Bentham's Utilitarianism

Bentham’s Utilitarianism key terms

• hedonistic utilitarian - usefulness of an action in promoting happiness

• psychological hedonism - we are inclined to seek pleasure i.e. people respond to pleasure/pain

• felicific/hedonic calculus - way of calculating the amount of pleasure and pain an action will cause

Principle of utility

• the good is that which will bring about the greatest sum or pleasure, or the least sum of pain, for the greatest number

felicific calculus is…

• democratic - ‘everyone is to count for one, and nobody for more than one’

• egalitarian - ‘no one person’s pleasure is greater than another’s’

act utilitarian

• assess each individual situation on its own merits with aim of promoting the greatest happiness for those involved

counter-cultural pioneer of social reform

• animal rights - “the question is not can they reason nor can they talk, but can they suffer”

• penal reform - based on psychological hedonism - sufficient deterrence but not unnecessary suffering BUT panoptical prison…with constant surveillance causing psychological harm

criticism of Bentham’s Utilitarianism

• lack of humanity:

• Bentham only understood one half of human nature, the calculating side

• tyranny of the majority

• no absolute protection

• human rights as ‘nonsense upon stilts’

cost-benefit analysis

• type of hedonic calculus

• ford pinto:

• they believed compensating for the deaths from the fuel tank issue would be cheaper than fixing the cars. assigned a dollar value to human life.

• crown vs dudley and stephens:

• 4 people on lifeboat after a ship wreck, two of the adults killed the injured and weaker cabin boy to eat him…a utilitarian would see killing the cabin boy as acceptable.

consistent with Christian moral decision making

• shared goal of happiness:

• goal of Christianity is to get into heaven, which is infinite happiness in the afterlife

• goal of utilitarianism is the same - but Bentham doesn’t believe in God/heaven so for him it is only the happiness and pain in this life which has moral significance

inconsistent with Christian moral decision making

• crude in saying that morality should simply be based on pleasure - animalistic - thoughts and spirituality matter

• Mill (rule utilitarian) made a distinction between pleasures of the mind (higher intellectual pleasures) and pleasures of the senses

• Mill - “it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied”

• Socrates - “the unexamined life is not worth living”