GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

OBJECTIVE UTILITARIANISM 34!
has an equal right to be considered, when we are asking
whose happiness is relevant to our estimation of right
actions. "Everybody," in fact, "is to count for one, and
nobody for more than one." Possibly! But to say that
everybody should count for one, and that we ought, there-
fore, to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest
number, is not the same as to say that we ought to promote
the greatest amount of happiness on the whole. It is
possible to conceive of two societies A and B such that,
while the happiness which exists among the members of
A is more evenly distributed than that which exists among
the members of B, the total amount of happiness enjoyed
than that which
by members of B is, nevertheless, greater
is enjoyed by the members of A. For example, the ideal
States of Aristotle and Plato might, from this point ofview,
qualify as B States, if only because they would have
contained or, Aristotle's State at least, would have con-
tained large numbers of slaves, who, we may suppose,
would have had a meagre share of whatever happiness
was available. Aristotle's State, therefore, may well have
exemplified a society in which, while a high degree of
happiness was enjoyed on the whole, the happiness was
very unevenly distributed. On the other hand, it is possible
to imagine a highly equalitarian State in which, owing
to material poverty, the general level of happiness is
low. It is also conceivable that the economic system which
enabled the State to become an equalitarian one, might
also be responsible for the low level of material prosperity.
The case of Russia in the years immediately succeeding
the Revolution is a case of this kind.
Which of these two kinds of states is the better, I will
not presume to say. My point is merely that they are
different, and that, if state B be judged the more desirable,
then actions which utilitarian theory seeks to justify on
the ground that they promote the greatest happiness of
the greatest number will not always be right, in the utili-
tarian sense of the word "right", since they will not always
promote the greatest amount of happiness on the whole.