| OCR Text |
Show Chapter XII. Classical Utilitarianism and the Free Rider 510 condition does no better at eradicating the clandestine free rider than a Hobbesian, imperfect Social Contract-Theoretic society that assumes it. 4. Hodgson, Gibbard and Lewis on the Ideal Act-Utilitarian Society Does an ideal Act-Utilitarian society that includes the publicity condition do any better? Consider the second of the two variants of the ideal ActUtilitarian society, in which the publicity condition is assumed to hold. I argue here that there is in fact no consistent rendering of such a case. We have mentioned in passing the obstacles that must be overcome in getting from the actual to an ideal Utilitarian society of either kind; and the conclusions of Section 3 suggests that these pains of transition are considerably increased in severity when publicizing the Utilitarian doctrine is made part of the process. But we will now see that even if we suppose this problem solved, the very concept of an ideal Act-Utilitarian society in which the publicity condition holds is incoherent. This is one way of understanding D. H. Hodgson's argument, which is the basis for his critique of Utilitarianism.20 Essentially, he argues that truthtelling and promise-keeping would be impossible in a society where all were, and recognized each other as being, Act-Utilitarians. His argument is based on the assumption that one part of the utility of a great many types of social action involves the degree to which they satisfy the justified expectations of another. In an Act-Utilitarian society, no one could have valid expectations about another's actions (to generalize from Hodgson's examples). An agent S would only do an act x if x had the greatest utility; and x would have the greatest utility only if it satisfied the recipient R's expectations. But R would expect x only if R believed that S would do x. Being equally rational, S would know this, hence would do x only if he believed that R expected x. But since S's doing x depends on knowing R's expectations, and R's expectations depend on knowing whether or not S will do x, R has no prior reason to expect S to do x. And since the utility of doing x depends on knowing R's expectations, S cannot determine whether or not doing x has greatest utility. So there is no prima facie reason to do x rather than not-x. This dilemma holds for any act x that involves fulfillment or violation of someone else's expectations in its utility index. Notice that this formulation of the problem can be viewed as a consequence of universal free rider behavior that leaves no social convention with any practical normative force. A sophisticated attempt to refute Hodgson's argument was made by Allan Gibbard in his dissertation.21 Gibbard interprets Hodgson's argument as claiming that when good consequences depend on the coordination of actions, Hodgson, op. cit. Note 11, Chapter 2. Allan Gibbard, "Utilitarianisms and Coordinations" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1971). 20 21 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
