Negative Utilitarian Priorities

▪ The UNO Millennium Development Goals are taken as a basis for defining global ethical priorities, because they represent the result of intense discussions among a considerable number of experts. The UNO experts are supposed to represent the majority of the world population.

▪ The Copenhagen Consensus criticizes the UNO priorities as being ineffective. It uses a classical utilitarian approach.

▪ For a definition of negative utilitarianism see Negative Utilitarianism and Justice.

Type of problem

What difference does it make, if global ethical priorities are based

▪ on the classical utilitarian approach to maximize total welfare or

▪ the negative utilitarian approach to improve the welfare of the worst-off?

Result

A negative utilitarian approach recommends the following ethical priorities:

▪ International peace and security

▪ Development and propagation of ethical knowledge

▪ Minimum standard of nutrition and health care

▪ Avoidance of overpopulation

▪ Eradication of torture

Most of these priorities are not even mentioned in the Copenhagen Consensus. This illustrates the remarkable difference between a classical and negative utilitarian approach to the problem of ethical priorities.

1. Introduction

Starting point

▪ The Copenhagen Consensus criticizes the UNO priorities as being ineffective. It uses a classical utilitarian approach.

▪ For a definition of negative utilitarianism see Negative Utilitarianism and Justice.

Type of problem

What difference does it make, if global ethical priorities are based

▪ on the classical utilitarian approach to maximize total welfare or

▪ the negative utilitarian approach to improve the welfare of the worst-off?

2. UNO Millennium Development Goals

2.1 Definition

Permanent UNO priorities

The UNO activities concentrate on four main topics and a cross-sectional topic (human rights)

▪ Peace and security

▪ Economic and social development

▪ Humanitarian aid

▪ Environment and population

▪ The cross-sectional topic human rights (civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights)

These five topics can be considered as the permanent priority list of the UNO.

Millennium Priorities

Starting point is the Millennium indicators database, by the UNO department for economic and social affairs.

The Millennium Development Goals are an attempt, to set priorities within the five topics above:

1) Peace and security:

Not among the Millennium Development Goals

2) Economic and social development

a) Achieve universal primary education

b) Develop a global partnership for development

3) Humanitarian aid

a) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

b) Reduce child mortality

c) Improve maternal health

d) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

4) Environment and population:

Ensure environmental sustainability

5) Human rights:

Promote gender equality and empower women

2.2 Criticism

The Millennium Development Goals concentrate on solidarity. The Copenhagen Consensus criticizes this strategy on the following grounds:

1) Solidarity is difficult to implement in times of war and political instability. Peace and security should get an accordingly higher priority.

2) The forces of the market should be used to improve economic and social development.

3) The Millennium Development Goals do not consider the relation between cost and benefit.

3. Copenhagen Consensus

3.1 Definition

The Copenhagen Consensus is an attempt to answer to the following question:

What would be the best ways of advancing global welfare, and particularly the welfare of developing countries, supposing that an additional $50 billion of resources were at governments’ disposal?

See Copenhagen Consensus. The following list based on the 2004 version of the Copenhagen Consensus.

3.2 Comparison with UNO Priorities

Peace and security

Copenhagen Consensus	UNO Millennium Development Goals
Reduce incidence of wars	-

Economic and social development

Copenhagen Consensus	UNO Millennium Development Goals
Improve education in developing countries	Achieve universal primary education
Improve international financial stability	-
Liberalize international migration	-
Improve governance in developing countries	-
Provide access to water and sanitation	-
Trade reform	-
-	Global partnership for development

Humanitarian aid

Copenhagen Consensus	UNO Millennium Development Goals
Prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS	Combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases
Eradicate hunger and malnutrition	Eradicate hunger and malnutrition
Combat malaria	Combat malaria
-	Reduce child mortality
-	Improve maternal health

Environment and population

Copenhagen Consensus	UNO Millennium Development Goals
Protect climate	Ensure environmental sustainability

Human rights

Copenhagen Consensus	UNO Millennium Development Goals
-	Promote gender equality, empower women

3.3 Cost-Benefit Analysis

The following table is the result of a cost-benefit analysis, applied on the priorities of chapter 3.2:

Priority	Project	Investment in billion $
1	Control of HIV/AIDS	27
2	Providing micro nutrients	12
3	Trade liberalization	--
4	Control of malaria	13
	Total	52

3.4 Criticism

1) Higher standards of governance in the world's poor countries were considered of paramount importance. There were five proposals for improvement, but only one was included in the priority list. For the others there was too little information about the cost of implementation to calculate a priority.

2) The proposal to liberalize trade faces political resistance. Overcoming such resistance can be regarded as cost of implementation. The panel took the view that such political cost should be excluded from their calculations. Again (as in the case of bad governance mentioned above) it is questionable, to exclude essential factors because they are difficult (or impossible) to calculate.

3) For each of above priorities a number of projects were evaluated, using a cost-benefit analysis. Saved or recovered lives are assets calculated in dollars. The negative utilitarian approach questions the adequacy of this calculation.

4. Negative Utilitarian Approach

4.1 Definition

In analogy to the Copenhagen Consensus the negative utilitarian approach (NU) is an attempt to answer the following question:

What would be the best ways of implementing NU, supposing that an additional $50 billion of resources were at the disposal of Non-Governmental-Organizations?

Note that in this paper

▪ the term negative utilitarian approach and

▪ the abbreviation NU

don’t refer to the original version of negative utilitarianism; they refer to a moderate version which

▪ considers human rights as a side constraint

▪ assigns a relative (not absolute) priority to the avoidance of suffering

From a practical point of view the goal is simply to reduce the worst cases of suffering.

For a discussion of the various versions of NU see Negative Utilitarianism and Justice.

4.2 Cost-Benefit Analysis

Comparison with Copenhagen Consensus

1. The Copenhagen Consensus seeks to increase global welfare. Welfare is measured in dollar assets. This method allows expansion at the cost of the quality of life (see The Repugnant Conclusion). The NU strategy stands for moderation in favor of the quality of life.

2. As opposed to the Copenhagen Consensus we maintain that the ranking of investments cannot be based on a calculus because the system is too complex and the priorities depend on each other.

Method

The list in chapter 3.2 is used as a basis. An attempt is made to consider cost and benefit (in terms of reduced suffering) in

▪ selecting priorities out of this list and

▪ adding priorities to this list

Since there is no way to quantify variables, the priorities are presented in the form of theses. In addition some non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) are listed, which support the proposed priorities. The quality of NGO’s can be controlled by means of charity navigators [Appendix].

International peace and security

Thesis: International peace and security is a prerequisite for social stability and any attempt, to improve the situation of the most suffering minority.

Torture in particular is difficult to eradicate as long as

▪ weapons of mass destruction are proliferated

▪ terrorism spreads out and

▪ civil and religious wars persist

Examples of peace-building organizations: International Peace Institute, Interpeace, Swisspeace

Economic and social development

Thesis: Investments in the development and propagation of ethical knowledge have the highest cost-benefit ratio in the fight against suffering.

Following some variations of above thesis:

Thesis 1: Exploring alternative choices of action has the highest cost-benefit ratio.

Examples:

We know little about the relation between welfare, free markets and global trade:

▪ According to Thomas W.Pogge fair global trade has the highest cost-benefit ratio in the fight against world poverty.

▪ According to the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, constitutional legality, market economy and the fortification of one’s own initiative and personal responsibility is the best strategy.

Also the counterproductive mechanisms and undesirable side-effects of technological and social change are largely unknown or suppressed.

For examples see The Cultural Evolution of Suffering.

Thesis 2: Disclosing the abuse of power has the highest cost-benefit ratio

Examples:

▪ Organizations which fight corruption and criticize the quality of governance:

Global Integrity, Transparency International.

▪ An Organization which analyzes the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, poverty, corruption, and human rights abuses is

Global Witness

Thesis 3: The reduction of irrationality has the highest cost-benefit ratio.

An increase in ethical knowledge is only possible, if experiences are interpreted within a rational world view. Examples of organizations which promote an ethics of reason:

▪ In the Western tradition:

International Humanist and Ethical Union, Giordano Bruno Foundation, Compassionate Societies

▪ Synthesis of insights from East and West:

Panetics, Socrethics.

As far as critical rational thinking is a universal language, an ethics of reason may also reduce the incidence of religious wars.

Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.

Peter Ustinov

Humanitarian aid

Thesis: A minimum standard of nutrition and health care has a high short term evidence of return on investment (in terms of reduced suffering). This evidence justifies the high priority of humanitarian aid in a cost-benefit analysis.

The access to the victims of political and armed conflicts is the biggest challenge within the domain of humanitarian aid. There are two different strategies in this context:

1) Political neutrality. In many cases this has proven to be the best strategy in order to get access to the victims of armed conflicts.

Example: International Committee of the Red Cross

2) Analyze the causes of humanitarian catastrophes and combine aid with moral pressure.

Example: Medecins sans frontières.

Environment and population

Thesis: A reduction of the world population is the most efficient strategy to reduce suffering.

Population control on behalf of sustainability:

1. There is a biological pressure to expand the population at the cost of the quality of life. A reasonable population policy, on the other hand, attempts to restrict the number of children in compliance with the available resources. Does the fight against poverty lead to overpopulation and as a consequence to increased competition, wars and pandemics? According to Thomas W.Pogge the contrary is true. He considers the fight against poverty as the most efficient way to avoid overpopulation.

2. Concerning the close linkage between high suffering and high rates of population-increase see International Human Suffering Index. The prevention of overpopulation has a positive impact on all areas mentioned above but could be more efficient than a direct investment in those areas.

Examples of organizations which promote sustainability: Population Council, Population Action International, DSW, Negative Population Growth.

Human rights

Thesis 1: Extreme suffering like torture can only be prevented by implementing human rights worldwide.

1) Prerequisites for the implementation of human rights and democracy are a free press and an efficient political opposition. Only a pluralistic political concept guarantees the protection of minorities.

2) Human rights organizations analyze the causes of human rights violations and put governments under moral pressure. This approach indirectly supports most of the other priorities mentioned in chapter 4.3.

Examples of human rights organizations:

1) General: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch

2) Specific:

a) World Organization against Torture, Association for the Prevention of Torture

b) Free the Slaves, Anti-Slavery

c) Reporters without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists

Thesis 2: In countries with an advanced implementation of human rights the priority should be given to the right for palliative care and the legalization of voluntary euthanasia.

Voluntary euthanasia helps to avoid some of the worst kinds of suffering. However,

▪ active euthanasia violates the law in the United States and all european countries except Holland and Belgium,

▪ passive euthanasia violates the law in the United States and all european countries except Holland, Belgium and Switzerland.

Only voluntary euthanasia is discussed here. Palliative care and the fight against depression have ethical priority, but active and passive euthanasia should be legalized in well-defined and controlled situations which prevent abuse. The valuation of an individual’s life and death is tied to an individual biography and to an inner perspective which cannot fully be understood by others.

Right to die societies are locally organized, see World Federation.

4.3 Comparison with Human Rights Priorities

Non-violent strategies

The support of NGO’s – as proposed in this paper – is a non-violent strategy. We will now check if the NU priorities in chapter 4.3 (which were derived from the goal to reduce the worst kinds of suffering) support human rights as defined in the Universal Declaration:

1. Wars make it impossible to implement human rights. Peace-building organizations indirectly support human rights.

2. The development and propagation of ethical knowledge contributes to the free education (Art.26).

3. Civil and political rights loose their appeal without nutrition and a decent level of health care (Art.25)

4. Overpopulation threatens human rights by causing wars, epidemics, famine, destruction of the biosphere etc.

5. The eradication of torture (Art.5) is a main issue within human rights.

The right for palliative care and the legalization of voluntary euthanasia are controversial issues outside of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Since negative utilitarian priorities support human rights, they also conform well to the Declaration of Human Duties and Responsibilities (DHDR). The DHDR transforms human rights into a legal system (Art.1-2):

1. Reduction of civil and religious wars (Art.3-7)

2. Development and propagation of ethical knowledge (Kap.3-5 and 7-12).

3. Minimum standard of nutrition and health care (Art.8)

4. Avoidance of overpopulation. Family planning serves a sustainable environment (Art.9)

5. Eradication of torture (Art.21-25)

Conclusion: The negative utilitarian approach does not contradict human rights, but it prioritizes claims within the DHDR.

The NU priorities are just one of many attempts to distinguish between more and less important issues within human rights. John Rawls concentrated on civil and political rights, i.e. the protection of minorities and the avoidance of totalitarian regimes.

The unprincipled proliferation of human right claims in international documents (e.g. the right to periodic holidays with pay, stated in article 24 of the Universal Declaration) explains why Rawls began to pursue more austere approaches (Human Rights and Duties of Assistance).

Justified violence

The monopoly of violence of the state is hard to refute as long as the state respects human rights. Also attempts to assassinate a tyrant like Hitler seem to be justifiable. But in many cases the complexity and non-predictability of the system doesn’t allow to check the moral preconditions for the use of violence: Experience has shown that a war, once initiated, starts to develop a momentum of its own and spreads into unforeseen directions, so that it is impossible to know if the suffering caused is smaller than the suffering prevented. Even liberation movements, after an initial phase of perfect moral legitimation, often degenerate and adopt the brutality of the oppressors. It is dangerous to make general statements about situations which justify violence. Most cases require a separate and detailed analysis.

Examples:

1) The Risk and Deficiencies of Unsanctioned Humanitarian Intervention, Jim Whitman

2) The Politics of Impartial Activism, Bronwyn Leebaw

3) 50 Years after Hiroshima, John Rawls

A global consensus under the title “Responsibility to Protect” has recently (2005) been reached concerning the prevention of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing:

The responsibility to protect is a norm or set of principles based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege, but a responsibility (…)

If a State is manifestly failing to protect its citizens from mass atrocities and peaceful measures are not working, the international community has the responsibility to intervene at first diplomatically, then more coercively, and as a last resort, with military force (…). The authority to employ the last resort and intervene militarily rests solely with United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly (Responsibility to Protect, Wikipedia).

4.4 Beyond the Millennium Development Goals

Globalization

In the following we will investigate what happens to ethical priorities, if we extend the planning horizon beyond the Millennium Development Goals. So far the priorities were stamped by the needs of underdeveloped countries, a result which can be justified as follows:

1) Objective data suggest that underdeveloped nations suffer more than developed ones

2) Subjective suffering correlates with objective suffering in underdeveloped nations

(see Negative Utilitarianism and Justice, chapter 4.5)

If globalization progresses as it did since the last Millennium, then we have reason to assume that the needs of all nations converge. Today’s priorities will (hopefully) become less pressing and the prolongation of lifetime will gain in importance. Under these circumstances the ethical priority of medical research gets into the picture.

Medical research

We start with an example, where medical research already got resources within the Millennium Development Goals:

The development of a vaccination against HIV/AIDS and malaria was weighed against emergency aid. Within the time frame of 15 years the development of a vaccination was realistic so that a part of the resources was assigned to the corresponding research.

As life expectancy increases on a global level, the incidence of cancer, strokes, Parkinson’s disease and dementia increases as well. If we extend the planning horizon far enough, then in all these areas medical research has to be weighed against emergency aid. Should research get the entirety of resources because the prevented suffering in the future is much bigger than the necessary sacrifices in the present?

Skepticism

There are reasons to not to extend the planning horizon into the far future:

1) Uncertainty:

The effect of emergency aid is guaranteed and measurable, whereas the result of research is uncertain. Not only because the researchers could fail, but also because many unswayable factors influence the result. There might be a war, a social revolution, a decay of the high-technology culture or a natural catastrophe destroying the whole effort of research. The more we plan into the future the more we have to account for uncertainty.

2) The ambivalence of progress:

Following some indications how medical research could create new kinds of suffering:

1) deprivation from new forms of ecstasy (drug withdrawal)

2) long agonies instead of quickly killing diseases

3) refused access to prolonged lifetime

4) high-tech torture

From an NU point of view the development of high-tech torture puts the whole research for analgesics in question, even if the risk concerns only a tiny minority. The eradication of extreme suffering is the ultimate goal of NU. All other activities have a preventive character and serve this paramount priority.

Above arguments suggest that, with regard to the far future, the technological fight against suffering should not be accompanied with the optimistic kind of messages we find in marketing and sales. It is a matter of intellectual honesty to admit that the future is uncertain and that the risks are immense. Practical philosophy is not supposed to deliver another utopia which justifies actual suffering by future happiness. It may be impossible to improve the status quo, it may even be impossible to break the evolutionary trend for a quantitative and qualitative increase in suffering (see On the Cultural Evolution of Suffering).

This leads us back to population ethics. According to NU a reduction of the world population below the sustainable level is desirable:

1. if technological and ethical progress cannot reduce the worst kinds of suffering

2. if the shrinking population does not increase the number of worst cases as compared to the original population

For organizations which facilitate remaining childless see Childless sites.

A volunteer extinction of humanity (as propagated by VHEM) is unrealistic. There is only a choice between more or less suffering populations.

5. Conclusion

A negative utilitarian approach recommends the following ethical priorities:

▪ International peace and security

▪ Development and propagation of ethical knowledge

▪ Minimum standard of nutrition and health care

▪ Avoidance of overpopulation

▪ Eradication of torture

Most of above priorities are not even mentioned in the Copenhagen Consensus. This illustrates the remarkable difference between a classical and negative utilitarian approach to the problem of ethical priorities.

Appendix:

Quality Control of Non-Governmental Organizations

1) Germany: DZI, Spenden.De

2) Switzerland: ZEWO

3) USA

a) American Institute of Philanthropy

b) BBB Wise Giving Alliance

c) Charity Chooser

d) Charity Navigator

e) GiveWell

4) International: Top 100 Best NGO’s