More on Utilitarianism

Following up on a previous post, let’s look at utilitarianism in the Book of Mormon. It rears its head in the first few chapters of the book. As you recall, Nephi and his brothers have been sent back to Jerusalem from the valley of Lemuel to get a record preserved on plates of brass from an important man named Laban. After trying unsuccessfully to talk Laban out of the plates and then losing the family fortune in an attempt to purchase them, Nephi goes off at night on his own, led by the Spirit, he says. As he comes near the house of Laban, he finds a man passed out on the ground from drinking too much wine. Nephi recognizes the drunkard as Laban. He draws Laban’s sword and admires it. And then he says he is “constrained by the Spirit” to kill Laban. Nephi recoils from this command, but the Spirit insists, offering him various rationales to justify this cold-blooded murder, including the idea that “the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring about his righteous purposes” (1 Ne.4:13). The only problem with this line of thinking, however, is that it isn’t the Lord who is going to kill Laban, which he certainly could have done. But no, that is Nephi’s job.

It is at this point that the Spirit resorts to a purely utilitarian argument: “It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief” (v. 13). This is an exercise in weighing two negatives: one man’s death versus the unbelief of an entire nation. And, according to the Spirit, the price of one man’s life (especially a creep like Laban) is nothing compared to the unbelief of a thousand years of Nephites and Lamanites.

But I would suggest that this is just as much a false choice as the one we’re facing now: economic pain versus tens of thousands of preventable deaths from COVID-19. God, being God, certainly has the power to do any number of things to totally erase this awful choice. First, he could simply send an angel in the middle of the night, cause poor Zoram to fall asleep, and have the angel take the brass plates and deliver them to Lehi’s tent. Why deliver the Liahona this way but not the brass plates? This would solve the problem of Lehi’s posterity perishing in ignorance without having to dispatch Laban to the spirit world. Yes, there would be an uproar in Jerusalem, and the mystery would never be solved, but it would be chalked up to a fine case of grand larceny. Second, God himself could cause Laban to die, perhaps of a heart attack or a stroke, thus sparing Nephi both the guilt of taking a defenseless man’s life and also the problem of having to wear Laban’s blood-stained clothes and explain how they got so messy around the collar. Third, over the years God could reveal to the Nephite prophets all the necessary information that was on the brass plates. We have accounts in the Book of Mormon where prophets recite at great length the words of God and angels. It’s a false statement that Lehi’s descendants would have perished in unbelief without the brass plates. They were obviously capable of receiving new revelation. In fact, they were apparently much better at it than we are now.

So, this utilitarian choice is not the dilemma the Spirit claims it is. Which brings up the question of why it’s there in the book. Does God really believe in utilitarianism? Is that what morality boils down to? Choosing to produce the greater overall good or avoid the greater overall suffering? Or was this simply Nephi’s own head trying to interpret a difficult situation? Or was there some other reason why God wanted Nephi to kill Laban? Just to test his obedience? An Abrahamic test perhaps? But for Nephi there was no ram in the thicket. No sudden heart attack to prevent him from having to commit murder. Or maybe it was just that the eldest daughter of Ishmael needed a husband, and this was the only way to get Zoram to join the party.

Much ink has been spilled over this little story, trying to explain why Nephi was justified in committing murder. But the whole mess could have easily been sidestepped if God had just delivered the plates to Lehi’s tent.

There’s also the question of why God doesn’t provide “brass plates” for all of his children. Certainly there have been numerous nations that have “perished in unbelief” because they didn’t have the word of God. Why were they not given a record like the one Nephi stole?

The questions surrounding this little episode are seemingly endless. But one of the most troubling is why the Spirit gave Nephi a utilitarian choice—or at least offered him a utilitarian solution to a difficult dilemma.

As for us, well, if we had better leadership and had prepared better, we wouldn’t be facing this awful utilitarian dilemma. We could have been like South Korea or Taiwan or even Japan. Mitt Romney was right on target in reminding us that we have nothing to be proud of. We blew it, and so we now have a president and some utilitarian protesters (the ones protesting the stay-at-home directives) who are pressuring us to cut off Laban’s head.