Bentham and Kant

Bentham: People are motivated to...

...seek pleasure and avoid pain

Bentham: Things are right or wrong according to...

...the principle of utility - benefit for the greatest number

Bentham: do that which gives...

...the greatest happiness for the greatest number

Bentham: The greatest benefit can be brought about by...

...The Hedonic Calculus, which measures pain and pleasure to assess whether an an act shows a balance of pleasure over pain

Bentham: the conditions of the principle of utility are...

intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity and extent

Bentham: intensity is...

...how strong the pleasure is

Bentham: duration is...

...how long the pleasure lasts

Bentham: certainty is....

...how likely it is the pleasure will happen

Bentham: propinquity is...

...how soon the pleasure will happen

Bentham: fecundity is....

...how likely it is that the action concerned will produce similar pleasures/pains in the future?

Bentham: purity is...

...to what extent there would be a balance of pain over pleasure or vice versa

Bentham: extent is...

...how far the pleasure/pain will extent to others affected by the action

Bentham: act utilitarianism seeks to maximise pleasure/minimise pain in...

...a particular situation or in the community

Bentham: Act utilitarianism does not claim...

...that some pleasures are superior to others, but that the happiness of each person counts exactly for one

Bentham: weaknesses

- puts too much emphasis on consequences of acts, we do not know the future
- Ignores motives, rules and duties
- Ignores minority rights
- Cannot bridge is-ought gap

Bentham: strengths

- we can predict pain and pleasure
- avoids harmful legalism
- injustice to the majority is worse than to the minority - morally good to do the best for the most
- People always want happiness

Kant: Only one thing is good without qualification...

...the good will, which is autonomous

Kant: we are all aware of...

...the moral "ought" - a sense of moral obligation. From this we can form an account of our moral duties

Kant: Deontological account because...

...we develop moral rules, because moral rules bind us to our duty

Kant: duty gives ethics a...

...single focus. After you have reasoned what you should do, consequences can no longer be considered

Kant: acting morally is...

... based on pure practical reason

Kant: the categorical "ought" does not mean...

...that we should do 'duty for duty's sake whatever the consequences'

Kant: the consequences have to be worked through...

...before you can tell whether the maxim you want to adopt conforms to the Catagorical Imperative

Kant: there has to be an organic link with...

...people's wants and desires, otherwise you would decide upon principles that nobody wanted to follow

Kant: the force of the categorical imperative can be seen by...

...contrasting it with that of hypothetical imperatives

Kant: what do hypothetical imperatives say?

"if you want X, do Y"

Kant: What do categorical imperatives say?

"Do/do not do X"

Kant: Only the categorical imperative can...

...lead us to universal maxims that all ought to follow

Kant: the main formulation of Kantian ethics is...

...Universalisability

Kant: Universability states...

...Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law

Kant: a maxim is...

...a general guideline or principle of action

Kant: illustration of universalizability through four examples....

...lying, refusing to help others, neglecting talents, making false promises - lead to a contradiction, so could not be universalised

Kant: the practical imperative is...

...to act in such a way that you always treat humanity never as a means, but as an end - do not use people as a means to your own ends

Kant: people should be treated as...

...free moral agents in their own right

Kant: the second formulation follows on from the first because...

...if you can will that the principle upon which you act should become a universal law, you must be prepared for everyone else to make the same choice

Kant: the third formulation is...

...to act as though a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends

Kant: the Catagorical Imperative is challeneged by the existence of...

...radical evil, which happens when people take a maxim of self-interest as their main maxim, which leads them to bend every other maxim to that one maxim

Kant: The ethical idea culminates in the idea of...

...summum bonum

Kant: summum bonum is...

...the highest good, where virtue is rewarded by perfect happiness

Kant: if "ought implies can", then...

...the realisation that we ought to do our duty tells us we can, in fact, do our duty

Kant: the three postulates of practical reason are...

...God, freedom and immortality. Immortality is the reward of virtue, God is needed to bring about immortality, an to judge who is worthy for it. Free will is the core of morality

Kant: experience cannot tell us...

...we are free, but if we were not free, morality would be impossible

Kant: the will knows....

...noumenally that it is free

Kant: in metaphysics, reality has two aspects...

...the phenomenal world of sense experience and the noumenal world, which is the way reality 'really' is

Kant: the body is subject to...

...phenomenal laws, but the mind can have synthetic a priori knowledge of the noumenal world through the moral awareness of the CI

Kant: the command to obey the categorical imperative is...

...a rational choice of the will, which belongs to the noumenal realm

Kant: The noumenal realm is...

...outside space and time and cannot be known by scientific enquiry - moral facts can only be known non-naturally. Kant is a non-naturalist

Kant: strengths of the Catagorical Imperative

- Clear argument, appeals to instinct
- Kant picks out that Utilitarianism justifies bad acts to bring about consequences
- Cuts out emotion in favour of reason
-Modern emphasis on human rights, equality and justice

Kant: weaknesses of the Catagorical imperative:

- Religious parts of the theory make no sense to the non-religious
- No clear answer to what we do when moral duties conflict
- Impossible for humans to cut off their emotions, so it is unrealistic

Bentham: incompatibility with Christian decision making

- bentham considered religion irrelevant
- Christianity rejects self-interest
- No spiritual dimension in utilitarianism
- doesn't prioritise the weak
- no moral rules

Bentham: compatibility with Christian decision making

- Jesus' actions are utilitarian, judgement depending on works
- Jesus acts situationally
- Appeals to golden rule, self-love is a part of that

Kant: compatibility with Christian decision-making

- Virtuous Christians freely practise the good
- Emphasis on reason echoes Aquinas, so does end of moral activity
- Two of the postulates are religious, third can be seen as being like Jesus
- Universalisability is compatible with religious ideas about behaviour towards others

Kant: incompatibility with Christian ethics

- Based on enlightenment-style reason, secular aims
- Moral law must be autonomous, does not rely on God
- No appeal to scripture as moral authority
- Universalisbaility is secular
- Opposes SE