3 Utilitarianism

Principle of Utility

  • According to utilitarianism, actions are right if they promote happiness and wrong if they produce the reverse of happiness.

  • Right actions are those that produce the greatest amount of overall happiness.

  • Focus should be on overall happiness rather than individual or personal happiness.

  • Moral inquiry involves asking if an action benefits everyone, not just oneself.

Understanding Happiness

  • Happiness, for utilitarianism, equates to pleasure or pleasurable sensations.

  • Being better off means having more pleasure in life, while being worse off means less pleasure or more pain.

  • Questions arise about whether all pleasures are equally good and all pains equally bad.

  • Example: Is pleasure from playing Xbox equivalent to pleasure derived from listening to a Bach concerto?

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Utilitarianism

  • Quantitative Utilitarianism:

    • Associated with Jeremy Bentham.

    • All pleasures and pains are seen as the same in value; pleasure is just pleasure.

  • Qualitative Utilitarianism:

    • Promoted by John Stuart Mill.

    • Distinguishes between higher (qualitative) and lower (base) pleasures.

    • Example: Engaging in music may provide higher quality pleasure compared to playing video games.

Consequences Matter

  • All utilitarians agree that consequences of actions are paramount, making utilitarianism a teleological theory.

  • Contrast with deontological theories, which focus on duties and rules irrespective of outcomes, such as Kantian ethics.

Application of the Principle of Utility

  • Utilitarians differ on how to apply the principle to actions:

    • Act Utilitarianism:

      • Evaluates each individual action against the principle of utility.

      • Example: Deciding whether to lie to make someone happy, analyzed by immediate utility.

    • Rule Utilitarianism:

      • Evaluates groups of actions defined by rules that generally maximize utility.

      • Rules prohibiting lying typically lead to better overall outcomes, hence should generally be followed.

Understanding Act and Rule Utilitarianism

  • Act Utilitarian Problems:

    • Difficulties in knowing outcomes of actions beforehand.

    • Complications arise from evaluating habitual actions like brushing teeth as morally significant.

    • Free rider problem: Benefiting from others' moral actions without contributing oneself.

    • Conflict when majority action maximizes utility but some individuals would do better by not following the rule.

    • Moral obligations may be undermined when outcomes justify breaking promises.

  • Rule Utilitarian Problems:

    • Conflicts may arise when two rules lead to the same utility outcomes, making decision-making difficult.

    • Excessive rules generated by individual situations can become cumbersome and unwieldy.

    • Consistency issues when rule-following does not directly maximize utility.

    • Rule utilitarianism risks collapsing into act utilitarianism when rules do not lead towards the maximization of happiness but instead cause conflict.

Preference Utility

  • Some philosophers advocate for a focus on maximizing individual preferences rather than strictly happiness or pleasure.

  • Preference satisfaction leads to a better quality of life and represents a new perspective in moral philosophy.

  • However, detailed exploration of preference utility and its complications is not covered in this course.