It will be seen that as against Baier I am advocating a Sidgwick type utilitarianism. Baier's argument against this sort of view appears on pp. 203-4 and is extraordinarily weak. He says that on the utilitarian view we ought never to relax, and we do not believe this. As against this there are two replies: 1) If we don't relax tonight we shan't be in good shape for good works tomorrow; 2) (This is a more important reply.) Maybe we do ordinarily think that we are frequently entitled to relax. But perhaps we are wrong about this. Maybe enlightened thinking about ethics, not just following common sense beliefs, will lead us to see that we should relax less often than we do.
(J. J. C. Smart, review of The Moral Point of View: A Rational Basis of Ethics, by Kurt Baier, Meanjin 76 [April 1959]: 120-1, at 121)
Note from KBJ: Utilitarianism (a normative ethical theory) is criticized both for allowing too much and for demanding too much. It allows some to be sacrificed for the sake of others. It requires that we work full-time to alleviate misery, even if those who are miserable are unknown to us and even if we had no part in bringing about their misery. Kurt Baier leveled the second criticism: that utilitarianism demands too much. His argument goes like this:
1. Utilitarianism implies that we ought never to relax.
2. It's not the case that we ought never to relax (i.e., it's sometimes permissible to relax).
Therefore,
3. Utilitarianism is false (or to be rejected).
Just as a scientific theory must be rejected if it makes a false prediction, a normative ethical theory must be rejected if it implies something false (or unacceptable).
Smart's reply to Baier's argument is twofold. First, he rejects premise 1. It's false, he says, that utilitarianism implies that we ought never to relax. Second, he rejects premise 2. It's false that it's sometimes permissible to relax. The first reply, in philosophical parlance, constitutes grasping the bull by the horn. The second constitutes biting the bullet. Utilitarians are notorious for using both strategies, although not always at the same time. Sometimes they deny that their theory has the stated implication; sometimes they admit that it has the implication but accept it.
In this case, Smart is using both strategies at once. This may seem inconsistent, for he seems to be saying both that utilitarianism has the stated implication and that it does not have the stated implication. Actually, he's arguing in the alternative, the way lawyers do. He's saying that a good case can be made that utilitarianism does not have the stated implication, but that, if he should turn out to be wrong about this, he can fall back on the second strategy and accept the implication. It's no different from a lawyer arguing that his or her client did not commit the homicide, but that, if the client did commit the homicide, the client was insane at the time.
