Negative utilitarianism (NU) is a version of utilitarianism whose standard account holds that an act is morally right if and only if it leads to less suffering than any of its alternatives. NU was originally developed as an alternative to classical utilitarianism, which regards suffering and happiness as equally important, and is a leading example of a suffering-focused view, a broader family of ethical positions that assign primary—though not necessarily exclusive or overriding—moral importance to the alleviation of suffering.
Types of negative utilitarianism
As noted, the standard form of NU requires agents to minimize suffering. However, several variants to this canonical version have been proposed. These variants result from revising standard NU along one or more dimensions.
The first and most commonly discussed dimension of variation concerns the relative moral weight accorded to suffering and happiness. Standard NU may be regarded as a “strong” form of NU, holding that no amount of happiness can ever count for more than any amount of suffering. By contrast, “weak” versions of NU hold instead that a given quantity of suffering counts for more than a corresponding quantity of happiness, but accept that large enough quantities of happiness can in principle outweigh any quantity of suffering.[1][2][3][4] Strong NU views may be further subdivided into lexical NU and absolute NU, which either affirm or deny, respectively, that happiness counts for something.[3] On strong lexical NU, of two outcomes equally unpleasant, one counts for more than the other if it is the more pleasant of the two; whereas on absolute strong NU both outcomes count equally. Between strong lexical NU and weak NU, there is room for an intermediate or hybrid form of NU, sometimes called lexical threshold NU ,[3][5] according to which there is some amount of suffering that no amount of happiness can outweigh, but otherwise suffering can be outweighed by a large enough amount of happiness.
A second dimension of variation concerns whether or not NU is formulated in hedonistic terms. Standard NU is hedonistic in that it makes a claim about the relative moral weight of suffering and happiness. But versions of NU have also been formulated in terms of preferences, rather than hedonic states. These preferentist NU views hold that the frustration of a preference counts for more than its satisfaction. (How much more will depend on the type of NU–strong absolute, strong lexical, lexical threshold, or weak–that preferentism is combined with.) More generally, NU may be presented as a broader theory about negative and positive wellbeing: on this variant, what is bad for a person counts for more than what is good for a person–regardless of whether these goods and bads are hedonic states, preferences, something else, or a combination thereof.
A third dimension of variation relates to the location of the boundary demarcating the states which are morally contrasted. Standard NU holds that the location of this boundary coincides with hedonic neutrality. But some hedonistic negative utilitarians have instead defended a view on which the boundary is below neutrality. On this view, sometimes called “critical-level (hedonistic) NU”, the contrast is not between suffering and happiness, but rather between intense enough suffering and other hedonic states. This view also admits a formulation in terms of preferences, or wellbeing more generally.
Finally, different versions of NU may be obtained depending on whether NU is regarded as a criterion of rightness or as a decision procedure. Standard NU is generally understood to provide a criterion of rightness, that is, as a specification of the conditions under which acts are right or wrong. But NU may instead be interpreted as a decision procedure, that is, as a practical guide for choosing how to act. The claim here is that agents deliberating about what to do should strive to minimize suffering. Someone who is not a standard NU may still defend NU as a decision procedure if they think that following this procedure is more likely to result in acts that better conform to the requirements of morality, whatever those are. This view is analogous to some forms of prioritarianism or egalitarianism, where outcomes that benefit the worst off, or that promote a more equal distribution of resources, are favored not because intrinsic value is placed on priority or equality, but instead because following these principles generally produces better outcomes.
Further reading
Anonymous. (2015). Negative Utilitarianism FAQ. Utilitarianism.com.
Gustafsson, Johan (2022) Against negative utilitarianism, Johan Gustafsson’s Website, June 6.
Knutsson, Simon (2018) Thoughts on Ord’s “Why I’m not a negative utilitarian”, Simon Knutsson’s Blog, July.
Ord, Toby (2013) Why I’m not a negative utilitarian, Toby Ord’s Blog, February 28.
Tomasik, Brian (2013) Three types of negative utilitarianism, Essays on Reducing Suffering, March 23.
Vinding, Magnus (2022) Point-by-point critique of “Why I’m not a negative utilitarian”, Center for Reducing Suffering, May 30.
Vinding, Magnus (2022) Reply to Gustafsson’s “Against negative utilitarianism”, Center for Reducing Suffering, June 7.
Related entries
axiology | normative ethics | s-risk | suffering-focused ethics | utilitarianism
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Griffin, James (1979) Is unhappiness morally more important than happiness?, The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 29, pp. 47–55.
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Arrhenius, Gustaf & Krister Bykvist (1995) Future Generations and Interpersonal Compensations: Moral Aspects of Energy Use, Uppsala: Uppsala University.
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Ord, Toby (2013) Why I’m not a negative utilitarian, Toby Ord’s Blog, February 28.
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Knutsson, Simon (2019) The world destruction argument, Inquiry, pp. 1–20.
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Tomasik, Brian (2013) Three types of negative utilitarianism, Essays on Reducing Suffering, March 23.
I think “a version of utilitarianism that gives greater priority to reducing suffering (negative utility or ‘disutility’) than to increasing pleasure (positive utility)” (Wikipedia) is a more useful/accurate description. (Wikipedia starts with a description like the one currently used here, but I think that that quoted sentence is better.) But I’m not sure if we can/should just take sentences from Wikipedia?
I think the quoted sentence better describes suffering-focused ethics, for which there is a separate tag. I do agree that ‘negative utilitarianism’ is sometimes used to describe that view, but in the interests of clarity it seems best to discuss it in the other article, and append a note on terminology to this one. I will add this note now; please let me know if you think that’s sufficient to address your concern.
I don’t think that the quoted sentence better describes suffering-focused ethics, since SFE can includ non-utilitarian and non-consequentialist views.
Also, the current description doesn’t seem to me to make it clear/salient that negative utilitarianism focuses primarily or entirely on whether an act minimises expected suffering. Many other moral views would also say that agents often ought to act in ways that minimise expected suffering.
And my impression is that negative utilitarianism includes views that just give greater priority to reducing suffering than to other goods/bads, rather than only views that only care about reducing suffering. (This is based partly on Ord’s piece and partly on other things, though I haven’t read academic papers on the topic.)
So maybe it’s be better to say “Negative utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that holds that the primary or only determinant of whether an act is right is whether it minimizes expected suffering”. (This is similar to Ord’s statement “NU comes in several flavours, which I will outline later, but the basic thrust is that an act is morally right if and only if it leads to less suffering than any available alternative”. But I think my statement is a bit more accurate, given Ord’s own claim that negative utilitarianism includes not just absolute NU but also lexical NU, lexical threshold NU, and weak NU.)
I’ve now edited the lead sentence to that suggestion, but obviously feel free to change it back.
Okay, I added a section on types of NU. After reading some of this literature, I came to the conclusion that Toby’s definition was preferable, so I restored it. If you think we should change it (or revise this edit in any other way), let me know.
I meant that the sentence better describes suffering-focused ethics in the sense that this view gives merely greater priority to reducing suffering, rather than absolute or lexical priority. I myself wrote in the suffering focused ethics article that views in this family can value things other than hedonic states.
The paradigmatic form of negative utilitarianism holds that suffering has lexical priority over happiness, either because suffering is the only intrinsic value or because the intrinsic value of happiness can never exceed that of suffering. One can then construct all manner of variants, including those Toby mentions, that deviate from this core view in various respects. That’s why Toby characterizes the “basic thrust” of NU as holding “that an act is morally right if and only if it leads to less suffering than any available alternative”. Your statement is more accurate than Toby’s characterization in that it is consistent with some of the variants, but less accurate than it in that it doesn’t capture negative utilitarianism in its paradigmatic form. I slightly revised it to remove the words “primary or” from the first sentence.
I’ll try to expand the article tomorrow and cover some of the variants, to make all of this more explicit. [Update: I won’t be able to work on this today [Saturday] but I expect to do so shortly.]
I further revised it from ‘a form of utilitarianism that holds’ to ‘a version of utilitarianism whose paradigmatic form holds’ in order to reduce confusion. Feel free to make further revisions if you want, though as noted I intend to do further work on the article shortly.