The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number: A Fair Notion?

As child the best way to make your friend do something he or she didn’t want to do was to cite the fact that the other 3 friends in the group also wanted to do it: “You have to do it, because... majority wins”. But this notion that what the majority decides is what has to be done and what is ‘right’ is something that I have seen a lot of people carry into their adult lives. The ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is an attractive notion. But it is it always fair?

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Many believe an action that produces the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people (the majority) is the action worth pursuing. An action that makes 6 out of 10 people happy is seen as more worthy than an action that makes only 4 out of 10 happy. Indeed, what could possibly be wrong with wanting to make more people happy? While the answer to this question might seem obvious to some, for others it is still contestable. Indeed, the need for minority rights is not universally obvious. Many believe that a greater number of happy people in the world would mean more ‘overall happiness’ and such a world would surely be a better, more desirable world. But would it? 

A principle that strives towards making the greatest number of people happy ignores a very simple but extremely important question: what is making different people happy? First consider just 2 people – Samira and Tanya – who are equally happy. But while Samira derives happiness (say 10 units of it, for argument’s sake) from social service, Tanya gets the same from torturing animals [For those who don’t care for social service, replace this with Samira getting 10 units of happiness from developing Apple products]. While Samira and Tanya are equally happy, there is a huge difference in what makes them happy. In such a situation, if the state had to choose to endorse either Samira or Tanya, would you say that it didn’t matter who the state endorses because in each case it is making one person happy? Or would you choose one person over the other? If you chose Samira over Tanya then you have made a value-judgement about what actions and values you think are worth endorsing and what are not, even though endorsing either would produce the same amount of happiness (10 units in each case).

Now apply the same logic to a group. Imagine that in a group of 10, 8 are like Tanya and 2 like Samira. You are the state. In such a case, would you choose to make the greater number happy? This would mean choosing more overall happiness in the group of 10 people; you would choose what produces 80 units of happiness over what produces just 20 units. But would choosing to endorse 8 people who derive happiness from torturing animals be better for society than choosing 2 people who are made happy by providing social service (or developing Ipads)?  If your answer is no, then again you have made a value-judgment, choosing one action (social service/developing Ipads) as more valuable than the other (torturing animals).

My point is simple: those who strive for the ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number’ ignore the question of what is making the ‘greatest number’ happy. Moreover, those who think they are being ‘neutral’ in letting the ‘greatest number’ decide must recognise that they inevitably endorse certain actions over others and certain values over others (in this case, torturing animals over social service or developing Ipads). While they themselves are not making the judgement, they are letting a random number make it for them. And the result may be that the actions and values chosen by ‘the greater number’ might not be fair or just.

Suppose there is a group of 10 people in which 8 persons derive happiness from beating up the other 2 persons who look different from them just because they ‘look different’ (you are one of the ‘different-looking’ ones). Following the principle of ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number’ would mean that you are physically thrashed simply because this makes more people happy. You suffer because “majority wins”. But is it really fair to make a smaller number of persons unhappy for the sake of creating happiness in a larger number of other persons? This is a question about justice, and most societies are still grappling with it.

Often one hears talk not just of ‘greatest happiness’ but the ‘common good’ (most policies are formulated for the common or ‘greater good’ of society). This is a way of speaking about the majority’s happiness in terms of welfare: what is in the ‘greatest good’ of society as a whole (“overall”). Like ‘overall happiness’, the ‘common good’ is an aggregative concern i.e. it aggregates the preferences of each person and decides the ‘common good’ according to what the ‘greatest number’ prefers or thinks suitable. 

This seems impartial and egalitarian: each person really does count as one, and no one counts for more than one. However, any principle that aggregates preferences and gives supremacy to those of the majority is problematic when it comes to the principle of rights. Suppose the general consensus in a community is to forbid its women from stepping outside their house. Would it be fair to deprive women of their right to move freely? Or, to take another example, suppose ‘the greatest number’ decides that it is in the ‘common good’ of the community or the nation to expel or exterminate members of another race or religion. Is it fair to deprive another race or religious community of its right to reside in a region or of its right to life? Think of Kashmiri Hindus in Muslim-majority Kashmir.

Historically, rights have often been trampled upon by aggregating preferences of the majority and coming up with an overall measure of what is in the ‘common good’. This is especially dangerous when the aggregated preferences are sexist, ultra-nationalist or racist. Consider the majority in Germany condoning the persecution of Jews by citing an overall ‘common good’ for Germany (the purity of the Aryan race and Greater Germany). This was also what was so egregious about totalitarian regimes – heinous crimes were not opposed because they were believed to be for sake of the aggregated preference (the ‘common good’/’overall happiness’) of the nation. In Stalin’s Russia, people sacrificed the lives of their loved ones (and often their own lives) for the sake of the ‘common good’ (in this case, their rights were subordinated to their aggregated preference which was the ideology of Communism).

But rights (especially fundamental ones) are considered indefeasible i.e. they must not be violated or overridden under any circumstances. They cannot be compromised for the sake of any ‘larger goal’, and this includes the goal of ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number’ and the ‘common good’. In fact, rights must - as philosopher Ronald Dworkin argues – trump the ‘common good’ or the general measure of ‘overall happiness’. Otherwise, justice itself gets subordinated to it.

The problem is that most laws and policies are formulated according to this very logic of the "overall" good of society! This does not mean that all laws and policies are bad or unjust, only that they can be and sometimes are,  and that one must recognise this if one seeks to safeguard rights and justice.

One is also not saying that the ideal of the greatest good of everyone is attainable, but merely pointing out that justice requires that when laws and policies are made for the ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number’ they have clauses which protect the rights of the ‘smaller number’ who are ‘left behind’ or are complimented by other policies which recognise, compensate for and rectify the injustice done to them.