Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism

^^JEREMY BENTHAM’S UTILITARIANISM^^

Act Utilitarianism is the version which Bentham espouses. It says that every action must accord with the greatest happiness.
- Bentham’s Law Reforms → To maximize happiness, and minimize pain

Bentham was an English jurist who devoted his life to campaigning for a more intelligible, just, and humane legal system.
His father encouraged him to pursue a career in law. However, Bentham decided that he’d rather reform the law.
- To reform the law, Bentham wanted to abolish the common law and establish a codified system of law. And he thought that Utilitarianism should provide the basis for rational systems of law.
- He started off by determining what actually causes harm to people, and finding solutions to prevent these actions that cause harm.
Utilitarianism is generally thought of as the philosophy which focuses on the consequences of actions, stressing the need to maximize pleasure or happiness, and minimize pain or suffering.
Bentham is often considered the father of Utilitarianism, although there were other Utilitarians in the 18th century.
- Bentham would state that happiness is made up of pleasure and absence of pain, and that the right action is that which maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain.

By utility, Bentham did not mean usefulness. Rather, “that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness, or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness.”
- Thus, Utility means to maximize pleasure and minimize pain
In his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Bentham states that mankind is governed by two sovereign masters, pleasure and pain. These two sovereign masters determine what humans ought and shall do.
- Thus, according to Bentham, the way to construct successful social institutions is to ensure that they are productive of as much pleasure and as little pain as possible for those who live under them.
The principle of utility can also be extended to encompass lifestyles.
- We can view the morally good life according to Utility, which means that the best life is one spent maximizing happiness and minimizing pain in the world.

Bentham also contributed to the theory of Utilitarianism by elaborating on the Hedonic Calculus.
- Hedonic Calculus → A system of distinguishing and measuring different kinds of pleasure and pain so that the relative weights of the consequences of different courses of action could be compared.
- A theory on which we can measure the amounts of pleasure we get from different activities, attach numbers to them, and then use this as a basis to produce the greatest good or happiness, in a mathematical way.
- To some extent, this can measure pleasure or pain in our lives.
- In this way, Bentham thought, he had provided a rational method of decision making for legislators, courts, and extending further to moral actions.