I have yet to see a sustained discussion, by a utilitarian, of the war in Iraq. Whether the war was justified is a serious question—one that should continue to be debated. Equally serious is what the United States should now do. It might be thought that utilitarianism supports the immediate withdrawal of American forces, but that’s not necessarily so. Indeed, two aspects of utilitarian thought suggest that immediate withdrawal would be wrong.
The first aspect is that utilitarianism is forward-looking. Unlike, say, Kantianism, it takes no account of the past. What’s done is done. All you can do is take things as you find them and do the best you can. So even if the war in Iraq was wrong, by utilitarian standards, and even if it’s been badly managed by those same standards, it’s a separate question what ought to be done now, given the situation as we find it.
The second aspect is that utilitarianism endorses negative responsibility.* A person is as responsible for what he or she allows as for what he or she does. If the United States withdraws its troops and Iraqis kill each other en masse, as seems likely, then the United States is responsible for the deaths. Responsibility doesn’t end when we leave, for we might have prevented (some of) the deaths.
Here is the question utilitarians must answer: Which action, of all those available to us (the United States) would maximize overall utility? According to utilitarianism, Americans count for no more than Iraqis. As Jeremy Bentham put it (according to John Stuart Mill), “Everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one.” It may be that every action we undertake will lead to many deaths and much suffering. The question is which action will lead to the fewest deaths and the least suffering. And please note that utilitarianism makes no distinction between the guilty and the innocent. The interests of someone who is hell-bent on killing others are just as important as the interests of someone who is trying to help others.
I’m frankly astounded that Peter Singer, a utilitarian, has not weighed in on this issue. He seems more interested in bashing President Bush and expressing animosity toward the United States than in applying his normative ethical theory to one of the most pressing moral issues of the day. As for why he’s silent, I can only speculate. Perhaps he knows that it will make utilitarianism look bad. Most Americans think American lives are worth more than Iraqi lives. (This is called patriotism.) Most Americans think that, ceteris paribus, doing harm is worse than allowing harm. (This is called the Acts and Omissions Doctrine.) Most Americans think that what was done in the past is morally relevant to what we ought to do now. Most Americans think that the interests of the innocent are more important than the interests of the guilty.
If anyone knows of a utilitarian discussion of the war in Iraq, please bring it to my attention.
*Here is how Bernard Williams defines “negative responsibility”: [I]f I am ever responsible for anything, then I must be just as much responsible for things that I allow or fail to prevent, as I am for things that I myself, in the more everyday restricted sense, bring about.” Bernard Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” in Utilitarianism: For and Against, by J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 75-150, at 95.
