utilitarianism Flashcards
key scholars
epicurus - 341-270BCE
chinese philosopher Mo Tzu - 420BCE
jeremy bentham - 1748 - 1832
john stuart mill - 1806 - 1873
what epicurus belive about pleasure and pain
he was a strong advocate for having moderation between pleasure and pain
what did mo tzu believe about pleasure and pain
he believed that every situation should be judged on its utitlity
background knowledge on jeremy bentham and what he believed
- he was originally a lawyer but he was more interested in reconstructing the laws to be more ethically correct and accepting to all individuals.
- he foccused of: poor relief, international law, the decriminalisation of homosexuality, animal welfare and universal sufferage.
which philosopher supported benthams hedonic calculus as a means to maximising pleasure?
philosopher francis hutcheson - was an advocate for applying a mathamatical calculation to moral subjects. percieved as a more empirical and non-utopian veiw of ethics in which utilitarians can give jugments upon subjects such as politics.
hedonic calculus meaning
this refers to benthams quantative method of determining what will provide the greatest good for the greastest number, it is therfore the moral thing to do. its seven elements help an individual to add up the pros and cons of the possible consequences of action.
john stuart mill background knowledge
- offered more qualatative analysis to aid the critisicm of benthams argument that pleasure and pain cannot be weighed in numbers.
- he believed in extending individual freedom through law and rtional polocies for social improvement.
- he advocated the equality of women, compolsury education, and birth controll.
is it teleological or deotological
it is teleological becuase the action is judged based of how pleasurable the consequence is.
criticisms of the hedonic calculus
the theory relies on a predictive value that plasure is certain but pleasure is not guarenteed in life.
bentham does not fully explore the meaning of pleasure. flaws arise when forms of peasure are derived from immense pain as the question can be asked to inflict pain to maximise pleasure.
how does john stuart mill adress the flaws of the hedonic calculus
he changed the focus from quanitity to quality. real moral business involves pursuits such as: mental, cultural and spiritual. we can accomlish this by satisfying our lower pleasure which are anything to do with our bodily needs such as hunger. pleasure should be measured in how we choose to spend our high pleasures.
what are the 7 elements of the hedonic calculus and what do they mean?
example: F, E, D, P, P, I, C
fecundity - how fruitful the consequence is to bring about more pleasure
extent - considering others around you
duration - the aquisition of expertise or knowledge
purity - the intention of the pleasurable action being morraly correct
propinquity - how close or remote a pleasure is
intensity - weighing up the bad/good consequences of our actions
certainty - how likely is it that we’ll attain this pleasure
what is the principle of utility?
the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people (the fundamental idea behind utilitarianism)
william paleys arguement
the watch theory - all of the cogs in the watch are designed perfectly to work together to fulfill the purpose of telling time. this can be applied to nature with the intellegent designer.
how does john stuart mill argue with william plaey about the intellegent designer argument?
he argues that there are many natural evils in the world, therfore, we cannot have been created by an omnibenelovelent god and we must use utillitariansim to overcome the pain.
mills quote on what higher/lower pleasures
‘higher pleasures satisfy the mind, lower pleasures satisfy the body’
