Utilitarianism.

What is Bentham’s Act Utilitarianism, its meta-ethical basis, and the principle of utility?

-Utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory, first systematised by Bentham and developed by Mill. It provides a non-religious basis for ethics. Without an afterlife or duties to a God, the goal of ethical action focuses on making human life as good as possible.

-Bentham says “nature has placed us under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure”.

-This means it is human nature to find pleasure good. Bentham says we are simply determined for our ultimate goal to be happiness, understood as pleasure minus pain. He claims that even if we pretend to have some other goal, we will still be bound to seeking happiness. He claims this is where the ‘standard of right and wrong’ can be derived. So, pleasure is our sole ultimate goal, a view called psychological hedonism.

-This is Bentham’s meta-ethical justification for the principle of utility, which states: An action is good if it leads to the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people.

-Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory since what makes an action good is its utility, meaning usefulness in bringing about certain consequences.

How does Bentham’s Act Utilitarianism apply the principle of utility and what is the utility/hedonic calculus?

-Bentham invented Act utilitarianism. This variety of utilitarianism is distinguished by its view on how we apply and act on the principle of utility. It claims that the principle of utility must be applied to each individual moral action. So, an action is good if it maximises utility.

-Bentham invented Act Utilitarianism and understood utility as the production of pleasure. Knowing whether an action is right requires calculating the amount of pleasure and pain produced by the actions we could do. The morally right action is the one which produces the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people.

-Bentham created the utility/hedonic calculus for this purpose. It is a list of 7 criteria which must be considered when calculating the pleasure caused by actions we could do: Intensity – how intense the pleasure or pain is; Duration – how long the pleasure lasts; Extent – how many people are affected; Certainty – how certain we are the pleasure will occur; Remoteness – how far away in time the pleasure is; Purity – whether the pleasure is mixed with pain; Fecundity – whether the pleasure will lead to more pleasure or not.

-The morally right action is the one which the utility calculus informs us will maximise pleasure compared to the other actions we could do.

What are Mill’s views on happiness, pleasure, and how Rule Utilitarianism applies the principle of utility?

-Mill says he “entirely” agrees with Bentham about the principle of utility. He argues similarly, that it is human nature to find happiness good. Mill says the only proof possible that happiness is desirable is that it is desired.

-Pleasure is the only thing we can value for its own sake. Anything else we only value instrumentally, insofar as it leads to pleasure.

-Rule utilitarianism is distinguished by its view on how we apply and act on the principle of utility. Act Utilitarianism claims that we apply the utility principle to actions, whereas a Rule Utilitarian thinks we should apply it to rules. So, a rule is good when following it maximises utility.

-Mill is often interpreted as a Rule utilitarian. He thought calculating each moral action was unrealistic. Instead he thought the onus of calculation should be put on society as a whole.

-Our combined intellectual culture should calculate which rules, if followed, would maximise happiness. These rules will be subject to change as our knowledge of how to improve happiness increases.

How does Mill’s Rule Utilitarianism relate to society, freedom, and moral decision-making?

-E.g., one of Mill’s rules was the harm principle, that people should be free to do what they want so long as they are not harming others.

-This rule reflects Mill’s political liberalism and opposed the religious authoritarianism of Mill’s time. 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.

-His recommendation though was that we aim to experience the highest pleasure we are capable of. It’s only when our actions affect others that we need to then follow society’s rules.

-Moral decision-making is then a matter of knowing and acting on our societies current rules.

What’s the Bentham vs Mill debate about pleasure and quantity vs quality?

-Bentham and Mill disagree regarding how exactly people should make themselves happy.

-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.

What criticisms did Mill address and how did he distinguish types of pleasure?

-This faced two criticisms which Mill tried to solve. One was that Utilitarianism was debasing, reducing life to hedonistic pleasure-seeking. Human dignity requires prioritising virtue, intellectual culture and creativity over mere pleasure.

-Thomas Carlyle famously called Utilitarianism fit only for “swine”. The other is a calculation issue of being a subjective ‘private’ mental state making it difficult to quantify let alone measure.

-To address this, Mill distinguished between types of pleasure.

-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.

How does Mill’s qualitative approach respond to the ‘swine’ criticism and calculation problem?

-Mill successfully incorporates the higher modes of human life within his concept of ‘happiness’, thereby avoiding the ‘swine’ criticism.

-Mill can coherently say that it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool or pig satisfied, because Socrates is capable of a higher quality of pleasure.

-This focus on quality rather than quantity also helps with the calculation issue. Though, that mainly applies to our “self-regarding” choices involving our personal happiness.

-We don’t need to measure the quantity of pleasure various actions will result in, just choose whatever produces the higher quality pleasure.

-When it comes to actions that affect others, Mill did think we needed a more quantitative approach for which he developed rule utilitarianism.

What is the problem of calculation in teleological theories like Utilitarianism, and Kant’s objection?

-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 Rule Utilitarianism respond to the calculation issue?

-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.

What are the evaluations and criticisms of Rule Utilitarianism regarding calculation?

-A classic objection is that Rule util comes in two versions, each of which have issues.

-Strong rule Util states that rules should never be broken but weak rule claims rules can be broken if it maximises happiness.

-Weak is criticised for collapsing back into Act Utilitarianism, as they would make the same judgements and require calculation again.

-Strong is criticised for becoming deontological. It seems to be abandoning the principle of utility and consequentialism because it says you should follow rules even if it would have good consequences to break them. It has become an empty deontological theory that follows rules for no reason, having abandoned its own supposed meta-ethical grounding.

-However, strong Rule Util actually is still consequentialist. This is because, what makes a rule good is the consequences of following it – whether following it maximises happiness. So, Strong Rule Utilitarianism is valid and solves the calculation issue.

-Mill’s version of Rule Util avoids these issues. It claims rules can only be broken when they come into conflict. In those situations we need to use the hedonic calculus. But those will be extreme and rare cases. There is some inevitable difficulty in this, but it’s not sufficient to be prohibitive of utilitarianism being followed as a normative ethics.

-An insight from Aristotle is that any ethic that aims to take situations into account is always going to be messy to some degree. To some degree we have to accept that. We shouldn’t let our desire for ethical clarity cause us to abandon trying to take the situation into account.

What is the issue of liberty and rights in Utilitarianism and the problem of 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 respond to the issue of liberty and rights in Utilitarianism?

-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.

What is the evaluation of Mill’s response from a deontological perspective and its practical impact?

-Deontologists like Kant would object that this might make humans behave better than Bentham’s theory allowed, but it still fails to recognise that humans have an intrinsic moral value.

-Kant concludes ethics must reflect that and be deontological, not consequentialist.

-Mill is saying we should be free from harm, not because we have a right to that, but because it would maximise happiness.

-However, this criticism fails because Mill still has managed to create a version of utilitarianism that encourages people to act as if they had intrinsic moral value.

-Practically speaking it doesn’t make a difference whether the theory actually accepts that people have rights or not, what matters is the type of society the theory would create.

-Mill has successfully countered the critique that Utilitarianism leads to a society where rights are violated. He has defended the moral validity of a rule utilitarian society.

What is the problem of partiality in utilitarianism regarding saving one family member versus two random people?

-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 do Mill and Singer respond to the partiality problem in utilitarianism?

-Mill attempts to respond to this by saying that most people don’t have the opportunity to help a multitude of people so it’s good to just focus on those in our lives.

-However, today we have extensive charities all over the world, making Mill’s argument seem outdated.

-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.

What is the evaluation of the utilitarian response to partiality?

-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.