3.2.1 Utilitarianism

Question 1

What are normative ethical theories?

Answer 1

‘Normative ethics’ is the branch of philosophy that discusses theories of how to live and what we should do. Utilitarianism is one of these theories.

Question 2

What is utilility

Answer 2

Jeremy Bentham, the founding father of utilitarianism, defined utility as the tendency of something to produce benefit, advantage, good or happiness or to prevent mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness.

Question 3

What are the three terms that define utilitarianism?

Answer 3

1. Act consequentialism
2. Hedonism
3. Equality.

Question 4

What is act consequentialism?

Answer 4

Actions are morally right or wrong depending on their consequences and nothing else. An act is right if it maximises what is good.

Question 5

What is hedonism?

Answer 5

The only thing that is good is happiness, understood as pleasure and the absence of pain. This is ‘hedonism’

Question 6

What is equality? (in relation to utilitarianism)

Answer 6

No one’s happiness counts more than anyone else’s.

Question 7

hedonistic act utilitarianism

Answer 7

Our actions are morally right if they bring about the greatest happiness.
(leads to more happiness than any other possible happiness)

Question 8

Who is considered the first act utilitarian and what did he defend?

Answer 8

Jeremy Bentham defended the principle of utility/greatest happiness principle.

Question 9

“that principle….”

What is the principle of utility/greatest happiness principle?

Answer 9

‘that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have augmented or diminished the happiness of the party whose interest is in question.’
+ so Bentham claims that in judging actions to be morally right or wrong, we should take into account only the TOTAL amount of happiness that the action may produce.

Question 10

What is the hedonic/felicific calculus?

Answer 10

An algorithm-like process whereby Betham argued we can measure the pleasure and pains of an action.

Question 11

Explain how the hedonic calculus works

Answer 11

considers 7 factors:
intensity, duration, certainty, fecundity, propinquity, purity and extent

+ greatest utility principle = we should only consider this result in judging the morality of an action

Question 12

What is an objection to utilitarianism which Mill responds to in his theory of qualitative hedonistic utilitarianism ?

Answer 12

Utilitarianism values only pleasure and does not recognise the ‘higher’ things in life or the dignity of human beings.

Question 13

What does JS Mill agree with Bentham about?

Answer 13

• that people’s moral apporval and dissaproval of an action is strongly influenced by its affect on their happiness; the greatest happiness principle plays a significant role in formng moral beliefs
• that happiness is pleasure and the absence of pain

Question 14

What does JS Mill disagree with Bentham about?

Answer 14

Bentham says in ‘The Rationale of Reward’,1830, that ‘the game of pushpin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry’
Mill rejects the view that pleasures and pains are all equally valuable.

Question 15

How does JS Mill divide pleasures?

Answer 15

Into ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ pleasures.
He argues some pleasures are more valuable and important to human happiness given the types of creatures we are and what we are capable of.

Question 16

What does Mill say ‘higher’ pleasures are?

Answer 16

Mill argues that, as long as our physical needs are met, people will prefer the pleasures of thought feeling and imagination to the pleasures of the body and the senses, even though our higher capacities also mean we can experience terrible pain and dissatisfaction.

Question 17

What does Mill say in response to the objection that utilitarianism values only pleasure?

Answer 17

valuing only pleasure is a ‘doctrine worthy only of swine’

Question 18

Why does Mill say ‘it is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satissfied’?

Answer 18

Humans can expereince deep personal relationshops, art and creative thought, pigs cannot. Humans can expereince horrible pain as a result but we don’t take the possibility of pain as a reason to live as a well-looked-after pig instead of a human.
Mill argues this preference derives from our sense of dinity which is an essential part of our happiness.

Question 19

Objection to Mill’s theory that people prefer higher pleasures

Answer 19

People do not really persue the ‘higher’ pleasures of thought, feeling and imagination instead of the ‘lower’ pleasures realted to the body and senses.

Question 20

Mills response to the objection that people do not persue higher pleasures

Answer 20

-He argues there is a difference between higher pleasures and action
- we can choose what we know to be less good whether from weakness or laziness and still recognise that our choice was less valuable
- appreciating higher demanding so we may seek lower pleasures simpy because they are more readily available to us

Question 21

What are the two stages of Mill’s proof of utilitarianism?

Answer 21

Stage 1: happiness is good
Stage 2: only happiness is good

Question 22

Explain Stage 1 of Mill’s proof: happiness is good

Answer 22

• What is good is what we should aim at in our lives- what is good is an end. What we should aim at is what’s desirable.
• What is good, is what’s desirable as an end
• we can’t deduce (prrove) was is good (what’s desirable as an end)
• so we myst appeal to evidence
• the only evidence that something is visible is if people can see it…
• Mill argues that the only proof that something is desirable is that people actually desire it.
• It is a fact that happiness is a good, because all people desire their own happiness.
  (Thus, it is clear that happiness is at least one end, and one criterion, of morality.)
• if the individual seeks happinessm, the general happiness is sought by the aggregate of all people.

Question 23

Explain the fallacy of equivocation critique of Mills proof

Answer 23

G.E Moore says Mill equivocates on the word desirable and conflates two meanings:
- worthy of being desired (anything desired in this case is good)
- capable of being desired (what people desire)
What people actually desire is not the same as what is worthy of desire-people want all sorts of rubbish! He has (falsely) assumed what people desire is good.

Question 24

Explain the fallacy of composition critique of Mills proof

Answer 24

Mill seems to be saying that because each person desires their own happiness that everybody desire’s everybody’s happiness. (general happiness)

Question 25

Mill’s response to the fallacy of equivocation

Answer 25

When Mill says ‘happiness is good’ he’s talking about ‘higher pleasures not chocolate or cocaine etc… he means the higher pleasures which are capable and worthy.

It’s a misinterpretation of what he said.

Question 26

Mill’s response to the fallacy of composition

Answer 26

• At no point does Mill feel he needs to defemd the idea of impartiality in ethics (fairness)
• he simply assumes that ethics is concerned with what is good (happiness) in general
• he is not trying to infer that we ought to care for others happiness, but having argued that happiness is good, it follows that ethics is impartial that we should be concerned with the general happiness

It’s a misinterpretation of what he said.

Question 27

Explain Stage 2 of Mill’s proof: only happiness is good

Answer 27

Happiness has many ingredients such as truth, freedom and each ingredient is desirable in itself, but they are not external means but constitutive means to the end that is happiness.

Question 28

Name the issues with act utilitarianism

Answer 28

-problems with the calculation
-tyranny of majority
-ignores intentions
-partiality
(higher and lower pelasure & valuing other stuff)

Question 29

What are the three problems presented with trying to use the felicific calculus?

Answer 29

First, how do you quantify each of the seven variables? For example, how do you measure the intensity of pleasure? Are we supposed to hook everyone up to brain scanners?!

Second, how do you compare these seven variables against each other? For example, how do you decide between, say, a longer-lasting dull pleasure and a short-lived but more intense pleasure?

Finally, which beings do we include in this calculation? Animals can feel pleasures and pains too, so are we supposed to include them in our calculation? If so, is a dog’s pain equal to a human being’s? What about a mouse? Or a spider?

just not practical!

Question 30

Betham’s response to problems with the calculation

Answer 30

Bentham says the felicific calculus is more a general guide to be “kept in view” rather than something that has to be worked out precisely every time we act

Question 31

What does Mill say about the hedonic calculus

Answer 31

It is still too complicated for everyday practical use. But he says we actually don’t have to because people have automatically over time through trial and error worked out which actions tend to produce happiness. This is what inherited moral rules are eg: dont lie and dont steal, Mill calls these secondary principles.

Question 32

When does Mill say we should attempt to calculate happiness?

Answer 32

It is only in cases of conflict between secondary principles (eg by telling the truth you ghave to break a promise) that we need to apply the greatest happiness principlease (what is the total amount of happiness) to an action. We shouldn’t attempt to calculate happiness unless we have such a conflict.

Question 33

Explain Mill’s primary and secondary principles.

Answer 33

‘Utility is the ultimate source of moral obligations’. This ‘first principle’ can be appealed to if there are conflicting ‘secondary principles’ which are inherited moral rules which have been worked out over time through trial and error identifying which actions lead to the greatest happiness. (rules).