The limits of utilitarianism as a professional ethic in public sector leisure policy and provision

Abstract

In a previous issue of this journal we developed a moral philosophical account of the relations between the paradigmatic leisure profession, leisure management, and it's clientele. Professional status was characterized as a set of relations necessarily involving moral authority and not merely technical expertise as is commonly supposed. In that account, professional paternalism was interpreted and justified differently in relation to the specific roles and relations incorporated in leisure management ranging from national policy planning to operational delivery. That position is developed and contextualized here by setting out an account of the nature of utilitarianism which is commonly thought to underwrite state paternalism in policy issues. The account charts the development within utilitarian thinking from its classical hedonistic beginnings in the thinking of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill into more sophisticated versions of welfarism in Amartya Sen. The essay sets out some critical difficulties in the application of a moral theory to leisure practice. It explores the limits to which utilitarian theories may specifically underwrite the leisure professional working in the public sector in a manner which, though paternalistic, is not disrespectful of the autonomy of its clients: citizens and consumers.