Happiness vs. Justice

Two Independent, and Sometimes Conflicting, Moral Principles

Theories that say maximizing happiness is the ultimate principle of ethics are called Utilitarian. “Maximizing happiness” in this context means creating the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Theories that base ethics on obligations, justice and duty are called Deontological. These terms are contrasted and defined in greater detail here. However, for our purposes I will usually use the ordinary words Happiness and Justice. There are problems with trying to base ethics exclusively on either principle.

The biggest dilemma for happiness-based ethics is that it seems obviously unfair and wrong to make one innocent person suffer, even if it makes thousands of other people happy. For anti-choice advocates that seems to be what is happening in the pro-choice arguments that catalog the many social and personal benefits of the right to choose. Murder is morally wrong because it is the killing of an innocent human being. (Third Trimester?) Abortion is the killing of an innocent human being, therefore it is wrong no matter how much suffering it ends, and happiness it may cause.

There are some anti-choice arguments that rely on happiness-based principles, such as the claims that abortion causes cancer or emotional trauma or the deterioration of family bonds. But these claims are controversial at best, and require extensive footnotes to scientific research that I don’t have the space to discuss here.. The…