Nick: Institutional bias comes to mind. A lot of people think that some groups (the elderly, people with particular disabilities) “naturally belong” in institutions, when the fact is that institutions are completely unnecessary. There is no form of care provided IN an institution that cannot be provided in the community (often for lower cost, though I don’t have exact figures on hand right now). And institutions themselves tend to be internally structured in such a way that power imbalances, abusive situations (see the Stanford Prison Experiment), and “learned helplessness” are perpetuated.
I’m not saying that a “proper” utilitarian (whatever that means) would agree that all old people need to be put in nursing homes “for the good of the community”, but there are people who believe that institutional care saves money and represents an appropriate option for people with certain kinds of health needs. This leads to a situation in which some health problems (pneumonia, infections, etc.) run the risk of being associated with the mere fact of being a certain kind of person as opposed to associated with an institutional environment. Yet very few people seem willing to consider alternatives to nursing homes, since they see such facilities as fundamentally part of the landscape and not potential sources of problems.
That’s the first example that came to mind, though I’ll give that people’s reluctance to seek alternatives may simply be a result of lazy thinking as opposed to specifically “utilitarian” thinking.
A second (semi-related) example is that of when intensive behavioural therapy was used in order to “cure” homosexual tendencies in boys who seemed to exhibit same-sex affections and “effeminate” behaviour. It wasn’t until 1973 that activists managed to get homosexuality removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. And when young men were subjected to “therapies” intended to make them heterosexual, the basic idea behind these therapies was that it was only the outward result that mattered—the notion of subjective internal distress was not even considered in light of the pervasive social sense that homosexuality was unhealthy, aberrant, sinful, etc. That is, the “consequence” of ensuing hetero-normative behaviour was deemed much more important than whether the treatment led to depression or other mental health issues. It certainly wasn’t the psychiatrists or researchers who came up with the idea that forcing people to outwardly conform to social norms (like heterosexual behaviour) could result in internal strife; it was the actual individuals being subject to constant pathologization.
I guess what I’m saying is, while I do think utilitarian/consequentialist thinking have their places (to the extent that I understand them), they are somewhat vulnerable to a tendency to support prevailing social and structural norms even when those norms are destructive and damaging. (And beware the fallacy of the excluded middle—I am certainly not saying that the utility-minded and consequentialists among us are all evil and blinded to social injustice, I’m just saying that there are traps people need to watch out for. Incompleteness applies to philosophies as well as to mathematics.
Then how come we see utilitarian libertarianism as in Machinery of Freedom?
Also, the general claim “the fact is that institutions are completely unnecessary” seems suspicious. Capability of communities to provide help does not ensure that any help will be provided, whereas an institution, given certain control from outside, is unlikely to outright ignore its habitants.
Prakash: Good example, I can see that.
Nick: Institutional bias comes to mind. A lot of people think that some groups (the elderly, people with particular disabilities) “naturally belong” in institutions, when the fact is that institutions are completely unnecessary. There is no form of care provided IN an institution that cannot be provided in the community (often for lower cost, though I don’t have exact figures on hand right now). And institutions themselves tend to be internally structured in such a way that power imbalances, abusive situations (see the Stanford Prison Experiment), and “learned helplessness” are perpetuated.
I’m not saying that a “proper” utilitarian (whatever that means) would agree that all old people need to be put in nursing homes “for the good of the community”, but there are people who believe that institutional care saves money and represents an appropriate option for people with certain kinds of health needs. This leads to a situation in which some health problems (pneumonia, infections, etc.) run the risk of being associated with the mere fact of being a certain kind of person as opposed to associated with an institutional environment. Yet very few people seem willing to consider alternatives to nursing homes, since they see such facilities as fundamentally part of the landscape and not potential sources of problems.
That’s the first example that came to mind, though I’ll give that people’s reluctance to seek alternatives may simply be a result of lazy thinking as opposed to specifically “utilitarian” thinking.
A second (semi-related) example is that of when intensive behavioural therapy was used in order to “cure” homosexual tendencies in boys who seemed to exhibit same-sex affections and “effeminate” behaviour. It wasn’t until 1973 that activists managed to get homosexuality removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. And when young men were subjected to “therapies” intended to make them heterosexual, the basic idea behind these therapies was that it was only the outward result that mattered—the notion of subjective internal distress was not even considered in light of the pervasive social sense that homosexuality was unhealthy, aberrant, sinful, etc. That is, the “consequence” of ensuing hetero-normative behaviour was deemed much more important than whether the treatment led to depression or other mental health issues. It certainly wasn’t the psychiatrists or researchers who came up with the idea that forcing people to outwardly conform to social norms (like heterosexual behaviour) could result in internal strife; it was the actual individuals being subject to constant pathologization.
I guess what I’m saying is, while I do think utilitarian/consequentialist thinking have their places (to the extent that I understand them), they are somewhat vulnerable to a tendency to support prevailing social and structural norms even when those norms are destructive and damaging. (And beware the fallacy of the excluded middle—I am certainly not saying that the utility-minded and consequentialists among us are all evil and blinded to social injustice, I’m just saying that there are traps people need to watch out for. Incompleteness applies to philosophies as well as to mathematics.
Then how come we see utilitarian libertarianism as in Machinery of Freedom?
Also, the general claim “the fact is that institutions are completely unnecessary” seems suspicious. Capability of communities to provide help does not ensure that any help will be provided, whereas an institution, given certain control from outside, is unlikely to outright ignore its habitants.