Week 7 - Utilitarianism Jeremy Bentham Flashcards

1
Q

Jeremy Bentham’s ‘Hedonistic Calculus’:

The goodness of an action depends on the intensity of pleasure and pain it produces, their duration, likelihood of occurrence and nearness in time

Act Utilitarianism:

An action is right if it produces the greatest balance of pleasure over pain

Hedonistic calculus:
The goodness of an action depends on the intensity of pleasure and pain it produces, their duration, likelihood of occurrence, and nearness in time

Singer’s argument

a) Suffering and death (from lack of food, shelter …) are bad.
b) If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to do it.

So,

The relatively affluent ought to transfer as much of their wealth as needed for alleviating/preventing suffering and death in the world without subjecting themselves to comparable harm.

A

Singer:

The relatively affluent ought to transfer as much of their wealth as needed for alleviating/preventing suffering and death in the world without subjecting themselves to comparable harm.

We have distinguished the following types of action:

a. Impermissible
b. Permissible
c. Obligatory
d. Supererogatory

On Singer’s view handing over most of your money to the poor is obligatory, rather than supererogatory

Rule utilitarianism supports the allegedly
intuitive distinction between supererogatory (going beyond the requirements of duty) and obligatory actions.

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