Utilitariunism Flashcards
(29 cards)
Who originally developed utilitariuism
Jeremy Bentham in the 19ths century and it was later developed by mill
What did Bentham want too show with utilitariusim
Bentham believed that everyone should be happy
He believed happiness was achieved by seeking please and avoiding pain
What approach doesn’t Bentham take
Bentham develops act utilitarianism
Bentham takes a teleological approach - this means that good and bad will be judged on the outcome of an action and not the action itself
Although it doesn’t follow any rules it follows one guiding principle which is the principle of utility
What is the principle of utility
“Morality of any action should be judged on wether it promotes the greatest balance of pleasure over pain”
A good action is an action that outcome has the most pleasure over pain
Bentham was interested in constructing a system of law to approve or reject both individual behaviour and common legal systems that apply to the whole of society.
* His principle of utility is sometimes known as the greatest happiness for
the greatest number.
* Francis Hutcheson had coined the term ‘greatest happiness for the greatest number’.
* So, the principle of utility aims to promote maximum happiness for society.
* The society is the total of all individual members, so individual happiness is also vital.
* The greatest happiness need not always be for the majority; it can be for a minority if more happiness in total is achieved by an act.
* But individual happiness alone is not enough for Utilitarianism.
* Therefore, this is a democratic theory, not an egoistic one.
* When judging the goodness or badness of an act, we must weigh up the amount of overall happiness that will be caused.
* We must balance this against the overall amount of pain that will result.
What are some more additional things did Bentham say about utilitarians
- It’s not all about your own happiness - everyone should do an action that will create the highest happiness even if it means it dissatisfies them
- Create the greatest happiness even at your own death- people should continue the greatest happiness even if it means too their death
- Negative act utilitarianism - if you have a situation that all options are going to cause a negative impact you need too pick the least negative thing
- Quantity of happiness - as long as people were happy Bentham did care how it was done or what was done
What is Benthams hedonic calculus
Bentham wanted to make the ethical calculations as scientific as possible.
Consequently, he formulated the hedonic calculus, which should be applied to each situation without using any prefabricated rules. The calculus as intended to measure the quantity of pleasure or pain produced in any given act, to decide whether it is moral or not.
* The hedonic calculus is sometimes called the felicific calculus.
* ‘Hedonic’ comes from hedone, which is the ancient Greek word for pleasure.
* As we have established, Classical Utilitarianism is hedonistic, so it is concerned with happiness or pleasure as its end.
* Other Utilitarian theories may emphasise different sorts of ends (Situation Ethics or Christian Utilitarianism had the end of love).
Bentham argued that the hedonic calculus neeed to be used in every situation when you need to make a decision to make the right moral decision and that happiness will always come out the best for the situation
* The hedonic calculus is an attempt to calculate the balance between the pleasure and pain that result from any action.
* Bentham felt that we can weigh up pleasure quantitatively.
* This meant he was more interested in how much happiness will occur and not concerned with the type of happiness or what kind of quality it has.
* All viable alternative courses of action should be measured in terms of the calculus.
* Bentham aimed to create a mathematical way of working out the quantity of pleasure produced by an act.
* He included seven criteria in his calculus:
1. Duration - the amount of time that the happiness will last.
2. Richness - how much more happiness this act will lead to in the future (fecundity).
3. Purity - how much the act will be contaminated by pain.
4. Remoteness - how long we will have to wait until the happiness starts (propinquity).
5. Intensity - how strong the sensation of happiness will be.
6. Certainty - how sure we are that the happiness will occur.
7. Extent - how many other people the happiness will affect.
• He claimed that pleasure and pain can be measured in the same way as anything else. A unit of pleasure was called a hedon, a unit of pain was called a dolor.
What does relativist mean
The belief that no action is right or wrong in itself
What is teleological
The right and wrong of an action should be judged by the outcome of the action
What does consequential mean
A teleological theory ; the morality of an action should be based on the consequence of the action
Who is mill
A philosopher who expanded on Bentham utilitarianism
And the made up rule utilitarianism
What was mills ideas
change made by Mill to Bentham’s Utilitarianism was to focus on the claim that pleasure was qualitative instead of quantitative.
* Thomas Carlyle had called Utilitarianism ‘pig philosophy’ because it appealed to basic, animalistic urges rather than more sophisticated human requirements.
* Mill agreed that what makes us human is that we want more out of life than the basic swinish pleasures.
* Mill interpreted pleasure like Aristotle. Eudaemonia is the kind of happiness that we all seek.
* Mill claimed that pleasure could be analysed qualitatively. So, there are pleasures that could be deemed as higher pleasures and some that are lower.
* Higher pleasures are of greater value than lower pleasures.
What are higher and lower pleasures
Higher pleasure - intellectual, what makes us human rather than like other animals, superior to other pleasures.
E.g. Reading a book, engaging in philosophy, scientific study, visiting an art gallery, spirituality.
Lower pleasures - basic, physical, animalistic.
E.g. Eating, drinking, sleeping, sex.
* We must satisfy lower pleasures to exist, but higher pleasure can be worth sacrificing a lower pleasure for.
* When we make a moral decision, we should weigh up the value of the act based on whether there is a higher quality pleasure at stake or a lower quality one.
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* We don’t always choose the higher pleasure over the lower one if we haven’t been educated and experienced the full range of pleasures properly.
* So, everyone should be exposed to the higher pleasures through education as it helps them to make better moral choices.
What is the harm principle
Mill valued individual freedom or liberty. To protect happiness, it is vital that the individual has the right to make decisions about their own life.
However, sometimes pursuit of happiness can interfere with the happiness of others.
The harm principle is a rule created to solve this dilemma. It states that we may never limit the freedom of others to act, except to prevent harm being done to other people.
Other than to prevent harm to others, and only to prevent harm to others, the individual should have complete freedom to make their decisions and have sovereignty over their own lives and bodies. This is the case even if they wish to cause harm to themselves.
There are some exceptions to this freedom:
* a child (someone who doesn’t know any better)
* someone with mental health difficulties that make it difficult to judge for themselves
* someone without sufficient good education (e.g. from Mill’s view - backward societies).
In these cases, we may need to interfere with personal liberty.
In the instance of the sadistic guards, the torture of the prisoner is not acceptable. The guards cannot harm another person just to achieve majority happiness. While they may be free to torture each other if they all wish to participate, the prisoner is an unwilling victim and so is protected.
What was his theory on rule utiliatirusm
uMill Rejects His Own Changes to Act Utilitarianism
* Despite the above changes Mill realised Act Utilitarianism was still a difficult ethic to follow because of its complexity (particularly applying the Hedonic Calculus).
Therefore, Mill developed a further change to Utilitarianism, that changed Act Utilitarianism so much it became known as a different version of Utilitarianism - it became known as Rule Utilitarianism.
What Rule Utilitarianism is:
Mill realised that previous moral experiences could help in current moral decision making i.e. he believed that as people grow up and interact with other people, they learn that certain actions always bring about pleasure or pain e.g. being kind to people creates pleasure and stealing creates pain.
Therefore, Mill believed that there were universal rules (rules to follow in all moral situations) that society could follow which would bring the maximum outcome of happiness (hence the name: Rule Utilitarianism).
* For example, experience has taught everyone that following the rule of ‘stealing is bad’ brings about the most pleasure for people in society.
* Therefore, Mill believed we could have a rule stating: ‘stealing is bad’ because this rule would create the most pleasure over pain for the whole of society. Or ‘kindness is good’ because this rule would also create the most pleasure over pain for the whole of society
Therefore, Rule Utilitarianism would judge good and bad as:
* Good = Following a rule that creates the most pleasure over pain.
* Bad = Breaking a rule that creates the most pleasure over pain.
* One of the great benefits of Rule Utilitarianism is that people no longer need to use the slow hedonic calculus. This is because they can now just follow a set of rules.
Building on Aristotle’s work, Mill argued that Utilitarianism is about maximising happiness in the form of Eudaemonia. If we promote society’s well-being, it will support our individual happiness. For a happy society, the well-being of individuals needs to be considered. This means that we must develop rules that make it a duty for society to care for the individuals within it.
* Historically, there are rules that have been established that will always lead to happiness regardless of the situation.
* Not all actions need to be morally assessed as they are right if they conform to a historical rule that has demonstrated that it fulfils the principle of utility.
* The harm principle is one of these rules that have been set for all circumstances.
* What is right and wrong for one person is right and wrong for all.
As a result, Mill’s version is retrospectively called Rule Utilitarianism.
There are two versions of Rule Utilitarianism (weak and strong):
Strong rule - once the rules are set, they cannot be broken under any circumstances.
Weak rule - rules can be broken if necessary to establish maximum happiness in an extreme situation.
Is mills utilitarianism teleological or deontologial
It is a hybrid of both
- It is teleological in the sense that when establishing a rule, this is done through considering the goal of happiness or pleasure for the majority in general.
- In weak Rule Utilitarianism, a rule may be broken if it doesn’t achieve the utility principle in a particular instance.
- It is deontological because once a rule is established, it becomes a duty for us to uphold this law for the sake of majority happiness.
- The strong Rule Utilitarian may never break this rule.
Brief explanation of act utilitarianism
Follows the principle of utility (creating the greatest amount of pleasure over pain) in each individual moral dilemma calculated by using the hedonic calculus
Brief explanation of rule utilitarianism
Follows a set of rules that are known to create the greatest mount of pleasure over pain
Use abortion as an example of act utilitarianism
people should consider each individual situation of abortion and uniquely judge its morality, by asking whether having the abortion would create the most pleasure over pain (using the Hedonic Calculus to calculate it). If it does the abortion would be seen as morally good and if not, it would be seen as morally bad.
Use abortion as an example for rule utilitarianism
Act utilitarianism would instead ask: “Would accepting abortions generally bring more pleasure over pain?” If from our general experience the answer was yes, then accepting abortion would be the rule. This would then be applied to all cases of abortion.
What was Bentham and act utilitarianism say about animal experiments
- Act Utilitarianism judges each individual moral act uniquely, therefore each case of animal experimentation for medical research needs to be judged separately.
- Act Utilitarianism would employ the ‘Principle of Utility’ i.e. it would decide the morality of each case of animal experimentation by whether the experimentation created the most pleasure over pain The Utilitarian would also apply the Hedonic Calculus to each case of animal experimentation for medical research. If the hedonic calculus suggests that a particular case of animal experimentation would generate the most pleasure over pain, then the animal experimentation would be morally justified.
Bentham considered an animal’s capacity for suffering to be the unsuperable line that takes priority over their capacity for reason or language. The hedonic calculus is applied to achieve the maximum quantity of happiness, but no general rules or precedent for action about animal testing can be created.
What would rule utilitarianism say about animal experimentation
A Rule Utilitarian would instead consider general rules that society could follow, on animal experimentation for medical
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research, that would bring about the greatest pleasure over pain.
It could be generally seen that medical experimentation on animals does creates the most pleasure over pain for society. For example, the development of the heart bypass operations involved countless animal experiments, however, the benefit for humanity of this operation has created enormous amounts of pleasure.
• As experiments on animals, for medical research, lead to more pleasure over pain, Rule Utilitarianism could have a rule that states ‘Animal Experimentation for medical research is good’
Mill argued that it was important to be able to empathise with the pleasure or pain experienced by animals. He grouped animals together with children, who need care from us since they cannot care for themselves. Mill valued some kinds of pleasure as lower in quality because they are animalistic, but this is only a feature of Mill, not of Rule Utilitarianism in general.
what would act say about nuclear weapons as a deterrent
Utilitarianism judges each individual moral act uniquely, each case of having nuclear weapons as a deterrent, needs to be judged separately.
Next the Act Utilitarian would apply the ‘Principle of Utility and the Hedonic Calculus i.e. Act Utilitarian would judge the pleasure over pain created in each case of having nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
Deterrence theory says that belligerent countries are less likely to attack a country with a substantial nuclear arsenal at its fingertips. To be credible, it should always be prepared but never used. The worries about deterrence include:
* the cost of keeping, improving and maintaining competitive weapons
* the risk of accident/unauthorised use/misjudgement
* the environmental risk through testing
* the damage that would be done if such weapons were detonated.
What would Bentham say?
When applying Bentham, we must consider the utility principle quantitatively and not formulate any rules to use in other situations.
We should apply the hedonic calculus to the unique situation. Bentham lived at a time before the development of nuclear weapons so does not comment directly on this issue.
What would rule say about nuclear weapons as a deterrent
Rule Utilitarian would instead consider general rules that society could follow on the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent that would bring about the maximum gap between pleasure and pain.
Rule Utilitarianism may have the rule that the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent does create more pleasure than pain.
Nuclear weapons as a deterrent do generate pain because they potentially risk the existence of the whole of humanity, if a nuclear war did occur.
However, this pain is outweighed by the pleasure that the on-going peace that nuclear weapons have brought to the nations that have them i.e. no nation that has nuclear weapons has ever been invaded by another nation. Therefore, Rule Utilitarianism could have a rule that states ‘having nuclear weapons as deterrents are good
We should establish the best thing to do generally between all countries.
We must consider the harm principle and establish rules. We may also consider what will lead to higher pleasures when it helps to formulate a rule. Remember that Mill lived at a time before the development of nuclear weapons.
Oveall strengths of utilitarianism
Supports Human Nature:
* Even as far back as Ancient Greece (400BC) it was recognised that happiness is the most important goal of humanity. Ancient Greek Philosopher Aristotle stated that everyone’s major aim in life (the highest good) was the pursuit of happiness. He argued happiness was the main aim in life for “both ordinary and cultured people”
* Contemporary Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky supports the idea that happiness is the most important thing for us. She states: “Happy people are more likely to have fulfilling relationships, high incomes, superior work performance, community involvement, robust health and even a long life.”
Secular Society:
* Sociologists argue we live in a secular society (this means that we live in a society where there is declining belief in organised religion).
* Therefore, Utilitarianism would work in contemporary society e.g. Bentham did not believe in a God and deliberately made a secular ethic. He wanted to create an ethic that reflected the needs of people in society here and now; rather than an ethic, such as Natural Law, which looked at the eternal (heaven or hell).
