Reduction and Elimination in Philosophy and the Sciences

Reductionism in Axiology: the Case of Utilitarianism
Dorota Probucka, Cracow, Poland
Utilitarianism claims that any axiology and psychology of
valuation is grounded in individual experience. Values
arise in primordial cognitive acts which form any axiology’s
elementary datum. Hence, the range of values peculiar to
a given axiology depends on the kind and content of
individual experience. The indissoluble connection
between axiology and epistemology prompts the
impossibility to build an independent theory of value. Thus,
epistemological (as well as ontological) assumptions must
become integral part of any general axiological theory.
Under the utilitarian conception of axiology as a theory
based on individual experience, axiology, epistemology
and psychology should be integrated into one theoretical
framework. The aim of this paper is to analyze this framework,
unveil its internal structure and show that reductionism,
which pervades contemporary philosophy and axiology,
is an essential feature of the utilitarian theory of value.
Subjectivism and relativism are main components of reductionist
way of thinking.
The doctrine of utilitarianism was created as a secular
ethics which, in accordance with the assumptions of
British empiricism, refused to acknowledge the existence
of empirically unrecognizable beings. Empirically recognizable
world is the only one on which affirmative judgment
can be made. Therefore, any attempts to go beyond human
experiences are unwarranted as being cognitively
meaningless. What remains to be done in these circumstances
- the utilitarians claim - is to search for values as
somehow existing in the world accessible to our senses.
Once axiology is to be grounded in individual human
experience, there is no other choice for a utilitarian but to
reduce values to some facts conceived of as empirical,
psychosomatic data. In other words, the recognition of
values as values amounts to the recognition of facts. Does
the reducing of values to facts mean that every fact is a
value? Certainly not, for not all facts have anything in
common with values. Nevertheless, those facts which are
recognized as values still remain no more than facts.
That’s how the idea to derive axiology from individual experience
leads to reductionism ( typical of any naturalistic
stance in philosophy), reduction being understood as a
special relation between values and facts.
What are facts? On The whole, they are states of affairs
given to us in external and internal experience. Which
states of affairs can be referred to as values? According to
the utilitarians, those which are preferred, valuated, desired
by subjects who experience these states. One must
not attach values with states of affairs without considering
human valuating, preferring, desiring. Values do not exist
independently of human beings, they can’t be traced outside
their external or internal experience. According to H.
Sidgwick, a leading utilitarian philosopher, material things
have no intrinsic value. We should estimate their worth and
consider the importance of their existence solely with reference
to human beings. Values are related solely to human
beings. Such is the consequence of reductionist
thinking in axiology and ethics.
In utilitarian view, factual values do not exist outside
sensual experience. They are important component of this
kind of experience, but still belong to its empirical dimension
as a part of natural order. Let us repeat that under this
kind of reductionism facts form an ultimate reality which is
the only reality. According to R. Brandt’s views expressed
in his book Ethical Theory, utilitarianism is far from the
view that values exist independently of the world and
unlike variable things are changeless.
Moreover, if values are entirely connected with individual
experience, subjectivism is the logical consequence
of that thesis. Indeed, individual and empirical knowledge
is conceived as the sum of the subject’s psychosomatic
experiences. The factual values are one of possible contents
of these experiences.
Utilitarianism is a philosophical trend which has
evolved for 200 years and it has many variants. I take into
account mainly its traditional interpretation represented by
J. Bentham and J. S. Mill (earlier by C.A. Helvetius and D.
Hume). J. Bentham was first to clearly define its principles
later developed by J. S. Mill, J. Austin, H. Spencer and H.
Sidgwick. Contemporary utilitarianism is represented by G.
E. Moore, C.D. Broad, S. Toulmin, H. Rasdall, J. Narveson,
J.J.C. Smart, R. B. Brandt, W.T. Stace, D. Parfit, D.
Lyons, J.D. Harsanyi, D. Brink, R.E. Bayles. In my paper I
omit intuitivism (so called ideal utilitarianism) initiated at
the second half of XIX c. by H. Sidgwick and developed at
the first half of XX c. by G.E. Moore. I analyze mainly hedonistic
branch of utilitarianism in its standard version. The
adherents of ideal utilitarianism assume the existence of
the moral sense which provides the abilities for the recognition
of values existing beyond the subject.
Coming back to the subject matter I would like to notice
that the arising of utilitarian thinking was connected
with the evolution of empirical psychology (turn of the XIX
and XX c.) and its primordial current – psychological hedonism.
We should underline that the classical utilitarianism
was founded on the psychological hedonism. That
theory, having a long tradition and many adherents
(d’Alembert, Helvetius, Hartley, Priestley, Tucker, Locke),
assumed that the escape from pain and desire for pleasure
were the main motives of human action. Positive values
have been reduced to pleasurable states of subject.
Utilitarian axiology underlines this conclusion and treats it
as a result of inquiries made by empirical psychology. For
these psychological hedonists “pleasure” is the primary,
undefined notion. Thus, experience is the only way of describing
it. According to C.D. Broad, there is possible only
ostensive definition of that term, made on the basis of introspection.
All of us know what pleasure is, one way or
another, we pursue it and avoid pain and frustration
caused by the lack of satisfaction. The experience of pain
and pleasure must be reduced to subjective feelings. But,
the terms, corresponding to them, will be connected with
the individual expression of positive or negative sentiments
evoked by their empirical referents.
There are many variants of psychological hedonism.
L. T. Troland in his book entitled “Fundamentals of Human
Motivation” describes its three versions: - psychological
hedonism oriented at the future ( the thought about the
future pleasure as a consequence of some course of action
is a necessary condition of that action and the main
reason of it),
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