Utilitarianism

Explain the origins of utilitarianism?

Can be traced back to ancient greek thinker Epicurus, who emphasised moderation in balancing pleasure and pain, or the Chinese philosopher Mo Tze who judged actions based on their utility.

What is the principle of utility?

The principle that should govern society and bring about the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people. The greatest good for the greatest number.

Give the main arguments for essay

• issue of calculation

• Value of pleasure (quantitive v qualitative approach

• Issue of partiality

• Issue of tyranny of majority

What did Bentham say about natural rights?

Nonsense on stilts.

Dismissed the intuitive belief of each on the natural rights of the man.

How did Bentham think about ethics?

Founded ethics based on psychology- facts are different from values

He also saw human beings as being motivated chiefly by desires, not reasons.

What did Bentham think about pleasure?

A simple and unitary concept- goods such as knowledge, beauty, justice and so fort were all comparable in terms of pleasure and could be weighed on the same set of scales.

What is the hedonic calculus?

Benthams way of bringing mathematical precision to optimising pleasure.

A quantitative method of providing the greatest good for the greatest number, and is therefore the moral thing to do

What are the sections in the hedonic calculus?

Fecundity-how fertile will one pleasure be in producing others

Extent- how many people are affected

Duration- How long will it last

Purity- will it come at the expense of other people

Propinquity- how close or remote is the pleasure

Intensity

Certainty- how guaranteed or predictable is the pleasure we aim at

What is the issue with calculation?

• Judging whether an action is good or bad for a teleological theory requires calculating its usefulness if bringing about certain consequences (utility).

• Kant objects that we don’t know the consequences of actions before we do them, because we cannot predict the future.

• This point seems especially strong regarding long-term effects of actions.

• Moral situations can also be time-sensitive, so we might even have limited time to do these calculations.

• Furthermore, subjective mental states like pleasure and pain are difficult to measure.

• So, Utilitarianism seems to have an issue of practical application. 

• This attacks its ability as a normative ethical theory to successfully guide action.

How does Mill counter the issue with calculation?

• Rule Utilitarianism is in a stronger position to deal with this issue than Act. 

• Mill accepted the hedonic calculus was too impractical for general moral decision-making.

• He argued moral decision-making should instead involve simply following rules which society has best judged to maximise happiness.

• This puts the onus of the difficult calculation at the societal level, rather than the individual.

• Our social and intellectual culture can collectively determine and improve rules as our understanding of what enables happiness increases.

• This solves the problem of calculation because individuals need only know the current set of their society’s rules and follow them. They don’t need to do any complex calculations.

For Bentham, what three ideas were Utilitarian moral judgments based on?

Consequences matter- good intentions can have disastrous outcomes, and agents who act selfishly can still bring about good ends. Motives are difficult to see- this method delivers practically in a way that ethics focused on character of the agent rather than outcome fails to do

Minimising pain and maximising pleasure ought to be the sole goal of our actions

Actions should aim at the greatest good of the greatest number and each individuals interests are to count equally

What did Bentham think about the value of pleasure?

• Bentham thought all pleasures were equal. He illustrates that the pleasure gained from poetry and from playing children’s games are equal.

• The only thing which matters is the quantity of pleasure compared to pain an action produces. This is why his utilitarianism is described as quantitative.

Why did John Stuart Mill propose qualitative Utilitarianism?

Thomas Carlysle ‘utilitarianism is only fit for swine’

Benthams quantitive methods debased utilitarianism as a purely hedonistic (pleasure seeking) means of ethical thought

As a result mill differentiates between higher and lower pleasures

Give a quote from mill that illustrates his belief that humans have higher and lower pleasures?

‘Human beings have faculties more elevated than animal appetites

Why does Mill argue that utilitiarianism should be qualitative?

• Higher pleasures are those produced by mental activity, e.g. doing philosophy, listening to music, etc. 

• Lower pleasures are those produced by bodily activity, e.g. food, sex, drugs.

• ‘Competent judges’ are people who have experienced both types.

• Mill claims they always prefer higher pleasures to lower ones.

• People are even willing to suffer or be deprived of lower pleasures to get a smaller quantity of higher pleasure.

• This suggests it is the quality of pleasure that we really ultimately value and desire, not the quantity.

• Mill concludes that hedonic utilitarianism should be qualitative, where what makes an action good depends on the quality of the pleasure produced, not merely the quantity.

What is Act Utilitarianism?

Treat each situation on its merits, rather than entering into it with a commitment to generalised rules or principles, other than to act so as to produce the greatest good of the greatest number in the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain.

What does Act Utilitarianism Say about rules?

When exceptions to rules require sub-rules they become burdensome or even cruel and utility is not served. Rules have to be judged by their usefulness in maximising the greatest good of the greatest number

How do rule Utilitarians contrast Act utilitarianism?

A higher utility is achieved when the population as a whole follows laws and customs aimed at maximising general happiness and minimising their pain, rather than if everyone does their own calculations.

What is the general basic principle of rule utilitarianism?

Seeks to follow those principles and rules that would maximise aggregate utility if universalised. If Act utilitarianism were to be universalised, each moral agent acted within the bounds of their own knowledge without any sense of the general rule or pattern of expected behaviour, the likely result would be far more disorder, unpredictability and less co-operation.

Give a case that show that rule utilitarianism is better achieving the greatest good.

Traffic Laws- the aggregate safety and minimisation of pain is best achieved if everyone keeps to the rules. Rules and Laws have accumulated wisdom of part experiences and collectively prove their worth by avoiding much suffering and conflict.

What is the difference between strong and weak rule utilitarians?

Strong- emphasise the utility of rules to the extent that they should be held to even when they cause inconvenience, or even harm in particular cases. There has to be an overwhelming reason to break them.

Weak- give more role to individual autonomy in moral decision making. Rules ought to be adhered to, especially in cases where it is difficult to predict outcomes or when we lack adequate information and have to take account of the general good. But there is more willingness to modify them or bend them when they cause harm.

What analogy can you use to describe the difference between act and rule utilitarianism?

The judge and the legislator.

The judge conforms to pre-legislated rulings applying the statutes of the law, but the legislator questions the principles that shapes the law.

What did Mill believe about Liberty?

• Authoritarian rules may have been useful in the more chaotic past when strict rules were necessary to prevent social collapse. But Mill thought we have now reached a more advanced stage of civilisation. Thanks to progress and education, the average person has autonomy.

• Mill thought humans were all individuals with their own needs and wants. Increasing happiness is now about empowering autonomy by giving people more freedom. This will ensure that they act to secure their happiness as best they can. Mill says freedom is “pursuing our own good in our own way”.

• When it comes to our actions that regard our own interests, Mill thought we should have total freedom.

• Should only be curtailed when what we are doing affects society

What type of Utilitarian was Peter Singer?

Preference Utilitarian- saw ethical judgments as subjective- rather than being true or false, they reflect the choices or desires/ interests of the individual humans or animals.

What is utilitarian’s issue with tyranny of the majority?

• Utilitarianism is consequentialist, it claims that what makes an action good is whether it maximises utility, such as pleasure. 

• It is therefore inconsistent with human rights, which are deontological. 

• Slavery or torture might maximise pleasure, so long as a majority gained pleasure which outweighed the pain caused to a minority. 

• The logic of Utilitarianism seems to justify that as a good act. 

• Tyranny of the majority is sacrificing the pleasure of some minority for the happiness of a majority.

• Philippa Foot illustrates that a utilitarian doctor would kill a healthy patient to give their organs to 5 transplant patients, as that maximises happiness.

• No one would want to live in a utilitarian society if that’s where its logic leads

How does Mill overcome the issue of tyranny of the majority?

• Mill sought to solve this issue by claiming that liberty and rights are actually what enables general happiness, and his rule utilitarianism.

• This claims a good action conforms to a rule which society has best judged to maximise happiness.

• Mill’s ‘harm principle’ rule states that people should be free to do what they want, so long as they are not harming others.

• Then, everyone will be best positioned to make themselves as happy as they can be.

• Mill argued humans are individuals. What makes us happy depends on our own unique interests and needs.

• So, humans are the type of being whose happiness is enabled by liberty. Utilitarianism therefore supports it.

• Furthermore, victimising minorities typically involves lower pleasures.

• In fact, Mill argued that caring about others and being virtuous is a component of happiness. Victimising others doesn’t really enable long-term higher happiness.

• So, Mill would not allow slavery or any other form of harm done to any minority. 

• So, Mill can overrule these individual cases where happiness is gained from harming individuals. His version would not justify bad actions.

Explain utilitarian’s issue with partiality?

• if you could either save one family member or two random people – Util says you should save the random people, as that maximises happiness.

• Utilitarianism does not consider an individual’s emotional ties to their family or friends as relevant to ethical calculation

• This, however, seems to be incompatible with the reality of human psychology – we will almost always be inclined to save the person we have a strong social connection to versus the people we don’t. 

• So, people won’t follow utilitarianism. This is a practical impediment to its implantability because family relationships define so much of our social existence.

• This undermines the ability of Utilitarianism to successfully guide people to the right action.

How does Peter Singer respond to the issue of partiality?

• Singer has a stronger response which actually shows how acting with partiality can be justified.

• Singer points out that friend/family relationships bring a lot of happiness to people’s lives. 

• There have been experiments in raising children without families, but they did not turn out well.

• So, it seems good for overall happiness to allow family/friend relationships, even though they can come at a cost to happiness in some situations where our relationships cause us to act with partiality.

Evaluation:

• This defence is successful because it shows how utilitarianism can accept the reality that human psychology is made happier with friends/family relationships. 

• If that is the reality, then the best way to make humans happy is to accept that sometimes we will act with partiality. 

• The downside to happiness caused by our discriminatory acts against those we are not partial to (e.g. not saving two random drowning people) is overall outweighed by the gain to happiness caused by allowing humans to be partial – to have friend/family relationships.

What are the strengths of utilitarianism?

Has fou’nd pragmatic solutions to allocating scarce resources when massive demands were made. The practical reasoning of Utilitarianism was agreeable on secular grounds and it sought to act impartially and globally, so accessible to anyone and everyone

The emphasis on the priority of reducing unnecessary pain and suffering clarifies what should be centre stage in practical ethics.

Rather than begin with a whole raft of metaphysical beliefs, Utilitarian thought is empirical and informed by the human and natural sciences such as psychology, social anthropology and neuro-biology Utilitarians observe human psychology and the evolutionary traits of human behaviour rather than beginning with a fixed view of human nature, as Aristotle did. Such an approach is informed and adaptable.