Mill's Utilitarianism

Question 0

Mill’s defence of the quality/quantity distinction

Answer 0

Humans have faculties “more elevated than swine”

Question 1

Mill’s own conception of happiness

Answer 1

“Pleasure and the absence of pain”

Question 2

Bentham’s conception of happiness

Answer 2

A mental state of pleasure and no pain- only the quantities of pleasure are importance as determined by their intensity multiplied by duration

Question 3

Austin’s conception of happiness

Answer 3

The most general “non-specific” assessment of one’s overall wellbeing. Like how one can be healthy even with her leg chopped off.

Long term concept

Question 4

Ayer’s view of happiness

Answer 4

Happiness as desire satisfaction. Must give up that pleasure is the only thing ever desired.

Question 5

Informed desire-satisfaction theory

Answer 5

Brandt: only desires that occur in a normal state of mind with full information (of what desire will feel like when fulfilled) count as maximising happiness

Question 6

Mill’s change of heart in his autobiography

Answer 6

Against desire satisfaction theory. Realised that he would not be happy even if all of his desires were satisfied –> separates the two concepts

Question 7

Mill’s “proof” of utilitarianism as the criterion of morality

Answer 7

1) Cannot find moral first principles via reasoning

2) Instead will be necessary to prove the truth of the statement via showing that is true for reasonable people
(a) will prove what people desire by finding out what is desired because things which are desired are good and the desirable is identical with the desired hence good=desired
(b) Need to prove that happiness is the only thing desired

3) Hence if each individual desires their own happiness the aggregation of all these happinesses is a good to the aggregate of all people

Question 8

Moore’s criticism of Mill’s proof

Answer 8

Confuses the desired with desirable in the same way as visable/seen

Question 9

Quotes to support the diversity of pleasures that make up happiness

Answer 9

Us desiring the various components of happiness (using Mill’s own logic) even more greatly endears us towards happiness

Edwards “the recognition of a greater variety of qualities of agreeable feeling” makes us prefer the real world to a hedonist utopia

Question 10

Edwards on pleasure

Answer 10

Pleasure being used for many kinds of sensation does not entail them all sharing a common element (Wittgenstein)

Question 11

Hospers on pleasure

Answer 11

Localised pleasures and pains make up the non-localised ones

Question 12

Paper that points out the different kinds of maximisation of utility

Answer 12

Parfit (Overpopulation and Quality of life)

Question 13

What is the repugnant conclusion?

Answer 13

There will always be a number of people barely worth living that is better than having a few people enjoy their lives

Question 14

Perfectionism

Answer 14

Claim that if a change brings a net benefit it is a change for the worse if it involves sacrificing one of the “best things in life” that make life worth living

Question 15

Why does Mill reject an intuitive justification for Utilitarianism?

Answer 15

Thinks that it is unscientific and never given justifiable proof. There must be a first principle that is not self evident as we do not have a “sense” that could detect it

Question 16

Arguments against rule utilitarianism

Answer 16

Requires too much of people
Requires too little of people
Does not give special value to rights or primary facie duties
Victim of Nozick’s “utility monster”

Question 17

Arguments against RU

Answer 17

Becomes increasingly complex with the need for exceptions

Collapses into AU

Question 18

Lyons on RU

Answer 18

An adequate rule-utilitarianism would be extensionally equivalent to act-utilitarianism

Question 19

Sidgwick on morality

Answer 19

The doctrine that esoteric morality is expedient should itself be kept esoteric

Question 20

Hodgson vs. Singer

Answer 20

Communication would break down vs. it wouldn’t