Hedonism and Utility

Question 1

Epicurus — Biographical

Answer 1

• Greek philosopher 341-270 BCE
• founded his own school in Athens called “The Garden”
• although is thought to have written 300+ works, only a very few remain intact
  
  • 3 letters and two collections of quotations
• much of what we know about him comes from others writing about him, either as followers or critics

Question 2

Bentham—biographical

Answer 2

• 748-1832
• one of the earliest “utilitarian” philosophers
• studied law but declined to practice it, wrote about law and government instead
• was a friend of James Mill, father of John Stuart Mill
• was a radical reformer urging changes to the structure of law and the practices of punishment
• at death, required that his body be publicly dissected

Question 3

John Stuart Mill — biographical

Answer 3

• 1806-1873
• extraordinary education
• grew up in the company of England’s leading philosophers and politicans
  
  • Bentham was a family friend
• worked as “secratary” for East Indian Trading Company
• Member of parliament, social reformer
• one of the first modern feminists

Question 4

Views on the badness of death?

Answer 4

• death is neither good nor evil
• happiness = experience
• death = absence of experience

Question 5

views on the role of reason/self control?

Answer 5

• can be useful
• but in of itself, isn’t good

Question 6

views on the objectivity/subjectivity of happiness?

Answer 6

• depends on each individual’s subjective “right” feelings and “wrong” feelings

Question 7

views on capacity of various people to be happy

Answer 7

• anyone can get pleasure and avoid pain
• easier for anyone to obtain (compared to the stoics)

Question 8

Epicurus’s ideas on pleasure (and pain)

Answer 8

• having calm, unbothered experiences
  
  • not kinda rock sex drugs experiences
    
    • might enjoy in the min, but afterwards theres the crash of not having that → low gets in the way
• calm, quiet, tranquility of consciousness
• health important
  
  • not because you’re worried about death, but because you don’t want to suffer pain
• simple, unadorned necessities taken care of
  
  • avoid pain

Question 9

Bentham’s ideas on pleasure and pain

Answer 9

• if it feels good, then it IS! good!
  
  • the more feels-good stuff you get, the better off you are
• if it feels bad, then it IS! bad!
  
  • the more of the feels-bad stuff, the worse off you are
• want to have a way of measuring this type of thing and scientifically producing it by noticing:
  
  • how long does it last
  • followed by more pleasure or is it followed by pain?
  • more intense or less intense?
• map it all out, come up with processes that produce more of the good ones
  ~it’s all about the feeeeeels maaaan~

Question 10

Mill’s ideas on pleasures and pains

Answer 10

• similar to bentham, but with a new addition!
  
  • there are high and low pleasures
  • pleasures and pains have different values!

Question 11

utilitarianism

Answer 11

Says that ethics is about the promotion of happiness, welfare, pleasure minus pain, or some other form of good state for humans (or sentient creates) to live in as a whole

on this view, people, institutions, governments, practices, moral “rules of thumb” etc. should all be measured and guided by whether they tend to make the “community at large” happy

Question 12

MORAL THEORY AS “HEDONIC CALCULUS”

Answer 12

• Bentham’s version of utilitarianism aims to guide individuals and (especially) governments toward promoting happiness, preventing misery

happiness (aka “utility) = sum of pleasure - sum of pain

• treats acts (of individuals and governments) as means of producing outcomes that result in pleasure and pain, for for the actor (if an individual) and for other people (”the community at large”)
• “good” or “right” acts can be defined in terms of their effects