Utiltarianism - A02 Flashcards
Benthems act utilitarianism - summary
Bentham claimed that it is human nature to find pleasure good – there’s nothing else we are capable of valuing.
So, an action is good if it maximises pleasure (principle of utility).
Utility means usefulness – how useful an action is in ethics refers to how useful it is in bringing about certain consequences – making Utilitarianism a consequentialist theory.
Bentham thought we needed to calculate how much pleasure an action would produce using the hedonic calculus – a list of 7 criteria like intensity and duration (Act Utilitarianism).
We should then do the action that will produce the most net pleasure.
Mill’s rule Utilitarianism - summary
Bentham thought all pleasures were equal, but Mill thought higher pleasures were superior.
Higher pleasures (of the mind) have less risk of addiction and last longer.
Mill thought it was too difficult to calculate every single action that we do.
Utilitarianism can only work if instead society tries to figure out the rules that will maximise happiness if followed.
People then simply need to know those rules and follow them – this will work much better.
One of Mill’s favourite rules was the ‘harm principle’ – that people should be free to do what they want so long as they are not harming others.
Strengths of headonistic utilitarianism
A strength of hedonistic Utilitarianism is Bentham and Mill’s arguments for it.
They both essentially argue that pleasure/happiness is good because it is human nature to find it good.
Mill’s proof of the greatest happiness principle:
- Mill says the only proof possible that happiness is desirable is that it is desired.
Bentham says that humans are determined by their nature to find pleasure good and pain bad.
This is their justification for the principle of utility.
Counter/weakness of headonistic utilitarianism
Nozick’s experience machine
Nozick’s experience machine - explained
Nozick’s experience machine is a thought experiment which supposes that people have a choice to plug themselves into a machine which would then generate fake experiences that were entirely pleasurable. The person would forget about their real life and not know that they were in the machine once they were in it.
Nozick thinks that not everyone would choose to enter the machine. He thinks this shows that people value things other than pleasure.
Shows most people don’t just want happiness. People want authenticity and a connection to reality
This shows that Mill and Bentham were wrong to think that pleasure was our ultimate value/desire.
This was the foundational premise justifying the principle of utility – for thinking that pleasure is the sole intrinsic good.
So, if that fails, Utilitarianism’s central thesis, that the goodness of an action depends on its maximisation of happiness, is false.
What aspect did Nozicks experience machine target
That Mill and Bentham were wrong to think that pleasure was our ultimate value/desire.
Evaluation of headonistic utilitarianism versus Nozicks criticism (with an allegory)
However, Nozick’s criticism fails because it misunderstands the claim of utilitarianism, especially Mill’s Utilitarianism, which claims that what we ultimately value is happiness and that valuing the happiness of other people is part of that.
So some people wouldn’t enter the machine, but that could be for reasons that reduce to a desire for happiness.
Not their own happiness, but the happiness of others.
E.g. a parent of a newborn child is very unlikely to go into the machine, because their happiness depends on the happiness of their child who they don’t want to abandon.
So, the machine is not really the test of Utilitarianism and the intrinsic goodness of pleasure that Nozick thought it was.
The issue of calculation (Scholar who points weakness out)
- Subjective mental states like pleasure and pain are very difficult to measure scientifically.
Furthermore, Kant points out that we don’t know the consequences of actions before we do them, because we cannot predict the future.
We especially cannot calculate the long-term consequences of actions.
Finally, moral situations can be time-sensitive/pressured, so not only might these calculations be very difficult, but we might have limited time to do them in.
This is especially true considering Act Utilitarianism requires that we calculate the future utility of all possible actions we could do in order to determine which action is good.
So Utilitarianism lacks practical applicability.
This means it fails in its required feature as a normative ethical theory, to successfully guide action.
What major weakness does the issue of calculation outline
Utilitarianism lacks practical applicability.
This means it fails in its required feature as a normative ethical theory, to successfully guide action.
What is the counter argument to the issue of calculation
Rule Utilitarianism is in a stronger position to deal with this issue than Act.
Rule utilitarianism versus the issue of calculation expanded
We don’t have to judge every single action – we just have to follow rules that will maximise happiness if followed.
Rule utilitarianism came about as Mill Thought the hedonic calculus too impractical.
It’s better to figure out which rules, if followed, would maximise happiness.
The principle of utility is applied directly to a set of rules which are in turn used to determine what to do in particular situations.
Mill realised we didn’t know which rules would perfectly maximise happiness as our understanding of human psychology was incomplete. So, he said we should update the rules as our knowledge of what makes people happy increases.
So as a society we collectively attempt to figure out which rules will maximise happiness if followed – e.g. rules against stealing and murder.
This solves the problem of calculation because individuals need only know the current set of their society’s rules and follow them, they don’t need to do any complex calculations.
Evaluate Rule utilitarianism versus The issue of calculation
Rule utilitarianism does not hold a stronger position than act utilitarianism to deal with the issue of calculation it contradicts it’s own meta-ethical grounding
Weak Rule Utilitarianism is criticised for not collapsing back into Act Utilitarianism.
- If following a rule such as telling the truth maximises happiness in a situation, then both Act and weak Rule would say to tell the truth. If breaking the rule and lying maximises happiness in a situation, then both act and weak rule would say to lie. So weak rule is no difference to Act Utilitarianism and thus still faces the issue of calculation.
However, strong Rule Utilitarianism is criticised for becoming deontological. It seems to be abandoning the principle of utility and consequentialism because it says you should follow rules even if it would have good consequences to break them. It has become an empty deontological theory that follows rules for no reason, having abandoned its own supposed meta-ethical grounding.
Tyranny of majority argument
Utilitarianism justifies bad actions and is against human rights
Utilitarianism justifies bad actions and is against human rights – tyranny of majority explained
(Example + Theorists who provides their own illustration)
Human rights are deontological – it claims that people have an intrinsic right to life, etc.
Consequentialist ethics, like Utilitarianism, cannot accept human rights as valid, therefore. A consequentialist would always argue that killing someone could be justified if the consequences make it good.
This means Utilitarianism could justify things like slavery, if we enslaved 10% of the population for the happiness of the other 90%, it looks like that would be maximising happiness. So, Utilitarianism seems to justify bad actions.
Philippa Foot creates the illustration that a utilitarian doctor would kill a health patient to give their organs to 5 organ transplant patients because that maximises happiness.
No one would want to live in a utilitarian society if that’s where its logic leads.
Counter argument to Utilitarianism justifies bad actions and is against human rights (Tyranny of majority)
Mill seems to solve this problem because he stops judging individual actions and instead says we should follow social rules.
One of Mill’s favourite rules was ‘the harm principle’ which states that people should be free to do what they want, so long as they are not harming others.
Mill thinks if we follow this rule, everyone will be best positioned to make themselves as happy as they can be, without interfering in each other’s lives.
So, Mill would not allow slavery or any other form of harm done to any minority.
So, Mill can overrule these individual cases where happiness is gained from harming individuals. His version would not justify bad actions.
Evaluation of Tyranny of the majority versus Mill’s following of social rules
Mill has successfully defended the moral validity of a rule utilitarian society.
Mill is finding a way to justify acting as if we have human rights.
However some object that this doesn’t go far enough because Mill still cannot say that we actually have rights.
Mill is saying we should be free from harm, not because we have a right to that, but because it would maximise happiness.
Deontologists would object that this might make humans behave better than Bentham’s theory allowed, but it still fails to recognise that humans have an intrinsic moral value and that ethics should therefore be deontological to reflect that, not consequentialist.
However, this criticism fails because Mill still has managed to create a version of utilitarianism that encourages people to act as if they had intrinsic moral value.
Practically speaking it doesn’t make a difference whether the theory actually accepts that people have rights or not, what matters is the type of society the theory would create.
Mill has successfully defended the moral validity of a rule utilitarian society.
The issue of partiality
if you could either save a family member or two random people – Util says you should save the random people.
Utilitarianism tells us that we must maximise happiness by creating the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people, and it does not consider an individual’s particular emotional ties to their family or friends as relevant to that ethical calculation – with this in mind, if we were ever in a situation where we must choose between saving a beloved friend, or two random strangers, as a utilitarian you must choose the strangers, as the pleasure of two people outweighs the pain of one.
This, however, seems to be incompatible with the reality of human psychology – we will almost always be inclined to save the person we have a strong social connection to versus the people we don’t.
Therefore, utilitarianism seems to be against the foundation of human friend/family relationships which is a practical impediment to its implantability because family relationships define so much of our social existence.
This undermines the ability of Utilitarianism to successfully guide people to the right action.
Mill’s response to the issue of partiality
Mill attempts to respond to this by saying that 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.
However, today we have extensive charities all over the world, making Mill’s argument seem outdated.
Singers stronger response to the issue of partiality
Singer has a stronger response which actually shows how acting with partiality can be justified.
Singer defends Utilitarianism by pointing out that friend/family relationships bring a lot of happiness to people’s lives.
There have been experiments in raising children without families, but they did not turn out well.
So, it seems good for overall happiness to allow family/friend relationships, even though they can come at a cost to happiness in some situations where our relationships cause us to act with partiality.
Evaluation of the issue of partiality versus Singer
This defence of Utilitarianism is successful because it can accept the reality that human psychology is made happier with friends/family relationships.
If that is the reality, then the best way to make humans happy is to accept that sometimes we will act with partiality.
The downside to happiness caused by our discriminatory acts against those we are not partial to (e.g. not saving two random drowning people) is overall outweighed by the gain to happiness caused by allowing humans to be partial – to have friend/family relationships.
Bentham’s felicific/hedonic calculus (7)
- How strong the pleasure is.
- How long the pleasure lasts.
- How likely it is that the pleasure will occur.
- How far away in time the pleasure will occur.
- The likelihood that the pleasure will lead to further pleasure.
- The likelihood that the pleasure will be followed by pain.
- How many people are affected.
What objection was Mill combating with his higher and lower pleasures
The claim of Utilitarianism, that the morality of an action reduces entirely to how far it maximises pleasure, provoked many to criticise it for degrading morality and humanity; that it is a “doctrine worthy only of swine”.
What are the higher & lower pleasures
lower pleasures gained from bodily activity, such as food, sex and drugs
higher pleasures gained from mental activity, such as poetry, reading, philosophy, music.
Swine are not capable of experiencing higher pleasures, so to combat this objection Utilitarianism need only show that higher pleasures are superior to the lower.
Why did Mill claim higher pleasures were superior to lower pleasures
Higher pleasures are overall superior at producing a greater quantity of happiness than lower.
Lower pleasures are fleeting, lasting only for the duration of the action that produce them.
Furthermore, lower pleasures are costly because they are addictive and tempt people to choose instant gratification, or what Mill calls a ‘nearer good’ over greater goods like health, for example by consuming sugar or drinking alcohol.
Higher pleasures of the mind have no such ill effects and can have a lasting enlightening effect on a mind which has cultivated a habit of appreciating them.
Did Benthems ideas align with Mill’s higher/lower pleasures.
Did he contradict himself?
Bentham claimed that all pleasures were equal, that the pleasure gained from poetry is just as valuable as that gained from playing pushpin (a children’s game).
Yet even Bentham’s quantitative approach will judge higher pleasures superior for tending to produce more durable pleasure with less cost than lower pleasures.
How does one determine whether a pleasure is of greater quality than another?
Based on which is preferred over the other.
Through education in the collective experience and choices of humanity we can discover which pleasures are desired over others.
‘Competent judges’ - higher/lower pleasures
What did Mill claim about them?
People with experience of both higher and lower pleasures.
Mill claims they always prefer higher pleasures to lower pleasures, thus demonstrating their greater quality. Mill now has his full answer to those who say Utilitarianism is a doctrine fit only for swine:
Mill quote on higher/lower pleasures
“it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied”
Mill’s quote on higher/lower pleasures evaluated
Humans can experience mental pleasures of a higher quality than the low pleasures that both humans and pigs can experience.
Socrates illustrates that some humans can experience mental pleasures of a higher quality than other humans.
Mill’s claim is that when we investigate such cases, we find that beings prefer the highest mental pleasure they are capable of experiencing over lower pleasures.
In fact, people acquainted with both higher and lower pleasures show such a great preference for the higher that they will put up with discontent to get them and would not lose it even for any quantity of a lower pleasure. Mill concludes:
What is an illustration of people choosing higher pleasures over lower pleasures
An artist who suffers from financial deprivation to produce their art. A piano player who arduously wades through hours of practice to finally experience the pleasure of playing some composition of genius.
To avoid a monotonous life and pursue the pleasure that comes from development, exercise and eventual mastery of their interests and talents.
What are some objections to Mill’s claim of higher/lower pleasures
- Many will object to Mill’s claim that a person who can and has experienced higher pleasures will always prefer them to lower ones. There are plenty of times when mentally cultivated people will occasionally give in to instant gratification or even sink into complete addiction to lower pleasures.
- Classist
What is Mill’s response to some of the objections surrounding higher/lower pleasures
However, Mill responds that this objection misunderstands his argument.
Everyone prefers the highest pleasures they have been able to experience, but it doesn’t follow that everyone always chooses them over lower ones.
The ability to experience higher pleasures requires careful cultivation which is easily lost, either due to falling into addiction, weakness of will/character, external pressures or lack of internal support.
Evaluation:
Prefers is a difficult tool define. Many prefer the instant gratification of drug abuse to sobriety and are even willing to experience the consequences of that. In that moment before consuming drugs for example, the person would ‘prefer’ to be under the influence of it than to be sober.
People do not always prefer what is best for them
Strong utilitarianism definition
Strong Utilitarianism is the view that the rules should be stuck to no matter the situation.
Weak utilitarianism definition
Weak Utilitarianism is the view that the rules can be broken if it maximises happiness to do so
Weak Utilitarianism is the view that the rules can be broken if it maximises happiness to do so
simply becoming deontological, for abandoning the principle of utility and its consequentialism and becoming an empty deontological theory that follows rules for no good reasons, having abandoned its own supposed meta-ethical grounding.
Weak Rule Utilitarianism is typically criticised for
in effect reducing into act utilitarianism, since they would judge every action the same.
If following a rule such as telling the truth maximises happiness in a situation, then both Act and weak Rule would say to tell the truth. If breaking the rule and lying maximises happiness in a situation, then both act and weak rule would say to lie.
Mill’s ’first principle of utility’
what makes an action good is the degree to which it promotes happiness over suffering.
Why did Mill disagree with Benthems approach of judging every action by the principle of utility
- What was this an attempt to do
Mill claimed that happiness is ‘much too complex and indefinite a goal’ for that.
Solve the issue of calculation.
It is extremely difficult to calculate which action will maximise happiness. Even though that is what constitutes the moral rightness of an action, nonetheless because of our limited knowledge our actual moral obligation is to follow whatever secondary principles humanity’s current level of understanding has produced regarding how to gain happiness and minimise suffering. We can draw on the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of our species on what avoids suffering and produces satisfaction and happiness.
Mill’s secondary principle
More general rules and guidelines.
These are the product of our civilisation’s current best attempt to understand how to produce happiness. They are therefore subject to improvement. As particularly obvious examples, Mill points to murder and theft as being injurious to human happiness.
Mill’s harm principle
people should be free to do what they want so long as they aren’t harming others.
- Mill thought it important enough to ve adopted as the practice of government
Why might secondary principles sometimes conflict
Another secondary principle could be helping others. In the case of the trolly problem, where killing one person is the only way to save five people, the harm principle conflicts with the principle of helping others.
In the case of theft, which is a harm, if it is the only way to save a starving family then the secondary principles of not harming and not stealing come into conflict.
How does Mill try to solve conflicting secondary principles
Mill explains that to resolve conflicts we need to apply the first principle.
If we appeal to the first principle of utility, it looks like we should steal to save starving people or inflict harm (to the point of killing) by pulling the leaver in the trolly problem, to save five people.
Why is it debated whether Mill is a rule utilitarian
He clearly thinks that it is morally right to do an action that conforms to a rule which experience has shown to maximise happiness.
However, Mill clearly also thinks that sometimes individual actions should be judged to resolve a conflict or applicability issue in rules/principles.
Why might categorising Mill’s ethical framework be irrelevant
Arguably the question of how exactly to categorise Mill is irrelevant and we could simply conclude that Mill’s Utilitarianism is the perfect synthesis of Act and Rule Utilitarianism.
It does avoid the problem of generic Rule Utilitarianism, that it either becomes a meta-ethically empty deontological theory or collapses back into Act Utilitarianism.
Problems with calculation
What does utilitarianism seem to require
- that we know the future
- That we can make incredibly complex calculations about the range of possible actions, sometimes under time constraints
- That these calculations include the objective measuring of subjective mental states like pleasure or pain
Bentham’s response to issues with calculation.
Bentham claims that an action is right regarding “the tendency which it appears to have” to maximise happiness. So, we actually only need to have a reasonable expectation of what the consequences will be based on how similar actions have tended to turn out in the past.
To further defend Bentham, we could argue that we can measure subjective feelings. In hospital, doctors ask patients how much pain they are in out of 10. Doctors will admit that this is never a perfect indicator, but it is accurate enough to be informative.
Tyranny of the majority - The context for Mill’s defence
Mill was writing in a time when religion and culture created a huge pressure of social conformity.
Mill thought that because people were actually so different, each person would be much better off trying figure out what made them happy than if they were forced to behave the way others might prefer.
(1800’s)
Kant versus consequentialist theories like Utilitarianism - argument contextualised
If a Nazi asked whether we were hiding Jews and we were, it seems Kant is committed to the view that it’s wrong to lie. That seems to go against most people’s moral intuitions because of the obvious terrible consequences to telling the truth in that situation. This puts Kant at odds with consequentialist theories like Utilitarianism.
Kant versus consequentialist theories like Utilitarianism - argument contextualised
Kant’s response
Kant could respond that each person is ultimately responsible for what they do. As a rational agent, you are responsible for what you do, and the Nazi is responsible for what they do. Lying to prevent the Nazi from killing is to act as if you were responsible for the Nazi’s action, but you are not. You are responsible for what you do, and so you should not lie.
Kant points out that we cannot control consequences in the example of the murderer at the door. If we lied about where the victim was, yet unknown to us the victim had actually moved there, then we would be responsible for their death. So Kant is arguing that we cannot control consequences and thus cannot be responsible for them. So, they cannot be part of our moral equation.
Kant versus consequentialist theories like Utilitarianism - argument contextualised
Kant’s response
+ Arguably we are _______ ____ ______ ______ ___
Arguably we are responsible for what others do.
Kant pictures a human being as a rational agent who is ultimately an individual, responsible only for what they do. This arguably overlooks the fact that we exist in complex webs of social influence such that part of who we are depends on our interactions with other people. We exist in deep connection to other people and thus to that extent are in fact responsible for each other’s actions.
Kant versus consequentialist theories like Utilitarianism - argument contextualised
Kant’s response
+ Arguably we are responsible for what others do
+ Furthermore, _____ _________
Furthermore, just because we can’t control consequences completely, does that mean they don’t matter ethically?
Also, consequentialism isn’t arguing we can completely control the consequences, just that we should consider them when acting. Furthermore, we can control consequences to a degree. Shouldn’t we therefore be responsible for them to that degree?
The burning building criticism outlined
+ Theorists who argues with
If you were in a burning building and had a choice between saving a child and an expensive painting, which would you choose?
Most people on first hearing this scenario would say the child, but utility based ethics seems to suggest that saving the painting is better because we could sell the paining for enough money to save the life of a hundred children.
Giles Fraser argues that saving the painting suggests a lack of sympathy for the child and thus Utilitarianism encourages us to be immoral.
Burning building criticism
+ Response from William ___________
William MacAskill responds that actually saving the painting suggests a more cultivated sympathy which is able to connect to the many more children elsewhere who are in just as much need of saving and outnumber the single child there now. Their needs are greater than the individual needs of the one child.
The burning building criticism evaluated
Arguably it is practically impossible to expect people to act in the way utilitarianism wants, even if we admitted it was right in theory. Human emotions, especially empathy, are thus a practical impediment to the implementation of utilitarianism.
