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moral philosophy > utilitarianism > Flashcards

utilitarianism Flashcards

1
Q

utility

A
  • how useful something is
  • an object or action has utility if it helps to bring about something are aiming for
  • for objects and actions to have utility, we must have goals and desires in the first place
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2
Q

psychological hedonism

A
  • a descriptive theory of human motivation
  • the individual’s potential pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the sole aims of the individual’s action
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3
Q

hedonism

A

for each individual, pursing pleasure and avoiding pain is the right thing to do

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4
Q

the three types of utilitarianism

A
  1. act utilitarianism - we should act to maximise pleasure and minimise pain in each specific instance
  2. rule utilitarianism - we should follow general rules that maximise pleasure and minimise pain
  3. preference utilitarianism - we should act to maximise people’s preference
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5
Q

act utilitarianism

A

Jeremy Bentham’s act utilitarianism can be boiled down to three claims:
- whether an action is right or wrong depends solely on its consequences
- the only thing good is happiness
- no individual’s happiness is more important than anyone else’s

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6
Q

Bentham’s principle of utility

A

that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question

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7
Q

the felicific calculus

A
  • it quantifies happiness
  • used to calculate utility by adding up all the happiness and subtracting all the pain
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8
Q

what is felicific calculus made up of

A
  • intensity
  • duration
  • certainty
  • propinquity
  • fecundity
  • purity
  • extent
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9
Q

motive and government (Bentham)

A
  • the goal of utilitarianism is best achieved by social engineering
  • government house utilitarianism: the idea that the goals of utilitarianism are best achieved by the state manipulating the masses
  • by making laws and changing crime and punishment, we can modify people’s intentions to align individuals happiness with general happiness
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10
Q

problems with act utilitarianism
difficult to calculate

A
  • complicated to use every single time you have to make a decision
  • how do you decide between a longer lasting dull pleasure and a short lived more intense pleasure
  • assumes it is possible to know how intense a pleasure will be in the first place
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11
Q

problems with act utilitarianism
tyranny of majority

A
  • there are some actions that are wrong regardless of the circumstances
  • eg someone has been murdered and a crowd of people want justice. It would make the crowd happy to see the murderer apprehended and to face justice for his crimes. But what if the police can’t find the murderer. They could lie and frame an innocent man. If the crowd believe that the murderer has been caught then they will be happy. the crowd’s collective happiness would out way the framed man’s pain
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12
Q

problems with act utilitarianism
moral status of particular relationships

A
  • friends and family are more important to us than strangers
  • but act utilitarianism is only concerned with the greatest good for the greatest number. There are no grounds, then, to justify acting to maximise their happiness over some random person on the street
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13
Q

problems with act utilitarianism
higher and lower pleasures

A
  • Bentham’s felicific calculus seeks to quantify happiness
  • it can be argued that the quantitive approach makes utilitarianism a ‘doctrine of swine’
  • it reduces the value of human life to the simple pleasures felt by pigs and animals
  • response: Mill’s higher and lower pleasures
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14
Q

strengths of act utilitarianism

A
  • it takes into account the pleasure and pain of everyone affected
  • it provides a way of calculating what is right and comparing actions
  • everyone agrees that pleasure is good and pain is bad, therefore actions can be justified to others
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15
Q

the pleasure machine (Nozick)

A

imagine scientists have developed a pleasure machine that gives you guaranteed pleasure as soon as you are hooked up to it
the pleasurable sensations will vary in intensity
once you have stepped in, you can not come back out

  • it is a criticism of psychological hedonism
  • if you are happy to sign up to the machine, it proves the truth of psychological hedonism
  • according to act utilitarianism, everyone should step into the machine because all that matters is maximising pleasure
  • but it is morally wrong to ignore people’s preference
  • shows that there are more important things in life than simple pleasures
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16
Q

rule utilitarianism

A
  • focuses on the consequences of general rules rather than specific actions
  • an action is right when it complies with those rules which if everybody followed them, would lead to the greatest happiness
17
Q

rule utilitarianism as a response to the tyranny of majority objection

A
  • for the example, punishing the innocent man leads to greater happiness however as a general rule, it would lead to more unhappiness
  • if you lived in a society when you knew that innocent people would be framed, you might worry that it will happen to you
  • there would be no satisfaction in seeing criminals brought to justice ad there would be no way to know whether they were guilty
18
Q

strong rule utilitarianism

A
  • always follows rules worked out from past events no matter what the outcome will be
  • they are rigid and inflexible
  • can be accused of being deontological, which is incompatible with utilitarianism
19
Q

weak rule utilitarianism

A

some rules from history can be broken if it leads to the greater good or greatest happiness in exceptional circumstances

20
Q

advantages of rule utilitarianism

A
  • we don’t have to work out the consequences of each act in turn
  • some types of unjust act are ruled out
  • a rule that allows partiality to our friends and family will create more happiness than a rule that requires us to be impartial all the time
  • may support a rule that allows us to act with integrity, even when this conflicts with an act that maximise happiness
  • recognises the importance of intentions in terms of rules (eg murder murder and self defence murder)
  • rule utilitarianism maximises happiness in the long term more than breaking rules
21
Q

disadvantages of rule utilitarianism

A
  • fails to acknowledge what is important about partiality
  • a rule that protects integrity could be very problematic for utilitarianism (a rule utilitarian must insist that someone’s values are first roughly in line with rules that maximise happiness)
  • is happiness the only good ?
  • morality can not be summed up by rules
22
Q

Smart’s objection to rule utilitarianism

A
  • rule utilitarianism is rule worship
  • the point of rules is to bring about the greatest happiness
  • so if breaking the rule will lead to greater happiness than following it, then there is no reason to follow the rule
  • RESPONSE: rules can be amended (eg don’t lie and don’t lie unless telling the truth will hurt someone)
  • Smart’s response: rules will need to repeat amended and then there will be no difference between act and rule utilitarianism as all the amendments will produce one rule - maximise the greatest happiness
  • response: there is a reason to follow the rules, even when they do not maximise happiness
23
Q

Mill’s critique of Bentham

A
  • Bentham claims all pleasures are of equal worth
  • Mill disagrees (‘quantity of pleasure being equal, push pin is as good as poetry’)
  • some pleasures are higher/more valuable than others
  • Mill thinks that people will prefer the pleasures of thought, feeling and imagination to pleasures of the body and the senses
  • ‘it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied
24
Q

criticisms of the pleasure machine

A
  • it is not pleasure that we seek, but the states of affairs in the world, things outside our heads
  • it is not pleasure that we seek, but the specific actions, activities and objects themselves
  • pleasure is a way of talking about behaviour not sensations (calling things pleasurable is way of talking about what we seek, if this is true then psychological hedonism can be seen as an empty theory)
25
Q

Mill and rights

A
  • justified the adoption of human rights as moral rules
  • even if on one occasion it may seem as if more happiness could be brought by breaking a rule
  • people will generally feel much safer and happier knowing that a rule won’t be broken in this way
26
Q

preference utilitarianism

A
  • non hedonistic form of utilitarianism
  • instead of maximising happiness, we should act to maximise people’s preferences
  • provides a response to the pleasure machine objection
27
Q

partiality - criticism of utilitarianism

A
  • according to utilitarianism, everyone’s happiness counts equally
  • however, utilitarianism is too idealistic
  • we may favour our friends and family to benefit our own happiness
  • therefore it is not wrong to show partiality rather than maximise overall happiness (and by extension, utilitarianism is false)
  • response: it is morality is more demanding than we like to think or partiality is central to happiness - happiness in the long term needs to be considered

moral philosophy (8 decks)

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