal prescriptions.  By nature
of their universality, these prescriptions apply to all people
equally.

Since the prescriptions are universal, all people who might be
affected by an action must be treated the same, as Hare puts it,
giving equal weight to the equal interests of all.  A benefit or harm
done to one party is the same as a similar benefit or harm done to
any other party. 

Rather than aggregating all the reduction of pains and increase in
pleasures, as other utilitarians usually do, Hare uses a different
approach.  He instead places himself in the position of each of the
individuals who would be affected by an action, one at a time, taking
on the desires and interests of that individual, and considers what
that he would desire from that situation.  By giving equal weight to
the equal interests of each person, Hare arrives at the just, and
therefore right, course of action.

This course of action will, Hare concludes, coincide with
utilitarianism, since it seeks to balance the desires of all the
people involved by treating equal interests equally.  Later, I will
explain why I do not think this is the case.

In order to explain how Hare's theory differs from Rawls's, it is
necessary at this point to explain Hare's concept of multiple levels
of moral thought.  The higher level of moral thought, level 2, is the
perfectly informed, unbiased considerations of someone like an
archangel.  This kind of thought always leads the moral philosopher to
the right action given any situation.  Unfortunately, Hare concedes,
it is not possible in the stress of a decision to undertake this kind
of time-consuming analysis every time.  It is also not possible to
teach this kind of thought to someone without a good sense of moral
reasoning, like a child.  

This does not make it impossible to act morally in our everyday lives.
Instead, we can construct a set of rules whose results will match the
results of level 2 thinking in the great majority of practical
situations.  These rules can be simpler, and therefore applied in the
stress of the moment of a moral question.  This kind of thinking,
applying rules chosen based on level 2 thinking, is termed level 1
thinking by Hare.  This distinction between level 1 and level 2
thinking can lead to a contradiction, where a generally good man will
make a decision based on rational, well-informed level 1 thinking, but
upon further consideration after the fact, realize via level 2
thinking that a better outcome was possible.  This seems to be
unavoidable given our imperfect human nature.

I believe that the difference between Hare's theory and utilitarianism
comes about because Hare explicitly denies to put his theory in terms
of pain and pleasure, since this would lead to ``difficulties [he]
wishes to avoid''.  He does not say what these difficulties are, but I
wonder if he runs into them anyway.  Instead, he chooses to measure
what he would wish were done for him were he in the position of each
person.  This theory results in the maximizing of something, but it is
not utility.  It seems to maximize the intuitive moral goodness (level
1 thinking) of all the people.  However, we have seen that level 1 and
level 2 thought are not equivalent.  Hare later on describes the
problem well.  A morally educated man has more than pleasures and
pains.  He has motivations, some of which come from his moral nature,
and these can color his desires.  Aggregating people's ``wishes'',
instead of their pleasures and pains, results in a maximizing of
something which is colored by morality and hence is not utility, it is
something else.  This is why I do not believe that Hare's universal
prescriptions lead to utilitarianism.  Rawls seems to have anticipated
this problem, when he stated the importance of defining ``good''
without referring to ``right''.  Hare seems to have fallen into this
trap.

I think it is illustrative to give an example of the problem I
describe above.  When applying level 2 thought to a moral problem
using Hare's universal prescriptivist model, the kind of thought we
must attribute to each individual person is level 1 thought.
Otherwise, there is no way to decide what any person thinks without
considering what all the people think, and this will lead us nowhere.
Here is the problem.  Given a situation where level 1 thought results
in an action different from level 2 thought, the result of the Hare's
universal prescriptivism might be different from Rawls's ideal
impartial spectator.  For example, consider a situation where a
substantial sacrifice from one person which will cause an equal
benefit in each of a number of others.  A good person might easily
conclude that it is wrong (given level 1 thinking from their point of
view) to demand a sacrifice of this sort from someone else.  Even if
the sacrificing person is willing to make the sacrifice, this still
means that the universal prescriptivist would not force the sacrifice
to be made, since the majority of the equal interests are against the
sacrifice.  This does not seem to be what the spectator would
conclude.  The spectator, who knows everything, would easily see that
more satisfaction of desires would come from the benefit of many than
the loss of one, and would make the decision to go through with the
sacrifice.

I find that Rawls's ideal impartial spectator does lead to
utilitarianism.  However, I find Hare's argument more persuasive, even
though it does not arrive at utilitarianism.  Utilitarianism as an
ideal is appealing, but by its very nature, is impossible to achieve,
since no person is an archangel.  Hare's system of universal
prescription, although it does not necessarily result in conclusions
as ideal as utilitarianism, gives a technique by which a moral person
can come closer and closer to the utilitarian ideal in a practical way
in the real world.

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