Negative utility
There is a long debate on the happiness-unhappiness dichotomy. For laypersons, unhappiness is the other side of happiness. To say that something leads to maximum happiness of individuals or groups is to say that it minimizes unhappiness of the individuals or groups. There is a continuum from unhappiness to happiness with a neutral point in between. Classical utilitarian philosophers such as Henry Sidgwick had explicitly argued for the moral symmetry of happiness and suffering. Complications aside, they supposed that increases in happiness, and reductions in suffering, are essentially of equal value when of equal magnitude. However, all experts do not believe in this.
Popper disagreed. He believed that the practical consequences of the supposed moral symmetry were dangerous too. "Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle: the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative."
Thus Karl Popper, who coined the term “negative utilitarianism”, proposes to look for minimizing unhappiness rather than maximizing happiness (http://www.utilitarianism.com/karl-popper.html). To quote Popper (1952):
I believe that there is, from the ethical point of view, no symmetry between suffering and happiness, or between pain and pleasure. Both the greatest happiness principle of the Utilitarians and Kant's principle, Promote other people's happiness..., seem to me (at least in their formulations) fundamentally wrong in this point, which is, however, not one for rational argument....In my opinion...human suffering makes a direct moral appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the happiness of a man who is doing well anyway. |
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