Another problem with utilitarianism, or group of problems

I don't regard this as the fundamental problem with utilitarianism, but any competent utilitarian will have to deal with this objection at some point.  And to be fair, many of them do. Although, when I read them closely, I often wonder: when a given utilitarian writes about these questions, are they actually answering them, or are they merely brushing them to the side?

Utilitarians tend to challenge the values of earlier, more traditional moral systems.  Take, for instance, how utilitarians deal with with the concept of honor.  Utilitarians tend to reject the idea that honor has intrinsic value.  For a utilitarian such as Jeremy Bentham, the only things that have intrinsic value are pleasure and pain.  Bentham admits to the existence of, and even stresses the importance of what he calls the "pleasures of reputation" and the "sanction of public opinion."  But honor, if it is a coherent concept at all in Bentham's eyes, is only a relative value and not an intrinsic value: it's only valuable if it can bring us closer to pleasure and further from pain.

The obvious question is - why stop there?  If we can cavalierly decide that some or all of the traditional values are at best only proximal, intermediate goals towards some final end, rather than ends in themselves, what's stopping us from questioning the intrinsic value status of pleasure and pain themselves?  

For instance, why should I care about someone else's pain?  Of course, I do care about other people's pain, but is avoiding other people's suffering to be valued intrinsically, or merely instrumentally, as a way for me to feel good about myself?  Likewise, should I value other people's happiness instrinsically, or as a proximal goal towards my own pleasure?

It's not hard to see that this is one among the several ways that utilitarianism leads toward nihilism.

I think there are reasonable responses to these kind of objections, and philosophers have offered a variety of them, some of them a bit plausible, others less so.

A very radical response comes from Alonzo Fyfe: that there are no intrinsic values, at all.


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