I intend to discuss utilitarianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism): the greatest good for the greatest number. I suggest that this ethical philosophy is prominent in development, and I find that it is not always effective. It seems to me we fall back on this philosophy because it makes us feel-good and we tend to have a short-term frame of reference. However, I think it should be recognized that utilitarianism won't always be the best development strategy and development agencies and governments need to think longer term
In my Socially Responsible Science Class, we've been discussing the 10/90 Gap (http://www.globalforumhealth.org/About/10-90-gap). While we've been discussing it in terms of scientists' responsibilities, I think it serves as a good example of utilitarian motivated development strategies.
The 10/90 Gap refers to the statistical finding of the Global Forum for Health research that only ten percent of worldwide expenditure on health research is spent on diseases that afflict the poorest 90% of the world's population.
In my course we have discussed how this fact has stirred outrage amongst some philosophers of science as well as some development agencies such as the World Health Organization who are calling for a reallocation of funding to research diseases that afflict greater number of people such as: malaria, tuberculosis, and so on (Forge).
There is an underlying utilitarian philosophy in the response of development agencies and philosophers of science. It seems that this philosophy is prominent and rampant in development. The greatest good for the greatest number. However, I question whether this philosophy leads to the most improved well being in the long run. While this idea is appealing and makes for feel-good policies, does this approach consistently make situations better?
For example, lets say that we did research according to proportions that ninety percent of the world's research funds went to investigate diseases that afflicted ninety percent of the population and ten percent went to research diseases that afflict ten percent of the population. From this, the death rates in developing countries due to tuberculosis, malaria, and chest infections is greatly reduced. Therefore, there are now more healthy people living in the developing world. However, these people still don't have adequate access to education, health care, and still live under corrupt governments.
While we are being more utilitarian in our research funds and questions, are we actually improving their lives? In addition, whose to say if we create cheap ways to treat HIV/AIDS that it will actually be available to people. The governments are corrupt, would people even have access to medications?
I think we all too often take short-term utilitarian assessments that I suggest don't actually help a country develop. Since we focus short-term, development agencies don't always think of the consequences and effects of our ideas. Consider the Green Revolution. It made high-yielding synthesized seeds available to farmers. However, there were unexpected problems related to wide use of pesticides and making farmers dependent on the synthesized seeds. I suggest that the effects and consequences were not fully thought out.
Should we require for development agencies and approaches to think about the impacts and effects of their development projects? There has been talk about volun-tourism in our class, would we have made the same decisions if we had fully considered the consequences of our actions? Perhaps, a utilitarian approach to development could be beneficial if we consider consequences. However, I think we should recognize that this philosophy will not always lead to the best development and greatest good in the long term. Perhaps, if we didn't fall back on these feel-good, short-term, instantaneous solutions, than development strategies could be more effective.
What do I mean when I say think long-term? I mean we should consider the consequences and effects of our actions. As the Green Revolution showed and my potential problems with allocating health funding by proportion, I think we all too often just think we know the answer. Thinking in the long-term will vary depending on the particular development strategy in hand.
What are alternatives to utilitarianism in development? An example would be Dambisa Moyo's suggestion of gradually cutting aid to developing countries. While this a simplification of her view, this concept would not be the greatest good for the greatest number in the short-term which is why I think he hasn't been instituted. But from her standpoint and I agree, she thinks that governments' will continue to abdicate responsibility unless measures like this are taken.
Works Cited:
Forge, John. A Responsible Scientist: A Philosophical Inquiry. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg, 2008. Print.
I don't really think your objection is with utilitarianism. Who can really object to the greatest good for the greatest number? Rather it seems to me that your objection is with the use of utilitarianism as a shield behind which people can hide their simple approaches to complex problems.
ReplyDeleteInternational developement is a complex situation that will require complex solutions unique to individual circumstances. In general, people do not like hard problems. We like to believe in magic beans and silver bullets. But the world is not a fairy tale.
The examples in your post demonstrate that we are generally poor at predicting the long term consequences of our public policies. While focusing on the short time horizon may demonstrate a positive return, policies developed by always selecting the short term gain are unlikely to be optimal policies. The method of always selecting the policy that leads to the maximum return at the next time step is called a greedy algorithm. It is usually not the optimal way to go. A better one, though often difficult to implement, is to start one step from the desired end and look at the reward from taking that final step from each of those starting points. Then, you back up one more step away and study the costs and rewards of how to get to the second to last steps, and so on until you back up to the beginning. From there you can now play it forward to get the optimal path to your solution (sometimes called backwards-forwards or Viterbi algorithm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viterbi_algorithm)).
Note that there will often not be one best method. Which path to take will be dependent on the initial conditions. While I agree with your critique that public policy often focuses on short term goals rather than long term consequences, I think you are close to suggesting a one size fits all approach. The Marshall Plan which followed WW II was a huge investment of international aid in war damaged Europe. I believe most people see the Marshall Plan as a huge success. It is too easy, and too simple, to generalize the advice of Dambisa Moyo to all countries; even all African countries.
In short, utilitarianism seems fine as a slogan, but it is not the basis for policy development. Using it as a stick to beat those who don't share our views is harmful. No one really objects to long term happiness; our disagreements are about how to get there. A more important problem is people proposing "easy" solutions to hard problems. Plant these seeds and all will be good. Spend this much on malaria and this much on baldness and the world will be a better place. To advance development we must first focus on the goal. What is the society we think we are working towards? From there we must gradually back up and examine the steps that will lead to it. From this "backwards" approach we can develop a more sensible forwards trajectory.
I think one of the problems with gaging the consequences is that we can never be sure what the consequences are going to be. In assessing the risks, it is easy to weed out the simple long term consequences but it is a lot more difficult to determine the sustainability and complex long term consequences. What makes it even harder is that there will always be new challenges that arise that need to be met face on.
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed the blog post. Thanks Brile!
-Sebastien :)
While we are being more utilitarian in our research funds and questions, are we actually improving their lives? In addition, whose to say if we create cheap ways to treat HIV/AIDS that it will actually be available to people. The governments are corrupt, would people even have access to medications?
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to repost this section from your blog because I greatly agree with it. I have had the same thoughts wondering whether or not an inexpensive fix to HIV/AIDS or other such diseases and illnesses (such as cancer, but this is another subject completely that I have a problem with). I think that it is very likely that the government would keep a cheap vaccine or treatment of HIV/AIDS from a group of people in a corrupt nation.
This sort of utilitarianism is definitely detrimental to the people we think we are trying to help. I also wonder what the next step is or what can be done to make this a better situation. I think you have some really great analytical ideas!
Your blogs always make me think and try a little harder to analyze the information that I take in everyday. Thank Brile!
I agree that utilitarianism as a tool to push short-term and simplistic solutions forward is rarely an effective way to achieve change in the development field. I think that we should stop looking at cookie cutter, macrocosm solutions on their own and start assessing what local, grassroots initiatives are already established and begin supporting them. Not only would these efforts encourage flexible and area specific solutions, but it would also empower whole communities rather than forcing them to remain dependent on foreign "experts".
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of microloans for this- because it is a simple way to invest on a micro level in creative entrepreneurs who need the help but also empowers them as they are not receiving "handouts". I realize that this is a painfully slow process, but what if we rerouted all of our aid dollars to microloans and fair trade instead? I think this could make a phenomenal difference. The only problem is that it would require a complete value change and we would have to redefine what it really means to assist another country to "develop".
Good work Brile, I love reading your posts!
A quick note about the health research topic:
ReplyDeleteMany of the diseases in developing countries are understood. thus, resources are needed to administer medications, not to research. Sure, we could research better ways to make the medications accessable, but remmebr that many people choose to donate to things that affect them, and that the more wealthy people would be more likely to donate to this research. This could be a selfish decision but can we blame people for wanting to save their loved ones before people they've never met?
Back to the utilitarian view though: I think we do the greatest good for the greatest number because we cannot decide, if a minority should get certain resources, which minority to choose. It may be usefult to pick out the people who would most benefit from resources and give them enough resources to actually benefit but there are so many perspectives and noobjective truth about who/what this would be. We might as well try to blanket as many people as possible.