Politics – Parts Per Billion

Ideological Legacy of The Rock Star Scientist

The dream that Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam had for developed India is the reality in which we are living today. It wouldn’t be possible if he hadn’t devised a result-oriented action plan for the Nation. It is sad that we never celebrate such great bright minds the way we celebrate film/ TV stars or sportsmen, especially in this golden era of social media. The incorporation of e-governance, e-judiciary, Information Communication Technology (ICT), Providing Urban-amenities to Rural Areas (PURA) were some of his key agendas for developed India and same is the reality we are living in. Today’s youth must appreciate that we are just enjoying the fruits of his well-formed result-oriented action plans created on his ‘Vision 2020’. This is to remember the ideologies of Dr. Kalam from his book ‘Turning Points’.

Turning Points – Remembering Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam’s legacy on his birthday

Unity in diversity lies at the heart of India as the biggest democracy in the world. This diversity also brings in various challenges from geographical, cultural, economic, governance and many more local perspectives. Bear in mind that despite having multitudes of such challenges the constitution has ensured that the machines are well oiled and keep running properly. To handle a nation with such diversity is a challenge in itself. Try convincing small group of people on an idea you have and you will realize how difficult it is to make others appreciate your vision. You will realize that people rarely resonate with completely new, unconventional ideas. The person must carry an aura to convince others for the path he is laying down. The person must carry a clear and pious vision for the masses.

Vision elevates the nation

-Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

A vision must be pious because the moment people discover malice, a vision no more remains ‘the’ vision; it becomes a propaganda. Polarization is created and chaos ensues. That is one of the challenges with democratic society.

Only a self-inspired person, a person who is pure at heart, a person who can empathize with the masses, a person with emotional and intellectual intelligence and most importantly a person with humility can truly inspire people towards a common goal of the upliftment of the whole nation. Such people are blessing to the society and they appear once or maybe twice in a century. They are rare and leave an everlasting mark on society.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, The Missile Man, The People’s President, and a teacher at heart was one such personality India had. Dr. Kalam was India’s 11^th president. Even though he is not physically among us his ideas and his vision are with us and will keep on inspiring every Indian rather every human. He is my source of inspiration since my childhood; I will take this opportunity to unfold certain aspects of his personality hereon. This is me remembering Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam on his birthday 15^th October.

Dr. Kalam wrote a book called ‘Turning Points – A Journey through challenges’ where he highlights the key events which shaped his tenure during the presidency and what really drove him to have a sense of accountability towards the people of India. If you look at the life achievements of Dr. Kalam, you will realize that overcoming challenges in spite of having multiple failures and worst conditions was his forte. His systematic logical thinking combined with result-oriented actions was the key reason for such achievements. You must also appreciate that he was not just a scientist with logical foolproof plan for results; he was a pure empath who understood what people of the nation actually wanted. He knew the pain of the masses and also made successful efforts to resolve many fundamental issues. Please understand that the position of The President in Indian Constitution although is the highest position, there are very few examples where the elected President created a significant impact on whole nation physically and ideologically. Most of the times, Prime Ministers are known to be the key drivers of the nation’s future in Indian Democracy.

You will appreciate what exactly caused Dr. Kalam to have a focused mindset towards making India a developed nation by 2020. Although we are still in developing phase, the rate is slow but we wouldn’t be here if Dr. Kalam had not envisioned the ‘Vision 2020’. The book Turning Points thus gives a glimpse into what made him to devise an action plan in making India a developed nation.

You will be surprised to know that we are literally living in the accomplished visions of Dr. Kalam and there are many those will be achieved in near future.

The Modern India

Dr. Kalam was the key originator and proponent of many facilities and policies we Indians are enjoying today. It is only because of his vision and action plans we are enjoying certain life changing benefits in our routine lives.

Dr. Kalam was responsible for successful inception of Indian space program led by Prof. Vikram Sarabhai. The SLV program (Satellite Launch Vehicle), the IGMDP (Integrated Guided Missile Development Program), Indigenous hovercraft development called ‘Nandi’, Project Smiling Buddha in Pokhran for nuclear weapon development are some of the professional achievements of Dr. Kalam.

The concepts of e-governance, e-judiciary, court hearings through video conferences, pushing for the evolution of National Litigation Pendency Clearance Mission, meetings through video conferences, incorporation of Information Communication Technology, creating more policies to become energy independent, to become stronger in defense technologies, boosting the innovation funnel throughout the country, empowering the states while leveraging their specialties in cultures and traditions, making India a Nuclear superpower, developing and promoting an indigenous nuclear power program, pushing for increased plantations and facilities in biodiesel production, pushing for solar energy production and required policies, creating an annual target driven action plans for each ministry and states to have a focused development approach, creating an action plan to work on industry relevant skill development and more exposure to higher education in science and technology, creating more opportunities for the research in the fields of nanotechnology are some of the visions Dr. Kalam had for the people of the nation. This is just a short glance into what he planned and achieved in his tenure. We are just enjoying the fruits of his well-formed result-oriented action plans.

The book Turning Point will give readers a peek into the thought process and key motivations behind Dr. Kalam’s vision for making India a developed nation.

Dream Big

Appointment in ICSR – Indian Committee for Space Research (ICSR later became ISRO – Indian Space Research Organization)

The key moment which changed Dr. Kalam’s thought process was during his interview with Prof. Vikram Sarabhai. Dr. Kalam worked in the development of the hovercraft after which he had this interview. You will notice that Dr. Kalam was very impressed by the first-hand confidence that Prof. Sarabhai had in him because he explored the capabilities Dr. Kalam had without questioning his competencies. Dr. Kalam always told youth to dream bigger. That idea came from this exact moment. Dr. Kalam realized that what Prof. Sarabhai had dreamt was way bigger than the dreams of Dr. Kalam.

This moment inspired Dr. Kalam to dream even bigger which he always kept reiterating in his interactions with youth.

Urge for cross implementation of technologies

Appointment in DRDO missile program

India’s first satellite Rohini RS-1 was launched by SLV. Dr. Kalam was Project Director for this program. He presented how this satellite launch vehicle put Rohini in the orbit to Dr. Ramanna who was a nuclear physicist and director of DRDO (Defense Research and Development Organization). Dr. Ramanna offered Dr. Kalam the position of DRDO. Dr. Kalam accepted this position because he wanted to implement the space technology developed from SLV program into missile development program.

You must appreciate that the missile technologies developed in-house for missiles like Agni, Akash, Prithvi, Trishul and Nag were possible because of Dr. Kalam’s approach to interdisciplinary knowledge implementation for indigenous technology development on faster speeds.

His same approach to create intersections in various unconnected fields through technology got reflected during his presidential tenure. The implementation of electronic technology for e-governance, e-judiciary are result of that. He always believed that such intersections of technologies boost the speed of growth.

Indigenous technology is the way to self-reliance and defense

Dr. Kalam wanted to return to his passion for teaching and interacting with youth while he was Scientific Adviser to the Defense secretary. P V Narsimha Rao, then Prime Minister also Defense Minister asked him to continue as the defense minister and Kalam agreed because he was handling multiple important programs. P V Narsimha Rao’s long-term vision for indigenous defense program inspired Dr. Kalam.

I think Kalam called this moment as the turning point because if he would have been associated with teaching at that time his future would have been totally different from becoming the President. This moment is also important because it created a concrete foundation in Dr. Kalam’s mind to create a long-term vision for nation which will rely on indigenous technologies.

During his Presidential International visits Dr. Kalam always pushed for the use of indigenous ICT, BPO frameworks, pharmaceutical manufacturing technologies. This moment might be the key inspiration behind Dr. Kalam’s thought process.

Nation first, politics later

Dr. Kalam was offered a Cabinet position under Vajpayee Government in 1998 when he was handling the Missile Program (Development of Agni Missile) and Project Smiling Buddha (Pokhran Nuclear Test). Any other normal person would have accepted the better and beneficial offer of Cabinet Minister but keeping Nation first Dr. Kalam decided to decline this offer and focused on the Indigenous Missile Program and Nuclear Weapon Program which further upon their success made India’s global presence stronger.

Drive to Envision, Urgency to take Actions, and Having Courage to do the Impossible

Dr. Kalam stands out as one of the rarest statesmen who focused on practicality of vision and action plan for their execution; there is a reason for that attitude.

When Dr. Kalam was Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) for Government of India when he paved the foundation of action plans and their implementation for Vision 2020. During this tenure as PSA, Dr. Kalam had a helicopter accident where for the sheer luck of the nation he was unharmed.

Even after going through such accident, he was immediately ready to connect with the locals and the youth where he asked them to recite his hymn. This shows the artistic side of Dr. Kalam. Dr. Kalam was known for inspiring poetry showing the importance of the power of youth.

Courage to think different,

Courage to invent,

Courage to travel on an unexplored path,

Courage to discover the impossible,

Courage to combat the problems and succeed,

Are the unique qualities of youth.

As a youth of my nation,

I will work and work with courage to achieve success in all the missions

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

This near-death experience gave him a totally new perspective towards the life in front of him. It created a sense of urgency for him which pushed him to write the famous book ‘Ignited Minds’. This sense of urgency inspired him to push more for PURA (Providing Urban-amenities to Rural Areas) project. Many independent village ecosystems, governance technologies, tech policies, benefit transfers which are now available in rural areas are the fruits of this PURA program.

I have always believed that cowards never make history, history is created by people with courage and wisdom. Courage is individual, wisdom comes with experience.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

Empowerment and Independence of the Nation

Dr. Kalam believed in the power of self-reliance and improvement in the agility between different functions of government and also between individual states. You will be surprised to know that he was the statesman who brought the idea of e-governance in the Office of the President and implemented it effectively. It later spread horizontally to the e-governance and digitization of documents that we see today. It took time because of multiple reasons but you must appreciate his vision and future outlook behind it. His dream then is now our reality.

In similar sense, Dr. Kalam created action plans for individual states based on three parameters:

The contribution to the vision for developed India
The heritage of particular state
The core competency of that state

This shows how agile and practical Dr. Kalam’s thinking was. He knew how to play with the strengths of each state and also cared for their legacy thereby preserving the cultural importance of diversity in our country.

Dr. Kalam is also one of the statesmen behind the upliftment of the judicial system. He pushed for the National Litigation Pendency Clearance Mission. This mission is the origin for the e-judiciary, court hearings through video conferencing, use of ICT in litigation, age analysis of pending cases, fast track courts which we are seeing today.

Duty Towards Nation

Dr. Kalam always created a sense of duty towards nation in the hearts of the youth and his action always reflected the same attitude. Many of his lectures were named as ‘What Can I Give To The Nation?’

Dr. Kalam’s way to guide the youth to answer this question is based on the importance of values in human life. He gave huge importance to each and every public address he would give. He revised his public addresses multiple times to ensure that the message is crisp and inspiring.

You must appreciate that human values were the core of his speeches. The ideology of ‘being a better human is the best you can offer to the nation’ is what inspired youth to follow their own dream thereby also benefiting the nation in greater sense. Dr. Kalam’s speeches always had this element of ‘call for action’ that is exactly why the question – ‘What can I give to the Nation?’ is simple yet meaningful. It made the youth to look inside them for the betterment of the nation altogether. These are the skills of a seasoned inspirational personality, they make you look inside to create a better future outside for everyone, it creates a sense of duty, accountability and also satisfaction for life well spent.

And this same sense of duty and accountability Dr. Kalam wanted to inject into the Indian Parliament and Indian Politics. He had action plans to do that too.

When politics degrades itself to political adventurism the nation would be on the calamitous road to inevitable disaster and ruination. Let us not risk it.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

Dr. Kalam was well aware of the gaps between the lives of the common people and the events in the parliament, They were completely inconsistent and were not helping (even today they rarely help)

People are yearning for lifestyle change by preserving the cultural heritage, values, and ethos of the Indian civilization.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

Dr. Kalam asked the parliament members to focus on key aspects of development of their own state instead of engaging into the propaganda-based politics. Dr. Kalam was one of the few proponents of the Development Politics. You might think that this word is somewhat recent concept but Dr. Kalam was the originator of the action plan and policies for development-based politics.

He gave five points to the members of parliaments to work upon:

Agriculture and food processing
Education and health care
Infrastructure
Information and communication technologies
Self-reliance in critical technologies

You must appreciate that the world we are living in is the result of action-based plans and their results based on these ideas.

Dr. Kalam pushed for the indicator of National Prosperity Index (NPI) instead of GDP (Gross domestic Product). The idea was that GDP growth indicates net domestic product but it doesn’t reflect how this growth is affecting the quality of life in rural and urban area. Thus, associating GDP with other indicators can actually help to gauge the realistic growth of the nation.

NPI (National Prosperity Index) = 
annual growth rate of GDP + 
improvement of quality of life of the people particularly those below poverty line + 
the adoption of a value system derived from our civilizational heritage in every walk of life which is unique to India

This shows that Dr. Kalam had the sense of importance of the cultural heritage in the growth of nation. The urge to push for the upliftment of quality of life is intentional to reduce the gap between the riches and the poor.

Strong Inner Compass – Value-based character development

Dr. Kalam even though was an intelligent scientist and had many professional achievements, he was down to earth. Intellectual humility was his second name. His thoughts also showed how he valued the sense of service, honesty and compassion right from the childhood.

Dr. Kalam shares an event from his childhood where he received beating from his father for the very first time in spite of being the youngest and the most loved child. The reason was to accept the gift from others for being elected as the President of the Panchayat of Rameshwaram.

Dr. Kalam quotes his father’s words from Hadith-

“When the Almighty appoints a person to a position, He takes care of his provision. If a person takes anything beyond that, it is an illegal gain.”

That thing remained with Kalam forever. The last things that Dr. Kalam possessed were 2,500 books, a wrist watch, six shirts, four trousers, three suits and a pair of shoes. He donated his pension to the development programs for rural areas. He didn’t have any TV, fridge, AC.

Dr. Kalam was a spiritual person. You will see from his whole life journey he never submitted to a single side of the religion – he was always on the side of divinity. This shows his openness to find the real truth of what it means to be a human being. Humanity was at the core whenever he was discussing any religious topic.

“Kalam sees no conflict between science and religion. When I asked him if he believed in the Day of Judgement and rewards or penalties, we might have to pay in life hereafter, he replied evasively, ‘Heaven and hell are in mind’…”

“No rationalist can dispute Kalam’s vision of divinity. Some define God as truth; others as love, Kalam’s concept of godliness is compassion…”

Khushwant Singh, Author and columnist for Hindustan Times

Sacrifices make any great pursuit ‘great’

Dr. Kalam was devastated after the crash of an Air Surveillance Platform which led to death of all its 8 occupants. He realized in this very incident that many people without any personal gain give away their lives to the service of the nation and their sacrifices goes unnoticed in the chaos of all the politics. This should never happen. You can sympathize with the pain of the relatives of these heroes but you would never be able to return the service they provided to the nation. Everyone must be aware of that.

This shows the sensitive side of Dr. Kalam. He was a strong proponent of dreaming big, having courage to do the impossible but this event shows that he was also aware of what sacrifices people make to achieve the impossible, these sacrifices, this service are bigger than anything and should not go unrecognized. He wanted the people of the nation to appreciate the same.

Religion is a personal thing and so are the culture, faith, language and heritage

Dr. Kalam visited the places affected by the Gujarat Riots. His intent was to understand the ground reality and he knew that his mere presence will speed up the relief efforts. Bear in mind that visiting such sensitive areas for a President is a highly risky task.

Dr. Kalam was disheartened by the events, he expressed the reason behind that-

“…in our land, with its heritage of a highly evolved civilization and where great men were born and stood tall as role models for the entire world, communal riots with their attendant tragedy are an aberration that should never happen.”

“Each individual has the fundamental right to practice his religious, cultural and language faith. We cannot do anything to disturb that.”

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

Building bridges to share each other’s competencies for mutual growth

Dr. Kalam is also known globally for his speech in the European Parliament. He focused on mutual growth plan for European Union and India. His poem ‘Message From Mother Earth’ won hearts of all the members of the European Parliament. Dr. Kalam’s visiting day in 2005 – 26 May to Switzerland is celebrated as Science day there. Dr. Kalam proposed to implement the electronic network to connect African nations using the IT power of India under Pan African e-network Project.

Whenever Dr. Kalam visited any country, he made sure that both countries help each other to generate mutual benefits and deepen the relationship. Dr. Kalam was always open to understand what greatness lies in others.

In meeting people, we are transformed too, though we stay the same.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

Real development starts from the bottom – PURA

Dr. Kalam highlighted one key observation about the developed nations. Even though their rural regions, villages in developed nations look just like our meaning not exactly, not physically meaning that the ways people carry their lives. The villages in developed countries don’t have high rising towers, big houses, big restaurants and hotels. What they exactly have are the basic amenities like power, education, transport and easy access to government to live comfortably. This inspired Dr. Kalam to work on the mission for the upliftment of rural areas of India under project PURA.

The word itself is self-explanatory.

It stands for Providing Urban-amenities to Rural Areas.

The key idea behind PURA was to solve the problems of emerging due to fast Urbanization of towns and fast migration from the villages. Towns get overwhelmed due to overpopulation and villages are empty because there is no quality of life.

If you see the other side, villages are pollution free which urban people want. Urban areas have better opportunities for earning and sustenance which rural people want.

PURA focused on addressing these exact issues on rural level.

Following were the key headers of the PURA project:

Physical connectivity – roads and transport
Electronic connectivity – for local knowledge preservation and transfer
Knowledge connectivity – for skills sharing and efficiency boosting of multiple rural areas thereby creating spare time to do better things and improve quality of life
Earning capacity – once these three connections are improved, people can work on increasing the earning capacity.

In the end we, are all humans

Dr. Kalam also made efforts to made the Mughal Gardens in the Presidential office to become a center of discussions. He tried to improve the flora and fauna there. He coordinated between DRDO scientists who had developed high-altitude agriculture before to develop several (12) gardens in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Later biodiversity park was also developed there. This showed his connect with nature.

Dr. Kalam was reluctant on approving the capital punishment believing that it is not a human’s job to decide the fate of the life of other person, but as a duty he had to do that. Dr. Kalam made sure about the total background of the convicted person and tried to understand what will be the life of the people dependent on such convicts. Wherever he found the offenses to be too inhumane he approved the capital punishments. You must appreciate that being the President he could have approved every capital punishment but his core value system, that human side was always active. He knew that in the end the convict is also a human.

We are the creations of God. I am not sure a human system or a human being is competent to take away a life based on artificial and created evidence.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

Parliament functions are the heart of democracy

Dr. Kalam was the main proponent of the need for improvement in parliamentary Functions.

Constant vigilance is the price of liberty. It is important that democratic processes and functioning, however satisfactory they may appear on the surface, cannot be, and should not be frozen in time.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

He made every practical effort and created a result-oriented action plan for giving the boost in the efficiency of the parliament. Some of them are implemented, we hope others are still under consideration.

Dr. Kalam had created a development matrix between the Cabinet Ministries and the Members of Parliament which created and intersection of resources, action plans, targets and results for each state. He made sure that his presidential powers are put in effect for the betterment of Parliament and thereby the people for which it stands.

These are few takeaways from Dr. Kalam’s 21^st book – Turning Points. There are many details which show a deeper insight into the personality of Dr. Kalam. Everyone should read it. This book shows all aspects of a perfect human being. The vision that Dr. Kalam had for the developed India is the vision in which we are living today. It wouldn’t have been possible if he hadn’t devised a result-oriented action plan. Although there are many things which are yet to be achieved and speed sometimes is not that fast. Dr. Kalam was also concerned about the speed of these developments. But at least we know where to go – the right direction. It would be impossible without his vision.

In the times of the golden era of social media celebrities, film stars, TV stars, sportsmen always are at the focal point of attention. We rarely celebrate scientists on such platforms.

It is sad that we never celebrate the bright minds especially the scientists the way we celebrate film stars or sportsmen. Dr. Kalam is a rock-star if you compare with others. Not only from Science and technology point of view, Dr. Kalam was People’s President, an ideal teacher every student dream of, a kind human, a divine spiritual leader, man of values and virtues and the best of all the humans the nation, the world would ever see again.

We are just living in his dream which became the reality today. It was only because he dreamt of the Vision 2020 with a realistic action plan to execute it and make it ‘our reality’. We owe it all to Dr. Kalam. There would rarely be any leader, any human like him in future. The world will remember him forever for his contributions.

The Utility of Human Life and Morality

Why doesn’t Batman kill all his villains once for all? Why the sentence passed by judicial systems in certain heinous and extraordinary crimes feel unjust for the pain victim went through? How one can tell that given person was right or wrong when he/she had no intent of doing it? Can you just look at the end consequences of the actions and decide right or wrong for such scenes? Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism tried to answer some of these questions but it revealed certain flaws in our ways of judgement. Even though hedonism and utilitarian philosophy create an objective model of morality, they fail to address the subjective and human aspect of any moral discussion. It reveals that the purpose of living is not mere happiness but self-improvement thereby mutual and overall improvement.

How to judge morality and its impact on human life?

The Moral Dilemma

A healthy sense of good and bad makes a society livable. There are some special, rare events that happen in the society we live which challenge our idea of what is good and what is bad. There are uncountable offenses and also in varying types which create problem of who should actually be punished and what should be the punishment.

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
Mahatma Gandhi

If this is really the case, the law and order should punish the victim in such a way that it prohibits the future perpetrators to not do such crimes again. But again, as this above mentioned quote goes if the punishment given for the crime is equally dangerous then what exactly are we trying to establish through such punishment?

It’s like that scenario where murdering a murderer creates a new murderer so the net number of murderers in the society remain the same. An Italian philosopher called Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria had given a thought on this. In his book ‘Of Crimes and Punishments’ he discusses that if the punishments grow on crueler and crueler the net mindset of people also grows crueler. It’s like how water levels itself irrespective of the depths. The baseline of what is right and wrong furthermore what is more wrong and what is more right shifts up. Crueler and crueler crimes reduce the sensibility of people of that society. This could be one reason why people always argue that the judicial system does not provide equivalent punishment as a justice to the victims of certain heinous, exceptional cases of crimes. (Although there are many other factors to make such decisions.)

“In proportion as punishments become crueler, the minds of men, as a fluid rises to the same height with that which surrounds it, grow hardened and insensible; and the force of the passions still continuing, in the space of a hundred years the wheel terrifies no more than formerly the prison. That a punishment may produce the effect required, it is sufficient that the evil it occasions should exceed the good expected from the crime, including in the calculation the certainty of the punishment, and the privation of the expected advantage. All severity beyond this is superfluous, and therefore tyrannical.”
Cesare Beccaria, Of the Mildness of Punishments from ‘Of Crimes and Punishments’

In similar spirit, the relationship between Batman and Joker can be understood. Joker never cares about killing people he will try to stretch the limits of batman in every possible sense where innocent lives are at stake. Batman has one solution to stop all this – to kill the Joker. But with a high moral ground Batman would never kill Joker. What is the motivation behind such character design of Batman. Batman knows that killing Joker would solve the problem once for all. Believe me, this is not just a fictional comic book scenario. The reality that we live in has uncountable such scenarios where exactly same decision dilemmas occur.

The famous trolley problem also points to somewhat similar moral dilemma. Where should the trolley be directed if one track has single person and another has 5 people tied to the track? Nobody wants blood on their hands.

But the same trolley problem becomes interesting if you start adding additional attributes to the people who are on track.

What if the single person tied to the track is a scientist with the cure for cancer and the track with five people are criminals? Then definitely you would kill the five criminals instead of the single scientist.

Did you notice what change made us to decide faster? The moment we understood the consequences of our actions we had the clarity of what is right and what is wrong. Our moral compass pointed to North the moment we foresaw the consequences of our actions.

The foundation of some of the principles of morality are based on similar ideas. Utilitarianism and Jeremy Bentham’s an English Philosophers ideas have contributed to the ideas of morality for humanity, especially when we are talking about the human society as a whole. The ideas put by Jeremy Bentham also faced severe criticism, we will see those in detail too. But the key intention of my exploration is to understand how we create the meaning of Morality and how subjectivity, objectivity totally change the way we perceive morality. In the end we may reach to rock bottom questioning the morality itself to be nonexistent – and if morality is non-existent then what separates human beings from animals? (I hope to enter in this territory with some optimism, I don’t know where will it end.)

Utilitarianism

As I already explained in the trolley problem that by adding one simple, short part of information shifted our moral compass in (supposedly) proper direction. What did this information add in the dilemma to make it solvable?

The answer is the foresight of consequence. Once you saw the consequence it leads to you got the hold of what is right and what is wrong. You decided one side to be right and other one to be wrong. This foresight of consequence helped you to weigh the ‘right’-ness of your decision.

Utilitarianism is based on the measurement of morals based on the consequences of the actions you take. What is the other side of taking actions? It is ‘the intent’. This is where the fun game begins.

Many philosophers are always fighting over morals based on the intent of the person and the consequences of the actions they take. For example, thinking of murder (pardon my thinking) makes me less of convict than really murdering someone. My thinking has not led to the loss of the person I hate. Utilitarianism thus calls out for the construct of morality based on the actual actions and their consequences; it’s like saying ‘what a man is more about what he does instead of what he thinks’.

Hedonism, Utilitarianism and Jeremy Bentham

Happiness is a very pretty thing to feel, but very dry to talk about.
Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham an English philosopher contributed to the utilitarian ideas of morality. He was not well appreciated in his home country due to the misalignment of his ideas of socio-political reforms with the British sovereignty of those times. The French translation of his works on law, governance gave him popularity in Frenchmen. Bentham was one of the people who pushed the political reforms during French revolution.

While reading Joseph Priestly’s Essay on the First Principles of Government, Bentham came across the idea of “greatest happiness for the greatest number” which motivated him to expand the ideas of utilitarianism.

Priestly brought the idea of “Laissez-faire” (‘allow to do’ in French)- a policy of minimum governmental interference in the economic affairs of individuals and society. Joseph Priestly developed his ideas of politics, economics and government based on the ideas created by Adam Smith (Author of the Wealth of Nations – the holy grail of classical Economics).

The Greek philosopher called Epicurus was the supporter, creator of hedonism. Hedonism defines ethics to pleasure or pain. According to hedonism that which gives pleasure is morally good and that which give pain is morally wrong. The idea behind hedonism is the aversion of pain to live an undisturbed life because anyways this all won’t make sense once you are dead. According to Epicurus – fear of death, retribution is pushing people to collect more wealth, more power thereby causing more painful life. The collection of wealth, power is done thinking that they can avert the death but that is not the reality. So, worrying about the death sucks out the pleasure of living the life which itself is equivalent of death.

Non fui, fui, non-sum, non-curo
(“I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care”)
Epicurus

So, epicurean hedonistic morality tries to maximize the pleasure. The other end of this idea is that if everyone tries to maximize their own pleasure (egoistic hedonism) wouldn’t it disturb others?

If I want to listen to a song on loud speaker while bothering my neighbors, what is the moral standpoint here?

The answer is the overall good of the system. So, if you neighbor also wants to listen music loud and overall loud music is good for the group then we are morally right to play loud music. (Just pray that the group has same music interests!)

So, Jeremy Bentham is known to rejuvenate this ancient philosophy of egoistic hedonism through his philosophy of utilitarianism.

The basic idea behind Utilitarianism is to maximize the utility of anything, value of anything. The utility can be increased by doing what is right which can be done by doing what gives more pleasure or by avoiding those things which increase or give pain.

Utility is a property which tends

To produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness
To prevent happening of mischief, pain, evil or happiness

So, the right action is the one that produces and/ or maximizes overall happiness. Please understand that the word “overall” is important for Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism. Because from selfish point of views, what is pleasurable for one may not be pleasurable for others. (This is also where the certain philosophical problems of Utilitarianism are hiding, save this point for later.)

To solve this bottleneck of clarity, there are two types of pleasure in human life – one is happiness from senses, physical experiences and one is from intellect. The intellectual happiness is higher than the pleasure from senses. So, on personal moral dilemmas these two attributes can solve the problem.

All good on personal level but what about the moral decisions for the group, for society? Here, Bentham solved the moral dilemma by using the idea of “greater good for all”. When we don’t agree on what makes us happy together, making sacrifices in your happiness to make others happy is the solution. (Keep this idea parked in your mind.)

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters – pain and pleasure. They govern us in all we do, all we say and all we think.”
Jeremy Bentham

Felicific Calculus – Measuring happiness

Jeremy Bentham is known as the Issac Newton of the Morality for developing the felicific calculus/ hedonistic calculus. Bentham pointed out the key factors which affect the net happiness and using this factors’ effect as a whole, one can quantify the happiness.

Following are the factors which affect the happiness:

Intensity – how strong is the pleasure from the given action?
Duration – how long does the happiness remain from given action?
Certainty – what is the likelihood of given pleasure to occur?
Propinquity – how soon/ immediate is the occurrence of the pleasure?
Fecundity – what is the possibility that this pleasure will also lead to the newer pleasure(s)?
Purity – what is the change that this pleasure will not bring some opposite sensation?
Extent – how many people are affected?

If one considers these factors and the principle to maximize the communal happiness, most of the social moral dilemmas can be effectively solved.

So, according to this felicific calculus,

Batman should kill the Joker for the greater good of the Gotham
The trolley should go over the group/ person which creates more pain for the society
Baby Hitler should be killed once we get the chance to travel back in time

You must appreciate the clarity which the felicific calculus brings. This clarity is very important for the policymakers, politicians while deciding the fate of the group, state, nation as a whole.

Now a simple question –

If batman keeps on killing the villains, won’t he become the greatest killer of them all? What would differentiate Batman from other villains?

What would happen if you were given false information about the nature of the people tied on track while riding that trolley? Could your wrong decision be undone? If it was the wrong decision then now ‘you’ are morally wrong, with the blood of the innocents.

You would kill baby Hitler only because you have vision that this baby will grow up to be the mass murderer tyrant. The mass murder hasn’t happened yet. So, now you are the killer of a ‘now’ innocent baby.

Maintaining same emotion, now you would appreciate why even for a strong judicial system giving capital punishment for rapists, terrorists is difficult morally. You would solve the problem for now because the act has been already done, the consequences have already happened (which is why moral judgement is effective as it relies on the consequences). Killing the perpetrators or punishing them with equal pain would definitely bring peace of mind using the principles of morality but that also degrades the morality of innocents who fell down from that morality. It is not matter of what one deserves because what bad happened to them, it is about how less human you will become once you perform that act of punishment.

Recall the quote of Beccaria in the early part of my discussion.

Killing joker will create fear among other villains but it also creates chance for the creation of even dangerous villain in future.

Killing baby Hitler doesn’t guarantee prevention of World War and mass murders, as our personalities are the result of our surroundings – another Hitler-like person would have emerged in such given circumstances. (I honestly don’t know if he/she would be worse or less harsh than the original one but you get the point – conditions anyways would have created another cruel person.)

Jumping out of the trolley seems the best way to run away from the pain of murder of other unknown people (joking). The trolley dilemma remains dilemma.

Also, the felicific calculus allows pain for small groups for the betterment/ pleasure of the bigger society. For example, according to this utilitarian idea killing few healthy convicted prisoners to save lives of many innocent people by harvesting the prisoners’ organ is justified. It is for the good in the end.

You see where this goes?

See the level to which any human or a group could go if they start justifying their moral rightness using these ideas. Using these principles any big group can overpower the minorities in morally right way. It is just a matter of time that the felicific calculus principles would get exploited for other “immoral” gains.

That is exactly why many people criticized the felicific calculus saying that a pig laying in the mud for his whole life would be happiest than a human being (Socrates to be specific) if Bentham’s calculus is used to decide morality.

In a crude way, there are two type of Utilitarianism which help to solve the problem to certain extent, but it is not a complete solution:

Act Utilitarianism – to act for the greater good of all
Rule Utilitarianism – to set rules in such way that no one inherently gets the pain or everyone is happy because actions and their consequences are bound by certain set rules in first place now

Happiness is not the ‘only’ and the ultimate goal – the limitations of Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarian Philosophy

What people were not ‘happy’ with Jeremy Bentham’s felicific calculus was that it made humans more like machines and very objective. People don’t always want happiness for their or the group’s greater good. Exercising daily, reducing fat-sugar maybe painful but that guarantees healthy, illness free long life. Doing drugs isolates the person from pain but it impacts the long-term physical and mental health of the person. Hardships and pain make people to reach their difficult goals which is what is the real and ultimate happiness for them.

Happiness is not always the goal of life, if one is completely tangled in the pleasures of life and if everyone is having same mentality then in the end no one will be happy, because as a group we all would never agree on what makes us happy; different environments in which we grew, our personal experiences, our upbringing, our motivations prevent us from creating a common definition of happiness.

The subjective factor of pleasure or pain is not present in Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism. Building further upon that, the victim who has suffered from the morally wrong action will only be satisfied when he/she gets justice, not when they are made happier than their perpetrators. (This justice must again not be mechanical and objective like the felicific calculus.)

One more flaw of the Bentham’s utilitarianism is the imbalance between personal scenarios and the communal scenarios. In most cases, it demands personal sacrifice irrespective of their subjective morality for the betterment of the group. (that is exactly how many past cruel dictators have justified their moral correctness on their acts against the minorities.)

A British philosopher, Bernard Williams presented a thought experiment to highlight such flaw of the Utilitarianism.

In this thought experiment:

A botanist on his South American expedition is ordered by the cruel regime soldiers to kill one of the Indian tribe people. If the botanist fails to kill one Indian the soldiers would execute all of the tribe members.

So, if we implement utilitarian principles, then the botanist should kill one Indian to save the remaining all. That is morally right.

But on the other hand, one must also understand that the botanist has nothing to do with the cruel regime and even with the indigenous tribe members. He is under no moral obligation to do anything. The consequences are in such a way that whatever he will do he will be called morally wrong. Which in the end is wrong.

The utilitarian philosophy neglects this subjectivity and consequentialism while we are deciding morality of anything.

Maybe that is also why even when we have all the rules in place, penal code in place for all types of offenses, similar crimes – we have a judge – a subjective, consequential observer to grant the final justice.

You must understand that the discussion does not want to pose Utilitarianism as completely wrong idea. The intent of this discussion is to understand how to de-clutter a complex moral scenario and how to inject subjectivity in it so that the correct person will get the justice in the end. As we are human beings and not machines, every day brings new subjective scenarios with new subjective moral dilemmas. Direct implementation of utilitarianism may bring in the transparency in the moral puzzle but it is at the expense of oversimplification and loss of personal subjectivity, consequential personal point of view and also freedom of person to exist.

The ways in which Utilitarianism brings immediate clarity by elimination of some important subjective aspects is dangerous and limits the judgement of real morality. Friedrich Nietzsche had warned new philosophers in his book beyond good and evil about the philosophies which create such “immediate certainties” like Utilitarian philosophy creates-

“The belief in “immediate certainties” is a moral naivete which does honor to us philosophers; but – we have now to cease being “merely moral” men!”
Friedrich Nietzsche

Conclusion – If not happiness then what is the goal of being human?

Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism and the felicific calculus can help to decide the morality of what is good for all but it ignores the presence and worth of personal integrity, the well being of the minorities, subjectivity of the person in given consequences. It by default eliminates the possibility of humans remaining human beings instead it attributes them as the machine maximizing a targeted outcome (which is pleasure here).

So, the question remains – If we are not meant to maximize pleasure during our tenure in life because in the end after death there will not be anything to experience or gain happiness – if our existence and final purpose does not align with being happy then what exactly is the purpose of being a human being?

Based on my understanding on what many great people have commented about the purpose of life, I found that most of them point to remaining the human being you always were. I am not saying that the personality should remain the same, rather it should change and keep on upgrading itself till the end but the core should remain same or it should not degrade at least.

Some wrong events, injustice, oppression, cruelty will make you suffer, but that should also not vilify your human spirit. Once we let go the pursuit of happiness and chase the goal of being a better human being (or at least remain the human being you are) we can fulfill the purpose of our lives and also make other people’s lives better.

Once you will let go of such utilitarian, mechanistic setups of morality you will realize that people don’t need gods, religions, governments, judicial systems to keep in the check of right and wrong. Our inner compass is more than enough to take care of what makes us human beings, this inner compass is not about what is right and wrong, for me it is about what better version of yourself you would become if you act in that certain way. It takes care of what you are thinking and what would be the consequences of actions thereby resolving the dilemma of morality which got separated on the basis of either intent or the consequences.

I am highlighting the importance of inner personal human compass because the rules designed to keep morality in check would always need revision and the utilitarian philosophy would wait for the consequences to happen to decide the morality. The goal of human struggle to improve their current version to a better one does not need either of the metrics to decide the morality.

Imagine what the world would become if everyone started appreciating this inner human compass!

(For now, we can only imagine, but I am optimistic on this.)

P.S. –

Even though the Utilitarian philosophy had many flaws, Jeremy Bentham contributed largely to bring in new political reforms, improve governance, establish penal codes in judicial systems, define sovereignty, reduce the influence of religious institutions on the lives of people and governments. His works were strategically maligned by some lobbies to lessen the impact of his other notable works. He was the proponent of liberty and freedom from religious influences on lives of people. The pushed for the establishment of a secular educational institute in London – now famously known as University College London. Jeremy Betham’s fully clothed wax statue containing his original skeleton remains in the entrance hall of the University main building upon his request.