When Utilitarianism becomes mob rule

Public health has become one of the foremost disciplines utilitarian thinking and a belief that any individual's sacrifice is justified for the sake of the health system. But, there are other movements and trends that have a utilitarianism uber alles mindset.

Effective Altruism, is a movement of tech types (mostly) that claims that they can help people to get the most bang for their do-gooding buck by applying Benthams' ideas to the charity sector. One critique of this movement was recently published in Unherd, which focuses on the type of people drawn to this movement (ones that have never actually helped anyone IRL) but more apt would be the fact that they think their order of priority is perfectly rational, objective and uncontestable.

If you flick through the list of recommended charities - for instance on GiveWell - there are definite priors in play.

One of these priors is that animal suffering should be considered as much as human suffering. This is contestable, or at very least stopping the eating of meat and eradicating hunger are two goals that could well be in conflict, which should prevail?

The other is that physical interventions (in particular those related to health) are more effective than metaphysical interventions, which is also not necessarily true. Rule of law is shown over and over again to be one of the single best predictors of people being more prosperous, healthy and safe. But charities that focus on bringing the rule of law to developing nations are not the top priority.

Big Government, Big Business, and Big Crowds acting on the behalf of the majority whose happiness is being maximised by a particular intervention also risks riding roughshod over the minority whose happiness - like the child sacrifice example - is not served by what the majority wants.

Being the sacrifice - or the scapegoat - for the greater good is a hard role to refuse.

It is for this reason that utilitarianism always needs to stop where liberalism – or the individual - starts. The idea that there are individual rights that ought not be violated, no matter how big the mob whose happiness will be maximised by their violation, is an important counterweight to the tendency for utilitarian thinking to tip into mob rule.

The trend in recent times to prefer the interests of the mob rule is worrying, particularly when we we don't seem to see anything wrong with removing the barrier of individual rights - such as by enacting laws that erode freedom of speech to prevent the public "harm" caused by offensive or contrary opinions - that used to stand in the way of the mob hell bent on pursuing its' desires.

Liberalism used to be the bulwark against utilitarianism run amuck, now we let the utility maximisation mob trample the individual.