Bentham’s Classical Utilitarianism
The Principle of Utility – “An action is right if it
produces the greatest good for the greatest
number.”
Proposed the Hedonic Calculus - Quantative
A working morality that can be brought into operation
in organisational rather than simply individual matters.
Benefits in the management of hospitals where fixed
budgets must be best to alleviate the suffering of many.
Difficulty in measuring pleasure. The hedonic
calculus seems straightforward but can
different pleasures and different pains be so
easily quantified?
E.g. pleasure of chocolate bar or pleasure of
seeing a child grow up? How to quantify.
E.g. What about pain that’s good for you?
When we hurt ourselves, the pain is a reminder
that we have the injury and to take care.
Mill’s Utilitarianism - Qualitative
Focus on qualitative
pleasures – pleasures of the
mind are higher than those
to the body.
Seems reasonable to link morality
with the pursuit of happiness and
avoidance and pain.
Seems natural to consider the
consequences of out actions
when deciding what to do.
The concept of happiness is so broad that it
can be taken as the name for whatever a
person takes as his or her personal goal.
Utilitarianism offers no objective method of
assessing rights and wrongs of an action.
Utilitarianism depends upon accurate
predictions of the futures, but human
beings don’t always display accurate
foresight. The consequences of actions
may not become apparent until years
into the future.
Robert Nozick – The
experience machine – There
must be things apart from
pleasure that we consider
intrinsically valuable.
“It is better to be human dissatisfied than a
pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied
than a fool satisfied.” Mill
Offers a balanced,
democratic morality that
promotes general
happiness
It doesn’t support individual
pursuits that are at the
expense of the majority.
It is a
commonsense
system that’s
practically
applicable to reallife situations. It
has no need for
special wisdom.
Utilitarianism ensures a maximum-pleasure result, but
it doesn’t set out how the pleasure is distributed. It
guarantees nothing for minorities. There’s nothing in
utilitarianism that prevents the total sacrifice of one
pleasure for the benefit of the whole e.g. bullies
torturing a single boy.
John Rawls – A Theory of Justice – “The striking
feature of justice is that does not matter, except
indirectly, how this sum of satisfactions is distributed
among individuals any more than it matters, except
indirectly, how one man distributes his satisfactions
over time.”
Alasdair MacIntyre – A Short History of Ethics –
“Utilitarianism could justify horrendous acts as
being for the pleasure of many e.g. Nazi policy
of persecution. He identifies the focus on
happiness as the problem: “That men are
happy with their lot never entails that their lot
is what it ought to be. For the question can
always be raised of how great the price is that
is being paid for the happiness.”
Act Utilitarianism
More closely associated
with Jeremy Bentham
The principle of utility must be directly
applied for each individual situation. Which
action will create the greatest good or the
greatest number? Value in the
consequences.
Rule Utilitarianism
Focuses on general rules that
everyone should follow to bring about
the greatest good for that community.
Rule utilitarianism establishes the
best overall rule which, when pursued
by the whole community, leads to the
best result.
A rule utilitarian will maintain that I must
always drive on the left-hand side of the
road in the UK, even when stuck in a traffic
jam – because that will ensure the greatest
good when everyone acts in such a way.
Flexibility– being able to take into
account individual situations at a given
moment, although the actions that it
justifies can change.
Impractical to suggest that we should
measure each and every choice
every time, especially as we may not
have all the information required but
the hedonic calculus.
Potential to justify virtually any
act if, in that particular case,
the result generates the most
happiness.
Can have some quite extreme results: An
act utilitarian goes out to see a film, sees
a charity collector so gives money away.
This happens again and again. Taken to
the extreme, all leisure activities would
end.
Associated with John Stuart Mill
(1861) and John Austin (The province
of Jurisprudence, 1832)
I should never lie because, as a general
community rule, lying doesn’t bring
about the greatest good for the
community. People would not trust
each other.
Practical – general rules
exist
A person would be allowed to see the film,
because a rule that allows people leisure time
would be acceptable.
Could still permit certain practices, such
as as slavery, that appear to be morally
unacceptable. There’s no guarantee that
minority interests will be protected. As
long as slaves are the smaller proportion,
the greatest good might be to keep them
enslaved.
Strong Rule Utilitarianism
Maintains that rules established through the
application of utilitarian principles should never be
broken.
R.M.Hare – suppose a maniac is chasing
someone who hides in my shop. My gut
feeling would be to lie. A rule utilitarianist
would state that I have to be honest, because
I’m not allowed to break a rule, even though,
the result isn’t the greatest happiness.
Weak Rule Utilitarianism
Tries to allow for the possibility that utilitarian principles can
take precedence in a situation over a general rule. However,
the rule would still form part of the decision-making process.