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ASYMMETRY OF CREATING AND NOT CREATING LIFE

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Asymmetry means differentiation or dissimilarity between two or more things. Creating life
means having life full of pleasure and happiness and not creating life means life having no
pleasure and happiness. It is actually derived from the Bentham¶s utilitarian theory of happiness.
Happiness ± which means the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain is the
standard by which behavior should be judged1. An individual should perform an action if it looks
as if it will make him a happier person.


 
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By the principle of utility it meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action
whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the
happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, to promote or to oppose that happiness.
Utility, from which the word µutilitarianism¶ is derived, means the sum of pleasures over pains,
or happiness2. It is the ultimate standard of value. Utilitarianism asserts that the good is the
largest amount of utility or happiness, and that means the sum total of the happiness of all people
concerned, and the right, or our fundamental duty, is to create as much of the good as is possible
whenever we act. By utility it is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce
benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil,

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or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered3: if that party be the community in
general, then the happiness of the community: if a particular individual, then the happiness of
that individual.

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Pleasure is the only thing valuable in itself because it is that in terms of which Bentham explains
desire, or the pro attitude towards an object, which makes people choose it or be attracted
towards it. What this means is that Bentham uses the idea of pleasure to explain why people
choose or desire the ends that they do. He does not mean that people only consciously desire
pleasure as the direct object of their action and are indifferent to the objects, characters and
events that give rise to it. The natural differences in the mankind¶s circumstances and
sensibilities explains why all do not seek the same objects and ends as giving rise to the same
amount of pleasure.

Bentham thinks that the only things to be considered in the political world are the discrete and
autonomous individuals who, taken together, comprises a society. His society is precisely equal
to the sum of the individuals who reside within it 4. ³The community is a fictitious body,
composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its member,´ he
says. The interest of the community then is the sum of the interests of the several members who
compose it. Because this is so, utilitarianism sets up a single standard which applies equally to
the act of an individual and the act of the government. ³ a thing is said to promote the interest of
an individual, when it tends to add to the sum total of his pleasures. A measure of government
may be said to be conformable to or dictated by the principle of utility, when in like manner the
tendency which it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any which it
has to diminish it. The interest or happiness of the community is actually a convenient fiction:
the reality is the sum of the pleasures of the individual citizens who pursue their own interests
and to whom the infliction of legal sanctions may be a source of pain.

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Out of this atomistic assumption emerges the famous axiom of Bentham¶s theory: It is the
greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong. A good
government provides for the pursuit of happiness in the context of human equality. For Bentham,
the contentment of any one citizen, no matter how humble, is as important as that of other. So,
the two arguments are (a) Y

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The former argument states that people matter equally and each person¶s interest should be given
equal weight; therefore morally right acts will maximize utility. The later argument talks about
valuable state of affairs5. In this theory, people are seen as locations of utilities. It means that a
right act is defined in terms of maximizing the good, rather than in terms of equal consideration
for individuals.

Thomas Aquinas also talked about the teleological approach and suggested that if something is
constructed to serve some end, its form should be appropriate for promoting that end. He
considered legal system as human institution. He stated that the proper end or purpose of law is
to enable all citizens to live good lives, felicitous and fruitful lives, and Aquinas used the term
"the common good" to refer to this goal of helping all members of society enjoy good lives and
that good life is made up of a number of basic human goods6.

Bentham identifies pleasure as the µsovereign master¶ which explains all that we do; in fact he
relies more often on the concept of pain in constructing his legal and political theory7. This is so
because it is not only the sensation of pleasure that explains action, but the avoidance of pain. All
manner of things can be sources of pain to some and not others, but certain things are pains
whatever it is we take pleasure in. these pains include the causes of death, physical violence, and
the restriction of liberty or freedom. An important feature in his account of the good or criterion
of value is that it is naturalistic. He argued that the good has to be a natural property if it provides
for a public moral discourse. If there is no natural property underlying our moral concepts and
judgments, then these become merely empty words and fictions.

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For Bentham, words and concepts must refer to some real property in the world if they are to
have any meaning. Unless there is such a reference, moral concepts become literally
meaningless. To judge an action right or wrong is to offer a judgment about the quantity of
pleasure it results in or the quantity of pain it prevents. As avoidance of pain and the pursuit of
pleasure are at the heart of Bentham¶s psychology, any judgment that an act promotes maximum
pleasure will give an agent a reason for acting accordingly.

However, he stated about the sanction based theory of obligation. On such a view one can only
have an obligation to maximize the greatest happiness of the greatest number when it would be
right to impose a sanction or punishment for falling to do so. Sanctions can take many forms,
including social disapproval and pressure as well as coercive penalties imposed by the state
through the legal system.

In modern times, the debate over the justification of punishment centers mainly on the theories of
utilitarianism and retributivism. Both of these theories attempt to place limitations on
punishment by providing criteria with which punishment can be justified. The criteria and
justifications of the two theories, however, are often in complete opposition to each other. The
utilitarian view of punishment has been put forth most strongly in the writings of Jeremy
Bentham, John Rawls, and H.L.A. Hart. Although each of these scholars approaches
utilitarianism somewhat differently, their general position can be summed up in the words of
Bentham:

The general object which all laws have, or ought to have, in common, is to augment the total
happiness of the community; and therefore, in the first place, to exclude, as far as may be every
thing that tends to subtract from that happiness: in other words, to exclude mischief8. Since
punishment is also mischief, it is justified only "in as far as it promises to exclude some greater
evil." The utilitarian view of punishment concerns itself only with future consequences: past
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criminal acts cannot be relevant considerations for deciding what to do (except as providing
empirical evidence of the effectiveness of past punishment policies). In general, punishment only
addresses the question of how best to benefit society in response to these acts.

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Traditionally, utilitarianism has focused on various functions of punishment, in particular

deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. Bentham, for example, stressed the deterrence
function of punishment, arguing that the level of punishment should be set in accordance with
the amount necessary to deter future offenses. Hart, on the other hand, took a somewhat broader
view of utilitarianism, regarding punishment as a "choosing system." Hart began by stating,
similarly to Bentham, that, within this choosing system as created by the criminal law, people
discover the costs they must pay if they behave in certain ways. Hart however went farther than
Bentham's simple system of punishment and avoidance: "What a legal system does is to guide
individuals' choices as to behaviour by presenting them with reasons for exercising choice in the
direction of obedience, by leaving them to choose." Under this view, punishment is justified on
utilitarian grounds in so far as people are led to act in socially beneficial ways.

In contrast, retributivism (or retribution) holds that punishment is justified solely on the grounds
that it is a positive moral duty. Such a duty depends entirely on just deserts, not upon any appeal
to societal benefits; a retributivist punishes "because and only because offenders deserve it. As
Kant wrote, Punishment by a court can never be inflicted merely as a means to promote some
other good for the criminal himself or for civil society. It must always be inflicted upon him only
because he has committed a crime. For a man can never be treated merely as a means to the
purposes of another or be put among the objects of rights to things: His innate personality
protects him from this, even though he can be condemned to lose his civil personality. Hence,
punishment depends solely on the criminal and his acts, and not on the future welfare of society
or on the possible consequences of the infliction of punishment. Why we punish is a question of
rights and duties, not of consequences.
Bentham was more concerned with using the power of government to minimize pains by
prohibiting actions that violate certain basic conditions of individual welfare. The chief value of
law was that it enabled the legislator to protect certain basic interests through the distribution of
civil and political rights, and then as far as possible to leave individuals free to pursue their own
interests within this scheme of rights and obligations. The maximization of happiness would
become a by - product of the direct aim of legislation, which was the maximization of pain9.





If we consider equality of individuals for considering utility maximization, then the moral good
will be neglected. And if we consider utilitarianism as a state of affairs, then it becomes difficult
to explain morality because morality is a matter of interpersonal obligations and there is
confusion about whom do we owe the duty of maximizing utility. If people have become the
means for the maximization of good, morality has dropped out of the picture, and no moral ideal
is at work. So, the goal is not to respect people, for whom certain things are needed or wanted,
but rather to respect the good, to which certain people may or may not be useful contributors.

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REFERENCES

c KYMLICKA WILL: CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY; AN

INTRODUCTION, Oxford University Press, Indian Pub, 2nd Edn, 2002.

c ANDREW HACKER: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY; PHILOSPHY, IDEOLOGY,

SCIENCE, Surjeet Pub, Delhi, 2006.

c BOUCHER DAVID & KELLY PAUL: POLITICAL THINKERS; From Socrates to

Present, Oxford University Press, US Pub, New York, 2003.

c ROSEN MICHEAL & WOLFF JONATHEN: POLITICAL THOUGHT; Oxford

University Press, New York, 1999.

c American Journal of Jurisprudence, Moral Foundations of Contract Law, Am. J. Juris

71(2002). Available at http://web2.westlaw.com.