Guest Blogger: Greg on Utilitarianism, Happiness and the Commons
My fellow Ethics seminarian Greg Schneider wrote a smart response to one of my questions about ethics and the commons that ties together the Bollier and Mill essays. It does a nice job of incorporating the notion of intellectual pleasure with the ethical problem of obligation to the commons. He doesn't blog, so I asked him if he'd like to post it up here - both because it should be shared and because I selfishly want to file it with the rest of my notes on this topic. So without further ado, here is Greg:
Apply the basic precepts of happiness in Mill's Utilitarianism to the academic commons
To get at how a theory that posits happiness as "pleasure and the absence of pain" can help us understand the information commons we must first explore Mill's definition a bit further. After all, the information commons doesn't seem all that pleasurable at first glance (well, it's pleasurable if you think of it THAT way, but come on, focus, we've got theory to discuss!).
Mill's Definition of Utilitarianism: "The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure" (448 in my edition).
But Mill goes out of his way in the second chapter of this short book to debunk the cliche arguments against his theory. Here we begin to see a subtle development of his notion of happiness. Indeed, one of Mill's oft quoted phrases states that "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied" (449). For Mill, happiness is not hedonism (as it could be argued it was for Bentham), and he takes pains to show this. There are differences in kinds of pleasure, Mill argues, and we can say that human pleasures are of an entirely different sort than the baser beasts. "Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification" (448). While this statement seems to include the love/hate power of addiction, and it also shows that humans have access to a higher quality of pleasure. Mill doesn't just want to count pleasure points (like some kind of fad diet), he wants to factor in the quality of this pleasure as well.
These qualitatively greater pleasures of the mind are the ones which provide the link to the information commons. The information commons refers to the creative space where intellectual property (music, art, film, advertising, poetry, novels, etc.), in effect digital everything, is created and disseminated. As digital technologies, which free information from physical recalcitrances that made mass dissemination more difficult, come into conflict with traditional market forces, the legal system has been harnessed to control and limit the development and dissemination of these works. Through the extension of copyright law and attendant legal arguments over fair use, Bollier worries that this space is being usurped by corporations and corporate power politics. All this, he argues, shuts down creativity by limiting creative fair use of artistic works for the sake of the corporate bottom line.
This enclosure of the information commons leads, Bollier and others argue, to the loss of a creative public sphere. They see this as a paradox: capitalistic corporations resist the new digital technologies because they wish to make money off their old stuff by charging the creative class to use and cite their material. It can be argued, however, that capitalism is based upon innovation, so the corporations (or more appropriately perhaps, the market driven government that buys their legal arguments) actually lose out in the long run by diminishing the potential for people todevelop new ideas and technologies. This argument recognizes that there are no new ideas; things continue to evolve out of previous ideas; straight-jacketing those who would push the boundaries of the ideational world thus limits our ability to innovate, to create new pleasurable experiences, and offer ideas that will keep the economy dynamic.
Stepping away from this near-Marxist argument and returning to Mill, we can see that what Broiller and others are getting at is an argument about intellectual pleasures. By enclosing and invading the information commons, copyright and fair use controls diminish people's ability to mobilize their intellectual powers for the greater good (or even their own quirky pleasure). If we link intellectual pleasure with the creative powers of humans, then copyright and fair use restrictions cannot be seen as utilitarian. They do not help create happiness (intellectual pleasure). Under utilitarianism, the information commons becomes an ethical space and the need to talk about the commons becomes an ethical obligation because the reinvigoration of this space and the loosening of its strictures will benefit more than the people who originated the works (a reasonable limit on copyright law seems to be a balance, but unfortunately this balance has tipped to heavily favor Disney and its mouse).
Speaking to the question of selfishness and addiction, Mill states: "Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying" (449). We might try to tie a causal chain between the limiting of the information commons to the selfishness and addictivity of parts of our culture who are denied the "opportunity" and the "access" to these goods.
In fact, moving past selfishness to the "principle cause" of unhappiness, Mill addresses cause directly: "Next to selfishness, the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation. A cultivated mind - I do not mean that of a philosopher, but any mind to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties - finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it; in the objects of nature, the achievements of art, the imaginations of poetry, the incidents of history, the ways of mankind, past and present, and their prospects in the future" (450). Any movement that works to curtail this interest or works to close off avenues of curiosity is one that is unethical under the consequentialist paradigm.
Consequently, I think it reasonable to see that the information commons has taken the betterment of humanity (it's intellectual happiness) into account, while the copyright and fair use, which was originally not so detrimental, has produced arguments that stifle creativity and impede the cultivation of the mind. Bollier's argument, then, outlines a framing for the dialogue that is inherently ethical. By arguing that we must talk and discuss these issues in the terms provided through the concept of the information commons we take steps to bring about the information commons itself. Bollier in fact offers us a utilitarian argument for talking about the information commons.
Comments
I flattered to be a guest blogger. One day maybe I'll have my own show. I'm adding Art's comments because they may be helpful for you (strong emphasis on "may"). Good luck on your project!
Greg
"I agree that Mill would support the information commons because he valued development of individual character and potential above everything else—a point your essay makes compellingly. Mill does ground this preference for individualism in utilitarianism's claim for the greatest good for the greatest number, but I have always been suspicious of this grounding. My point is: Mill’s version of utilitarianism supports the information commons but does that mean that the preference is really ground in utilitarian principles?"
Posted by: Greg | December 2, 2004 11:52 AM
The greatest, say, creativity and self-actualization of the greatest number - now that would be a defense of the info commons, would it not? So, if happiness is like Aristotle's concept of same, a state of felicity, of being fully human, then perhaps the greatest happiness of the greatest number dictates that art wants to be free., not bottled up and restricted for the sake of the property owner. Having fun with art, messing with it, borrowing, riffing, playing, these should the pleasures of the many, not restricted to enrich the few.
Posted by: The Happy Tutor | December 2, 2004 6:52 PM