Utilitarianism: Core Concepts and Principles

Ethical Dilemmas and Moral Principles

• Thought Experiments: Scenarios (dying millionaire's money, starving men on a raft, runaway trolley, physician with organ failure patients) highlight moral choices, often between conflicting duties or outcomes.

• Limitations of "Conscience as Guide": Conscience is subjective and culturally formed, leading to inconsistent moral judgments.

• Two Major Ethical Systems:

  • Deontological Ethics: Value is in the act itself or kind of act (duty-based). Focuses on rules like "always keep your promise" or "thou shalt not steal." Lying is intrinsically wrong.

  • Teleological (Consequentialist) Ethics: Value is in the outcome or consequences of the act. The right act produces the best consequences. Lying is wrong only if it produces bad consequences.

Utilitarianism (Part 1)

• Originators: Classical stage developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

• Core Idea: Morality and law should serve human needs and interests, aiming to bring about more utility: ameliorate suffering and promote more pleasure/happiness.

• Utilitarian View of Punishment: Not about retribution, but about deterrence. Punishment is justifiable only if it serves a preventive purpose and does the most good (or least harm) overall.

• Two Main Features:

  • Consequentialist Principle: Rightness/wrongness determined by results; the end justifies the means.

  • Utility Principle (Hedonic Aspect): The only thing good in itself is some specific state (e.g., pleasure, happiness, welfare).

  • Hedonistic Utilitarianism (Bentham): Pleasure is the sole good, pain the only evil. An act is right if it brings more pleasure than pain or prevents pain.

    • Hedonic Calculus: A scheme to measure pleasure and pain based on intensity, duration, certainty, nearness, fruitfulness, purity, and extent. Aim to maximize "hedons" (units of happiness).

    • Criticism: Too simplistic (only pleasure as value) and too complicated (calculus application problematic).

  • Eudaimonistic Utilitarianism (Mill): Distinguishes between higher and lower pleasures.

    • Lower Pleasures: Elementary (eating, drinking, sensuous).

    • Higher Pleasures: Intellectual, aesthetic, social, spiritual; tend to be more protracted and continuous.

    • Mill's Argument: Higher pleasures are superior. "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."

    • Defense: Based on the consensus of those who have experienced both types of pleasure.

Problem of Knowing Comparative Consequences

• Challenge: Utilitarianism seems to demand godlike knowledge of complex, long-term future consequences.

• Types of Consequences (C.I. Lewis):

  • Actual Consequences: What truly happens.

  • Objectively Right Consequences: What could reasonably have been expected.

  • Subjectively Right Consequences: What the agent intended or expected.

• Focus: Ethical judgment for agents focuses on what is objectively right—using the best available information to do what a reasonable person would expect to produce the best overall results.