A Utilitarian Perspective on Social Justice

I've recently been trying to figure out what to do with this life of mine and as you can probably understand it's a difficult process. Yes, there are certain things that I definitely gravitate towards... creativity, justice work, having the opportunity to not stare at a computer for eight hours a day. These are all elements that I'd like to incorporate into my life, but when it comes down to I keep coming back to the same answer: be happy and help to make those around me happy. Life seems so short that to me this seemed the best use of it. But my mind retorts, "Leila that is utterly selfish! You have one life to live and you squander it on happiness? Where are your grand plans?!" This entry will be a justification to myself that happiness is indeed a good measure "doing the right thing" for yourself and for others.

If you had to boil moral utilitarianism down to a catch phrase, I believe it would be "maximize pleasure and decrease pain." Essentially, one can measure the moral worth or how "good" an action is, by placing its consequences on this spectrum. For example, I love relying on utilitarianism to justify my vegetarianism because it's so darn difficult to dispute! If you're interested in reading more about that particular argument, click here.

Let's talk about social justice. I understand that it centered on the idea of human rights, but can we extend the notion past simply ensuring that our basic rights are met? I think so. Utilitarianism suggests that for instance, the right to life is good, because arguably one would suffer less and suffering is usually undesirable. So the question then becomes, when we’re talking about social justice what is it that we are fighting for: equality, dignity, and our basic rights?

My thought is that those things wouldn’t necessarily be worth fighting for if they didn’t illicit some sort of happiness response within us. For instance, I feel good when I’m treated with dignity and I feel dignified when I’m given equal status with others. Rights then become constructed tools to help us actualize happiness, rather than being innate in of themselves good things. This argument would also lend itself nicely to a relativistic approach to morality that accounts for changes in what constitutes a “right” given a particular cultures conception of what allows for a happy of good life.

I’m a dabbling utilitarian, a relapsed moral universalist who has lost too many arguments. The thing is utilitarianism just makes so much sense, even if it doesn’t appeal to my romantic sensibilities. Such is life I suppose, we start out thinking we’re in it to do “good” and then we eventually realize we do it all for a little happiness.