The Greatest President For The Greatest Number (Trump And Clinton Through The Lenses Of Ethical Theory)

As I noted in the first post in this series, this is an election where the encouragement to ‘vote your conscience’ resonates perhaps more than ever. In the service of bringing clarity to our thoughts about this year's candidates, I am posting a number of articles that look at them through the lenses of various ethical theories. I began with virtue ethics and continued with deontological ethics; this third post will look at consequentialist ethics.

I am convinced that no one ethical theory does justice to the complexity of our world; nonetheless, I hope the process of viewing life through several different ethical lenses will bring increasing clarity. I should also note that my summaries offer a a broad overview that will not do justice to the complexities of these theories. I encourage you to read more deeply on your own.


Consequentialist theories argue that the moral nature of an action is determined by what produces the best balance of good effects over bad effects. Utilitarianism is the most popular form of consequentialist ethics, so that will be our focus.

‘Utility’ is the good that comes as a consequence of an action. Jeremy Bentham claimed that actions are good or bad depending upon the amount and degree of pleasure and/or pain that results; John Stuart Mill argued that happiness, not pleasure, was the standard for the good. The correct or greatest moral action or rule is the one that produces the greatest amount of utility (be it pleasure or happiness) for the greatest number of people.

One can be good without being virtuous or following duty to a social contract. The amount of pleasure or happiness that results from one's choices is all that matters at the end of the day. Lest this sound like a hedonic free-for-all, both Mill and Bentham believed there was a hierarchy of value. Mill stressed quality over quantity; Bentham offered a 'hedonic calculus' to aid in this endeavor.

There are at least four categories within utilitarianism worth noting.

Captain America: Civil War

Captain America: Civil War, Marvel’s latest box office hit based on a comic series from 2006 and 2007, offers an important allegory for our post-911 times.*  It’s not a perfect movie – I’m still not sure why the Avengers were to blame for the explosion, and the villain's plot was preposterous – but the deeper issues are worth exploring.

The Avengers, a team of the most powerful people in the world, travel the globe to fight crime. They basically answer to no one. Unfortunately, in spite of all the good they do, there have been a number of missions that have failed very publicly (reminiscent of the starting premise in Batman v Superman). They are asked to sign the Sokovia Accords, which would put the group under United Nations supervision. When asked to describe them, Thaddeus Ross says,

“How about ‘dangerous’? What would you call a group of US based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned with what they leave behind? New York, Washington D.C., Sokovia, Lagos...”

Peter Parker, when asked why he acts as Spider Man, notes, ”When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen? They happen because of you.” That’s not entirely true, but we get the point. With great power comes great responsibility.  But what if you do the things you can do and because of that bad things happen? King T’Chaka claims that “victory at the expense of the innocent is no victory at all.”  If he is correct, that's a problem, because that’s how victory has been won time and again. That may be inevitable in a messy world, but must it be so often, and involve so many?