35. UTILITARIANISM

    Echoes of the "common good" can be heard in the principle which functioned as the god-term in Bentham's utilitarianism.  Bentham addressed issues raised by a transition from the  medieval belief that God demanded conformity to a divinely ordained social order to an enthusiastic embrace of the promise that the industrial system enabled human beings to harness nature to their purposes.  To deal with the massive disruptions produced by an inexorably advancing industrialization and the dehumanizing slums produced by an unrestrained exploitation of individuals, Bentham posited the formula, "the greatest good of the greatest number," as the god-term in a moral discourse designed to harness the mastery over nature to social ends.

    In effect, Bentham realized that the competition which propelled the Industrial Revolution could result in a Hobbesian war of all against all.  In his response, he wedded the metaphor of individuality forged by Locke to the assumption that the industrial revolution was irreversible.  Echoing the assumption that individuals act out of enlightened self-interest, he re-centered moral discourse in a disinterested calculus designed to distribute the goods produced by an emerging capitalism as fairly as possible.  And he was willing to ground moral discourse in an economic system in which some would inevitably be losers.

        (NB:  Even a cursory analysis of the political discourse in the United States reveals its debt to an amorphous utilitarianism.  For the most part, Democrats act pragmatically.  On their part, Republicans claim to work from principle, but the principles they advocate are little more than rationalizations of policies designed to protect the privileges of the wealthy and powerful.  They win advocates only as long as they are useful for the purpose that rules the party.)

    To escape from a moral discourse which required some individuals to submit to exploitation, John Stuart Mill presented utilitarianism as a vision, not a calculus.  As a young man, he had suffered a breakdown which evoked in him an intense awareness of the personal dimensions of experience.  Later, as a literary heir of the biblical tradition, he placed the notion of "use" at the center of the prophetic vision which located God's moral will in the cries of the oppressed, dispossessed, marginalized and silenced.  In effect, he espoused a traditional moral discourse designed to promote the quest for a fully human and uniquely personal existence for all.  And from that cultural heritage, he envisioned a society which trusted that free individuals would gladly use their abilities to the fullest.  As a supplement to this inherently political discourse, he also suggested that addressing the increasingly complex issues generated by the Industrial Revolution would evoke the fullest use of anyone's abilities.

    Marx, in turn, echoed Mill's vision in his vision of a society governed by the formula:  "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs."  During the decades dominated by the Cold War, Marx's use of Mill was the kiss of death for Mill's critique of utilitarianism from within.  I find that very sad.

    Lest I go on endlessly, I merely note that an ethics of intimacy renders moral discourses centered in various versions of the common good irrelevant by centering political discourse in a shared vulnerability, not a struggle for power.  In this context, no one can pretend to offer an authoritative definition of what constitutes the "common good."