Deeper Foundations? (Dee Speaking)
		Comment				MAIN PATH: Fred
				Fred

I have a ton of problems with the utilitarian approach. Here are just a few of my concerns:

• First, your argument assumes that freedom of expression maximizes a certain outcome; namely, human welfare. You haven't offered a definition of welfare, and you probably can't produce one that isn't controversial.
• Second, your view requires that we can measure welfare and compare one outcome with another. But think of all the things like love and community and security that are impossible to measure. They are part of human welfare, perhaps the most important part.
• Third, how on earth do you know that a policy of free expression will maximize welfare by any plausible definition? Can you predict the future? I mean that seriously. If you can't tell us which stocks will do best over the next hundred years, how can you tell us which policy on free expression will make us better off? I think that utilitarianism assumes a predictive science of society that doesn't exist. (And never will, I might add. But then, I'd be claiming that I could predict the future, wouldn't I. That's a joke.)
• Fourth, utilitarianism is flawed because it deals only in aggregates or total volumes of things like welfare or happiness. Even if we could measure and predict those volumes, we would be completely ignoring the fate of the individual. In John Rawls' words, utilitarianism "does not take seriously the distinction between persons."

Given these and many other problems, I don't think that utilitarianism is a moral theory that we can rely upon. I don't think we should try to use it as the foundation of a policy on freedom of expression.

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