Utilitarianism - Ethics Flashcards
The two sovereign masters
Pain and pleasure
‘Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure’ - Bentham
What type of theory is Utilitarianism
Consequentialist: cares about what the action leads to
When is an action good in Utilitarianism
When it leads to the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people
How to calculate pain and pleasure
Hedonic calculus
Hedonic calculus
1) Intensity
2) Duration
3) Certainty
4) Fecundity (whether the pleasure will continue to be pleasurable if the act is repeated)
5) Propinquity (how far the pleasure is in terms of space or time)
6) Purity
7) Extent (how many will be affected)
Mill’s Utilitarianism
Focus on ‘higher pleasures’ like attending the opera rather than doing drugs
‘It is better to be…
… a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied’ - Mill
Criticism of Mill and response
Plenty of times when mental cultivated people will occasionally give in to instant gratification or even sink into complete addiction to lower pleasures
He responds that everyone prefers the highest pleasures, but it doesn’t follow that everyone always chooses them over lower ones
Rule Utilitarianism
An action is good if it conforms to a rule which tends to maximise happiness
This then splits into strong and weak:
Strong Utilitarianism is the view that the rules should be stuck to no matter the situation
Weak Utilitarianism is the view that the rules can be broken if it maximises happiness to do so
Criticism of Strong Rule Utilitarianims
Simply becomes deontological and abandons the principle of utility as well as its consequentialism, becoming an empty deontological theory that follows rules arbitrarily, having abandoned its own supposed meta-ethical grounding
Criticism of weak rule utilitarianism
It reduces itself to act utilitarianism as they would judge each thing in the moment
The Harm principle
Mill thought people should be free to do as they will so long as they aren’t harming others
Criticism of Utilitarianism of calculation
It requires we know the future and are able to make very complex calculations about range of possible actions based off of quantities of the abstracts of happiness and pain
Bentham’s response to issue with calculation
He claims an action is right regarding ‘the tendency which it appears to have’ to maximise happiness, so we only have to expect what the outcome may be off of previous scenarios
Mill’s response to issues with calculation
‘This is exactly as if any one were to say that it is impossible to guide our conduct by Christianity, because there is not time, on every occasion on which anything has to be done, to read through the Old and New Testaments. The answer to the objection is, that there has been ample time, namely, the whole past duration of the human species’ - Mill (being cold af)
Bentham’s defence of his theory from human rights issues
He didn’t accept that a case like 10 torturers gaining pleasure from torturing one would be allowed as it’s more about maximising pleasure.
An action is good if it maximises pleasure, meaning if it is the action which produces the maximum amount of pleasure possible
The action of allowing torture produces less pleasure than the action which finds a way to make everyone happy - not just the torturers
The repugnant conclusion
That extremely uncomfortable issues can be permissible by Utilitarianism e.g gang rape could have, at some point, the pleasure outweighing pain
The issue of partiality
Utilitarianism doesn’t seem to account for special relationships within its quantitative system
Mill’s response to partiality
Most people don’t have the opportunity to help a multitude of people so it’s good to just focus on those in our lives
Criticism of Mill’s response to partiality
These days we have extensive charities all over the world, so Mill’s argument seems outdated
If we followed Utilitarianism rigorously it may ensue that all people do is donate and work for charity
Burning building
If you could save a child or a Picasso painting which would you save? Most would choose the child yet Utility based ethics seems to suggest saving the painting would be better as we could sell it to save the lives of a hundred children
Giles Fraser argues saving in the painting suggests a lack of sympathy for the child and thus Utilitarianism encourages us to be immoral
William MacAskill responds that saving the painting suggests a more cultivated sympathy which is able to connect to many more children elsewhere who’s needs are greater than the individual child’s
But this highlights the overdemandingness as we cannot act to maximise Utility in every instance and so human empathy is a practical impediment to the implementation of utilitarianism
