Utilitarianism

Question 1

Bentham quote?

Answer 1

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pleasure and pain. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to doj

Question 2

What type of ethical theory is utilitarianism?

Answer 2

Teleological

Question 3

What does hedonistic mean?

Answer 3

Pleasure-driven

Question 4

What are 3 parts of hedonic calculus?

Answer 4

Intensity
Duration
Purity

Question 5

Weakness of the hedonic calculus?

Answer 5

Attempts to quantify pleasure - is this possible?

Relies on accurate predictions given its teleological nature

What counts as pleasure - very subjective

Question 6

What problem did Mill have with Bentham?

Answer 6

Does not distinguish between types of pleasure or rank them

What about minorities?

Bentham sees pleasure as nothing more than animal instincts

Question 7

What quote does Bentham say??

Answer 7

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied: Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied

Question 8

What is a lower pleasure?

Answer 8

Shared with animals (bodily pleasure)W

Question 9

What is a higher pleasure?

Answer 9

Stimulates the mind (human only)

Question 10

What is Mill’s principle of utility?

Answer 10

Happiness is desirable

Happiness only thing desirable as an end in itself

General happiness of all is desirable

Question 11

Mills link to the Golden Rule>

Answer 11

To do as one would be done by, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, constitutes the ideal perfection of Utilitarian morality

Question 12

W.D. Ross criticism>?

Answer 12

‘a single factor’ does not account for the complexity of humans moral lives

I.E.: trolley problem

4 family members or 15 strangers (logically)

Question 13

Henry Sidgwick criticism?

Answer 13

no distinction between the higher pleasures themselves