Ethics - Utilitarianism

What is utilitarianism?

- Stems from the idea of 'utility', meaning social usefulness or welfare, or 'good of society'

- Optimisation of pleasure over pain for everyone

What type of ethical theory is utilitarianism?

- Naturalist: the goodness of an action is defined in terms of natural properties i.e. pleasure

- Relative: the goodness of an action depends on the circumstances not fixed moral principles

- Consequentialist/teleological: looks at what the ethical action's aims and consequences are, not the intrinsic rightness/wrongness of actions - an action is deemed 'good' if it aims to bring about a greater good and has 'good' consequences

- A posterioroi - based on experience

Which philosophers are most associated with utilitarianism?

- Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

- John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

- (Hare and Singer)

What is the utility principle?

- The worth of an action depends entirely on the amount of pain/pleasure it brings

What is Hedonism?

- The belief that for humans, happiness consists of pleasure and unhappiness of pain - we aim to secure pleasure and avoid pain

- it is human nature to desire what is pleasurable and avoid what is painful

What were Bentham's contributions to utilitarian ethical theory?

- "two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure"

- Utility Principle

- Hedonic Utilitarianism: the most moral action is that which maximises happiness for everyone involved

- The Hedonic Calculus: Quantitative Hedonism - assesses individual actions by intensity, purity, certainty, duration, how soon the pleasure will occur, how likely the action is followed by the same sensations and how many people will be affected.

Act Utilitarianism

What were Mill's contributions to utilitarian ethical theory?

- "better Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied"

- Expands on Bentham's theory of the utility principle

- Higher and Lower Pleasures: some experiences are qualitatively better than others - this must be part of the calculation

Higher = long-term, usually of the mind + intellect

Lower = pure pleasure + happiness, short-term but significant, usually of the body

Not just the sum of more elementary pleasures, but qualitatively different

- Harm Principle: individuals can choose to do things that affect their own body, even if it harms them, but only if it doesn't affect/harm someone else - over his own body and mind the individual is sovereign.

Rule Utilitarianism

What were Hare and Singer's contributions to utilitarian ethical theory?

- Preference Utilitarianism

- Action should be judged by the extent to which it conforms to the preferences of all those affected by the action and its consequences

- Morally good thing to do maximised the satisfaction of the preferences of all involved.

What are the advantages of accepting Bentham's act utilitarianism?

- Easily applicable to our day to day actions - to apply the utility principle we simply weigh up pain/pleasure

- Simple

- Not religious

What are the disadvantages of accepting Bentham's act utilitarianism?

- Could promote selfishness,

- Too limited? Too subjective?

- Kant would say that it is immoral to do things that are specific to circumstances, we should have absolutes

- Hedonic calculus is complex and impossible to use all the time: ignorance, time, passion

- Other things make actions right or wrong: what if two situations produce the same amount of happiness?

- Treats all conscious people as equally important: what about personal obligations to family etc?

- It may recommend actions against intuition: though this may be countered by saying we should consider pain brought by fear of being convicted

- Is it too simplistic to assume that utility is the only value?

What are the advantages of accepting Mill's rule utilitarianism?

- There are no complex calculations to complete

- Emphasises the centrality of rules, aligning with the merits of deontology but remains flexible, maintaining the merits of consequentialism - we determine our own rules by asking what will promote the greater good

- Rules are selected, revised, replaced with trial and error on the basis of their utility - the ultimate standard

- Accounts for happiness at the expense of others

What are the disadvantages of accepting Mill's rule utilitarianism?

- By introducing the notion of quality, it takes away from the simplicity of utilitarianism - what is pleasure?

- Claims that someone familiar with both types of pleasure would only choose higher pleasure unless their character is defective: Is/ought gap - confusing what is desired with what ought to be desired

- GE Moore would say it is under the naturalistic fallacy - rests upon analysis of words that cannot be defined such as good.

- Isn't some people's pain/happiness necessary?

- What about those that don't feel pain?

- Surely a life with both higher and lower pleasure is richer than a life of only higher pleasures

What are the advantages of accepting Singer's preference utilitarianism?

- People often choose things that don't make them happy but not adhering these choices is "wrong"

- Promotes equality both among humans, and between humans and animals

- Considers what is someone's best interest

What are the disadvantages of accepting Singer's preference utilitarianism?

- Does not consider what increases pleasure and diminishes pain like Bentham and mill

- It is not clear how to weight one preference against another and fulfilled preferences are even harder to add up pleasure and paine

- How can we give equal consideration to those who cannot voice their preferences: animals, small children, disabled people

What are the general advantages of accepting utilitarianism?

- Does not depend on any metaphysical system like God

- Highly flexible and subjective

- Seems to describe much of what we mean by a morally good act

- Humanistic and practical - we see it a lot in politics

What are the general disadvantages of accepting utilitarianism?

- There are too many problems with the Hedonic Calculus - how can we even measure each of the factors?

- Aristotle would say that pleasure does not refer to one single sensation, we cannot locate pleasure

- Is pleasure measurable and is it necessarily all that good is made of?

- Which consequences do we think are relevant in our decision-making process? Long/short term? Can we really predict them?

- Not all pleasurable things equate to happiness and not all painful things equate to unhappiness: thing drugs/drinking and masochism

- The interests of the majority may permit injustices to be performed

- A utilitarian ethic makes no reference to divine law or obedience to God - maybe the biggest failing of utilitarianism is its rejection of absolutes for ever-changing morality

Hedonism vs. Eudaimonism:

- Bentham was a Hedonist but Mill might be considered a Eudaemonist

What is Alasdair MacIntyre's criticism of act utilitarianism?

- Social Engineering Argument - the very concept of pleasure is dangerous because people can be manipulated into being satisfied with anything

- Their lives can be filled with pleasure, but that does not mean they are living good, ethical lives

- They may be living utterly immoral lives which they have been manipulated into enjoying

- Under act utilitarianism, in an ideal society, everyone would be satisfied by the bare minimum.

What are Bernard Williams' criticisms of act utilitarianism?

- Argues that utilitarianism "debases the moral currency" and that if you follow it, you "brutalise yourself" in some way - one cannot possibly hope to hold the moral high ground in following this theory?

- Supererogation Argument - ethical theories are supposed to help us live better lives, but utilitarianism demands too much from the average person, who cannot donate all their money to charity to further the Utility Principle: you shouldn't need to constantly put the needs of the majority above the minority to be considered an ethical person.

What is Bernard Williams' criticism of rule utilitarianism?

- The example of someone sheltering a Jewish person from the Nazis

- A rule utilitarian, following the rule "never lie", would need to tell the Nazis where the Jewish person is, condemning them to a horrible death

- Rule utilitarianism is very similar to absolutism - removes the greatest merit of utilitarianism which is flexibility

- If they were to make an exception, the whole ethical theory risks collapse

What is Sidgewick's criticism of rule utilitarianism?

- "in practice it is hard to distinguish between higher and lower pleasures"

- Pleasure is very subjective

- There is a general epistemological issue with Rule utilitarianism in that there does not appear to be an objective, accurate way of measuring pleasure and thus the amount of pleasure is subjective.