Utilitarianism: Hurricane Katrina

6 September 2015

Utilitarianism Application

Business Ethics

MGMT 368

Dan Wohl

Introduction

        “According to Utilitarianism, we should evaluate an action by looking at its consequences, weighing the good effects against the bad effects on all the people affected by it” (DeGeorge 45). One man made many contributions to the development of this theory, and his name was Jeremy Bentham. Bentham was a Hedonistic Utilitarian, meaning he believed that the two “basic human values [were] pleasure and pain” (45). He directly influenced Utilitarianism with his perspective on the aspects of pleasure and pain. Along with Bentham’s theories, Utilitarianism focuses on producing the greatest amount of good (pleasure) for the greatest number of people.

        Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster that struck New Orleans and much of Louisiana, presented many ethical concerns through the recovery process. A major argument on disaster relief is whether or not the government should be involved and how taxpayer money should be spent. This article will discuss the utilitarianism view on how government spending during Hurricane Katrina’s disaster relief is ethical or unethical via Utililitarianist viewpoint. Consequently, it will determine the level of involvement the government should have in cooperation with private organizations due to the unethical economic practices in government spending. Finally, it will determine a course of action that would be necessary to avoid the ethical downfalls to taxpayers that were present during the months of relief efforts.

Moral Argument

        Robert Mcgee discusses the ethical issue of government expenditures in the wake of hurricane Katrina by stating, “Governments have a fiduciary duty to taxpayers to spend tax funds wisely. It seems that this has not always been done in the case of Katrina. Spending $92 for a steak knife or $2,950 for a wristwatch or $25,078 for a laptop computer is certainly questionable, as are many of the other expenditures that have been made in the name of Katrina relief” (Mcgee 8). These expenditures that Mcgee acknowledges ranges from 92$ for a steak knife to $5.7 million for rotten meat removal (maybe the two are related?). Neglecting all of the adequate spending the government used to help in relief of Katrina, these other expenditures are just a waste of taxpayer money. In the Utilitarian belief, these expenses are not for the benefit of the greatest number of people. It is even shown that the proper spending of tax money was used in an extremely inefficient manner.

        The first utilitarian view that is applicable here is a cost-benefit analysis. Of course the government’s intentions were to benefit the people that were affected by the tropical storm, however, the costs incurred to help these people were not necessarily used efficiently. As stated previously, the government spent taxpayer money on goods that were either over an efficient cost, or seemed completely irrelevant to the situation at hand. Although no consequences were directly exhibited by the improper spending, Bentham would say that the use of taxpayer money should be used in the most efficient manner in order to increase the benefits relative to the cost. Even though the government’s spending was inefficient, they still set out to reduce the amount of pain suffered by the society affected, which in turn, produced some pleasure/happiness.