Jeremy Bentham/Act utilitarianism Flashcards
What is a hedonist?
Someone who pursues pleasure and believes that pleasure is the chief ‘good’.
What is the utility principle?
The rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by its ‘utility’, or usefulness.
What determines if an action is right?
If it produces the greatest good for the greatest number.
What are the seven factors of the Hedonic Calculus?
- Its intensity
- Its duration
- Its certainty or uncertainty
- Its propinquity
- Its fecundity
- Its purity
- Its extent/how many are affected
Define Propinquity.
How close or remote something is.
Define Fecundity.
The chance that [pleasure] will be followed by sensations of the same kind (more pleasure).
Define Purity (in relation to utilitarianism)
How much pleasure is in the pleasure; is it completely pleasure or are there small amounts of pain in there?
Summarise act utilitarianism.
Where the rightness or wrongness of individual acts are calculated by the amount of happiness resulting from these acts.
Name one benefit of act utilitarianism.
It’s very flexible, because it can take into account individual situations at a given moment.
Name two criticisms of act utilitarianism.
- It can justify virtually any action as long as that act produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
- Its very impractical to suggest that we should measure each moral choice every time.
