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Show Chapter XII. Classical Utilitarianism and the Free Rider 518 whatever feelings one has to the constraints of policy, to getting the result one is aiming at," while manipulation is "subverting or bypassing another person's rational or moral capacities for the sake of some result."37 In therapy, for example, he points out that although calculation must enter into the attitude of the therapist toward the patient insofar as the patient's well-being is the result being aimed at, manipulation need not, since the therapist can make full use of the patient's rational or moral capacities in furthering this goal. Although the distinction is well taken, it is important to see how closely intertwined these two must be in the attitude of a consistent Utilitarian toward anyone else. Here, calculation implies manipulation. For in order to promote the result the Utilitarian is aiming at, namely, maximizing social utility, it will be necessary to bypass the other person's rational and moral capacities just in case publicly acknowledged agreement on the goal to be achieved is lacking - which, as we have seen, must be true for the consistent Utilitarian in all cases. For example, the Utilitarian may enter into a friendship for reasons of utility, as Sidgewick suggests; but if the other person enters into it solely because he likes and respects the Utilitarian personally, and the Utilitarian knows this, it is unlikely that the latter will succeed in bringing about a commitment to the relationship from the former except by manipulation, by getting the other person to commit himself, without openly presenting her Utilitarian calculations of how to best maximize utility as a reason for doing so. On the other hand, cases in which calculation would not necessarily imply manipulation are just those, for example, business relationships, in which people are consciously committed to cooperation in some enterprise the goals of which are mutually acknowledged. But since mutual acknowledgment and cooperation in the goals of Utilitarianism have been shown to lead to insuperable difficulties, the implication holds in this case. The possibility - indeed, the necessity - of a consistent policy of manipulating others and calculating their responses as variables in the service of a larger goal reveals a serious problem with the very concept of a consistent Utilitarian doctrine, quite aside from the difficulties discussed so far. As we saw at the outset, the first principle of Utilitarianism is a special case of the nonmoral utility-maximizing model of rationality, in which the particular utility to be maximized is general social utility. Now normally, the utilitymaximizing principle is called into use under circumstances that themselves determine whether or not the question, "Does this act conduce to G?" is relevant; for most goals are such that not all actions, and not all circumstances, will obviously bear on their realization. For instance, if I wish to learn horseback riding, my taste for foreign films will not be a relevant 37 Ibid., p. 74. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
