What would John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Benetham say about hacking?
An interesting idea, and certainly one worth taking a look at. For this blog post, I am focusing on two of the strongest driving forces behind the ideas of Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the idea that the proper action, the moral action, is the one that maximizes overall happiness. Benetham states that there are two “soverign masters” governing mankind, pain and pleasure, and Benetham believes that the proper action would be one that maximizes overall pleasure, while minimizes overall pain. This concept stems from the idea of consequentialism, which states that the morality of an action can be determined only from the outcome of said action. This differs from Kant’s idea of categorical imperative, which can be summed up by saying that some actions, regardless of outcome, are moral or immoral. To really get an idea of these concepts in action, let me employ a lovely example I came across in one of Michael Sandel’s lectures.
Imagine you’re walking along a bridge and you spot a runaway train; It’s zooming along the track, the breaks don’t work, and Denzel Washington is nowhere to be found(If you don’t understand the joke, don’t be discouraged. I assure you it wasn’t that funny anyway). A good distance down the track are five unaware train workers, doing train worker things to the track. Imagine that it is inevitable - if nothing is done, these five train workers are going to die miserable, painful deaths. Now, imagine on that very bridge, a incredibly large man is leaning over the railing directly above the train’s track. You realize that you can save all five of those train workers lives if you just push the large man over the railing, and onto the track. This incredibly large man would inevitably die a most unfortunate death, but in the process he will have saved five other peoples lives. So what do you do - Do you choose send one man to his death to save five people, or do you choose to let the train kill the five workers and let the fat man lean against the railing in peace?
The utilitarianist would keep it simple and state that five lives without pain and one life with pain is better than five lives with pain and one without pain, and without much hesitation, send the fat man plummeting to his inevitable end. Obviously, somebody who follows Kant’s idea of categorical imperative would let the five men die, because regardless of whether 5 men die or 1 man dies, this philosophy states that sending a man to his death is, without question, immoral, and thus the wrong decision.
So now that we know how the Benetham and Stuart Mill would act in that scenario, what can be assume about their stances on hacking? I believe that both of these gentlemen would support hacking as long as it follows the basic tenants of utilitarianism -- there must be more overall happiness after the hacking than before. Let’s delve into a few scenarios and see the stances they’d take.
Would Benetham/StuartMills be okay with hacking into somebody’s wireless network? It depends - if the hacker isn’t in any way infringing on the owner’s speeds, or data privacy, I don’t think they would have a problem with this. Pleasure is gained from free Internet, and if the owner’s experience does not change post-hack, he/she does not feel any pain. If you take a step further, it might be argued that the people who profit from the Internet service provider’s income may suffer, so depending on how much the ISP stands to lose from this hack, Benetham and co. might not approve of the hack.
Would Benetham and co. approve of hacking a child pornography website? Absolutely. Without a doubt these people would view distributors and producers of child pornography and incredible sources of pain for children and families, and to prevent them from creating any more pain, thus minimizing pain and increasing overall happiness, they would hack the website (Stuart Mill has 1337 h@ck3R sk1llz, afterall).
And for my final example, would BeneMills approve of hacking Microcenter’s website because he doesn’t like their prices and the manager was a big jerk to him? I believe they would not - they would see that while it may produce a considerable (very, very, very considerable) amount of pleasure for the hacker, it would cause much more pain for customers, workers, and anybody who stands to profit from the website’s operation.
In conclusion, I believe that our friends Benetham and Stuart Mills would approve of hacking - but only after they have analyzed the resulting outcome of said hacks.
An interesting idea, and certainly one worth taking a look at. For this blog post, I am focusing on two of the strongest driving forces behind the ideas of Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the idea that the proper action, the moral action, is the one that maximizes overall happiness. Benetham states that there are two “soverign masters” governing mankind, pain and pleasure, and Benetham believes that the proper action would be one that maximizes overall pleasure, while minimizes overall pain. This concept stems from the idea of consequentialism, which states that the morality of an action can be determined only from the outcome of said action. This differs from Kant’s idea of categorical imperative, which can be summed up by saying that some actions, regardless of outcome, are moral or immoral. To really get an idea of these concepts in action, let me employ a lovely example I came across in one of Michael Sandel’s lectures.
Imagine you’re walking along a bridge and you spot a runaway train; It’s zooming along the track, the breaks don’t work, and Denzel Washington is nowhere to be found(If you don’t understand the joke, don’t be discouraged. I assure you it wasn’t that funny anyway). A good distance down the track are five unaware train workers, doing train worker things to the track. Imagine that it is inevitable - if nothing is done, these five train workers are going to die miserable, painful deaths. Now, imagine on that very bridge, a incredibly large man is leaning over the railing directly above the train’s track. You realize that you can save all five of those train workers lives if you just push the large man over the railing, and onto the track. This incredibly large man would inevitably die a most unfortunate death, but in the process he will have saved five other peoples lives. So what do you do - Do you choose send one man to his death to save five people, or do you choose to let the train kill the five workers and let the fat man lean against the railing in peace?
The utilitarianist would keep it simple and state that five lives without pain and one life with pain is better than five lives with pain and one without pain, and without much hesitation, send the fat man plummeting to his inevitable end. Obviously, somebody who follows Kant’s idea of categorical imperative would let the five men die, because regardless of whether 5 men die or 1 man dies, this philosophy states that sending a man to his death is, without question, immoral, and thus the wrong decision.
So now that we know how the Benetham and Stuart Mill would act in that scenario, what can be assume about their stances on hacking? I believe that both of these gentlemen would support hacking as long as it follows the basic tenants of utilitarianism -- there must be more overall happiness after the hacking than before. Let’s delve into a few scenarios and see the stances they’d take.
Would Benetham/StuartMills be okay with hacking into somebody’s wireless network? It depends - if the hacker isn’t in any way infringing on the owner’s speeds, or data privacy, I don’t think they would have a problem with this. Pleasure is gained from free Internet, and if the owner’s experience does not change post-hack, he/she does not feel any pain. If you take a step further, it might be argued that the people who profit from the Internet service provider’s income may suffer, so depending on how much the ISP stands to lose from this hack, Benetham and co. might not approve of the hack.
Would Benetham and co. approve of hacking a child pornography website? Absolutely. Without a doubt these people would view distributors and producers of child pornography and incredible sources of pain for children and families, and to prevent them from creating any more pain, thus minimizing pain and increasing overall happiness, they would hack the website (Stuart Mill has 1337 h@ck3R sk1llz, afterall).
And for my final example, would BeneMills approve of hacking Microcenter’s website because he doesn’t like their prices and the manager was a big jerk to him? I believe they would not - they would see that while it may produce a considerable (very, very, very considerable) amount of pleasure for the hacker, it would cause much more pain for customers, workers, and anybody who stands to profit from the website’s operation.
In conclusion, I believe that our friends Benetham and Stuart Mills would approve of hacking - but only after they have analyzed the resulting outcome of said hacks.
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