Utilitarianism Flashcards
What is meant by utility and maximising utility?
The utility of an action is how much pleasure and pain an act produces. Therefore maximising utility is the principle to perform the action which creates the greatest amount of pleasure while decreasing pain for the greatest number of people involved.
What is the good in Bentham’s hedonistic quantitative utilitarianism
The good in Bentham’s utilitarianism is only the feeling of pleasure. Bentham believed that we could quantify it by using his hedonic calculus and determine the act that would result in the most pleasure for everyone involved. Such an act would be therefore deemed a good act. Bentham’s utilitarianism doesn’t distinguish between higher and lower pleasures and therefore is not qualitative.
What is meant by preference utilitarianism
preference utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory that defines utility in terms of the satisfaction of preferences rather than pleasure. Therefore preference utilitarianism claims that the right action is the one which satisfies the most preferences involved.
Explain bentham’s utility calculus
Bentham’s utility principle is that an act is only right if it produces the greatest amount of pleasure possible for the people involved. To help agents calculate utility, Bentham devised the utility calculus which is a method of quantifying the pleasure and pain of any given action.
STEP 1: measure the intensity, duration, certainty, and remoteness (how soon) of the pleasure/ pain
STEP 2: measure the fercundity (how likely it is to generate the same sensation again) and Pureness (tendency to product only that sensation) of the pleasure/ pain.
STEP 3: measure the extent (how many the sensation will effect) of the pleasure and pain
This is how to calculate the utility of one action. The agent must do the same for every action and weigh them against each other.
Explain Mill’s distinction between higher and lower pleasures
Mill defends utilitarianism as a theory but while Bentham thinks that all pleasure is equal and only differentiated quantitively, Mill thinks that they can be distinguished qualitatively between higher and lower pleasures.
Mill thinks that these higher and lower pleasures can be demonstrated through a competent judge - an agent who has experienced both. For instance, in the case of the pleasure of eating ice cream and reading a book, Mill stated that the competent judge would always choose reading a book, even if the pleasure of eating ice cream was offered in a larger quantity. Therefore, reading a book was the higher pleasure, and eating ice cream the lower.
In this way, Mill was capable of concluding which pleasures were inherently higher than others. Mill thought that the higher pleasures were those that excersized distinct human faculties of the mind such as artistic or intellectual while lower ones were bodily pleasures.
Therefore, human agents should always pursue the higher pleasure.
Explain Mill’s proof of utilitarianism
Mill attempts to prove Utilitarianism to be the correct moral theory to follow by showing that happiness is the only good. He does so like this:
1) the only evidence that something is visible is that it is actually seen
2) the only evidence that something is desirable is that it is actually desired
3) everyone desires their own happiness
4) therefore each person’s happiness is desirable
5) therefore the general happiness is desirable
5) Each person’s happiness is a good to that person
6) therefore the general happiness is good to all persons
7) therefore happiness is the only good
explain the similarities and differences between act and rule utilitarianism
Act Utilitarianism, as championed by Bentham, was a form of direct utilitarianism where an acts sole purpose was to maximise utility (to create as much pleasure possible for the people involved) and was done so using the hedonic calculus to determine the utility.
However, rule utilitarianism (a form of indirect utilitarianism) does not base actions on the hedonic calculus but rather on a set of correct rules to follow. These rules are determined by the majority and is chosen due to its consistent ability to maximise utility.
Rule utilitarianism can be adopted in order to avoid two key objections to act util: the cognitive demand objection (impossible to work out which act would maximise happiness on every occasion) and the problem of justice (act util seems to prescribe abhorrent acts such as harvesting organs in certain situations). Following a rule that would maximise utility if everyone followed it is not cognitively demanding; and these rules can include the rule that no one should be sacrificed for some good against their will – since a society in which this rule is followed would be happier (because more trustful) than one in which it wasn’t followed.
the issue of whether pleasure is the only good (nozicks pleasure machine)
physcological hedonism, the theory that the main motivating factor for humans is to increase pleasure and avoid plain, build the ground works for most utilitarian theory such as Bentham’s. These theories therefore believe that pleasure is the only good.
However, Nozick’s pleasure machine attempts to demonstrate it is not only pleasure we seek. Nozick’s machine can hook your brain up to a virtual world where you are able to live the life that gives you the most pleasure. Once hooked up, you do not know you are in the machine and believe that it is your real life.
If an agent chooses to be hooked up, it seems to demonstrate that psychological hedonism as correct as they are choosing the path with most pleasure. However, many would choose not to. This is an issue for utilitarianism as if we do not choose to be hooked up to the most pleasurable life, it seems to show there is another motivating factor that is valued higher than pleasure, and therefore pleasure cannot be the only good.
explain the risk of tyranny of the majority for utilitarianism
the risk of the tyranny of the majority was posed by Mill. Utilitarianism dictates that an action is always right if it maximises the greatest amount of pleasure for the people involved while decreasing pain. However, Mill notes that this can lead to situation that infringe upon personal liberty if it results in maximised utility.
Consider the example of the coliseum. Slaves would be forced to fight violent animals for the entertainment of thousands. According to utilitarian theories such as act utilitarianism, this qualifies as a moral act because the mass amount of pleasure produced for the audience outweighs the pain produced for the single fighter.
Mill thinks that this is an issue for utilitarianism as the majority of agents would deem acts such as this as immoral. However, utilitarianism says the opposite, therefore it must be a flawed theory.
explain the issue with calculation raised by utilitarianism , including of which beings to include
Utilitarian theories such as act utilitarianism seems to posit an easy way to determine what actions are moral and immoral by using the hedonic calculus to calculate how much pleasure and pain is created (utility). However, besides the fact that such a calculus which involves seven different factors would be too demanding and tiring to apply to every action, there are other issues surrounding how clear the guidance for calculation is.
- first, there is the issue of if we should calculate for average happiness or overall happiness. in explanation, is it better to have a large population where a population of 10B all have one point of happiness, or a small population of 1B but each person on average has 9 happiness points.
- second, there is the issue of distribution of happiness. what is better: to make 50 people 1 point happier or 5 people 10 points happier.
- third, there is the issue of when consequences end. if I save a boy from the water but he ends up being a dictator, my action would be immoral. but there would be no way of knowing.
- lastly, Peter singer offers the issue of what being to include. Singer believes that animals as sentient beings with abilities to sense pleasure and pain should be involved into the calculus. Therefore the current calculus is wrong not to.
what is the issue surrounding partiality for utilitarianism
Utilitarianism asks us to be impartial agents that only choose an action based on its ability to maximise utility. However, many philosophers believe that this means utilitarianism ignores the special relationships such as family that is embedded within the way we ask.
For instance, in the case of a parent being able to save their child in a fire or to save a brilliant scientist who will cure cancer. There is no doubt that act utilitarianism would say to choose the doctor as he will maximise utility much more than the child.
However, our intuition tells us that the parent should save the child because of their special relationship. There seems to be some moral worth in the special obligations we have that utilitarianism is ignoring. Furthermore, utilitarianism would also seem to be asking too much of an agent to not save their child which us as a society would believe to be immoral.
the issue of whether utilitarianism ignores both the moral integrity and the intentions of the individual
Utilitarianism seems to provide a very strict framework in which we must act on the action which produces maximises utility. However, in many situations this goes against rules we set ourselves that align with our moral integrity. Say that John, like many others, have a rule that aligns with their moral integrity to never kill, however, when presented with the situation to kill one person to save nineteen other people, utilitarianism seems to force him to break this rule. The problem is that utilitarianism will never let you draw a line for things you will not do. It seems to be demanding too much of agents to always maximise utility when its in situation that go against their own sense of moral integrity.
Similarily, utilitarianism is also criticised of being too much of a consquntialist theory. Consider, rose who visits her grandma to make her happy, and Jone who visits his grandma to get in her will. In both situations, an equal amount of pleasure is produced and therefore both acts are equally morally praiseworthy. However, this goes against our intuition. Therefore it seems as if we place some moral worth in intentions to and utilitarianism neglects this, making it a flowed moral theory.
