Utilitariansim

Question 1

How can you describe Utilitarianism in 3 qualities?

Answer 1

• Consequentialist
• Teleological
• Relativistic

Question 2

What are the 3 basic parts of Utilitarianism?

Answer 2

• What motivates human beings?
• The principle of utility
• The hedonic calculus

Question 3

What does the theory aim to do?

Answer 3

In general seeks to maximise the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people

Question 4

Who first created the theory? When?

Answer 4

Jeremy Bentham in 18th Century

Question 5

What was his aims?

Answer 5

To create a sound ethical theory, that is secular as he believed that society needed to ‘move past’ using religion for moral dilemmas.

Question 6

What does Rule UT claim?

Answer 6

• In particular cases, act utilitarianism can justify disobeying important moral rules and violating individual rights.
• Act utilitarianism also takes too much time to calculate in each and every case.

Question 7

How does Act UT respond?

Answer 7

• Following a rule in a particular case when the overall utility demands that we violate the rule is just rule-worship. If the consequences demand, we should violate rules.
• Furthermore, act utilitarians can follow rules-of-thumb (accumulated wisdom based on consequences in the past) most of the time and engage in individual calculation only when there is some pressing reason for doing so.

Question 8

Who created Rule UT?

What is it?

Answer 8

• John Stuart Mill
• A form of UT that says an action is right if it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good, or that “the rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the correctness of the rule of which it is an instance.”

Question 9

What is Act UT?

Answer 9

• Original form and a theory which states that a person’s act is morally right if and only if it produces at least as much happiness as any other act that the person could perform at that time.

Question 10

What is the Principle of Utility in terms of UT?

How does this link to Bentham?

Answer 10

That the moral status of an action is based not on its usefulness but whether it creates the most amount of pleasure.

May symbolism his status as a psychological hedonist.

Question 11

What are the 2 Sovereign Masters? What ARE they?

Answer 11

They are to recieve pleasure and avoid pain, two basic motivations of humans

Question 12

What is The Hedonic Calculus?

Answer 12

A form of moral arithmetic which helps people to calculate which outcome produces the most or ‘best’ pleasure. Weighs up pain and pleasure that will derive from each outcome and therefore can help decide which action is best.

Question 13

What are the 7 factors involved in the Hedonic Calculus?

Answer 13

1. Intensity
2. Duration
3. Certainty/Uncertainty
4. Propinquity/Remoteness
5. Fecundity and chance
6. Purity and chance of it not actually happening
7. Extent and amount of people affected by it

Question 14

2 types of AO1 questions for Utilitarianism?

Answer 14

‘Key Features’ and ‘Strengths’ Essay

Question 15

2 types of AO2 questions for Utilitarianism?

Answer 15

• Strengths Vs. Weaknesses

- UT’s Survival