Utilitarianism

• Act/quantitative hedonic utilitarianism (Bentham)


  • Involved the amount of pleasure (the quantity)
  • Calculating how to maximise this
• Bentham's hedonic calculus


  • Intensity: how strong the pleasure is
  • Duration: how long the pleasure lasts
  • Certainty: how likely the pleasure is to occur
  • Propinquity: how soon the pleasure will occur
  • Fecundity: how likely the pleasure will lead to more pleasure
  • Purity: how likely the pleasure will lead to pain
  • Extent: the number of people affected

  This is provided to calculate the total pleasure (add up all the pleasures and minus the pains)
• Principle of utility


  The greatest happiness for the greatest number - often also called maximising utility
• AGAINST act util - impartiality problem

  Certain people, namely friends and family, are more important to us than others but act util is concerned with only the greatest happiness for the greatest number so there are no grounds to justify acting to maximise their happiness over some random person on the street
• AGAINST act util - difficult to calculate

  • You can't predict the future e.g. saving a child’s life would presumably a good way to maximise pleasure but if that child went on to become a serial killer as an adult, saving their life could have actually been a bad thing
  • How do you quantify each of the seven variables?
  • How do you compare these variables against each other?
  • Which beings do we include in this calculation?
• AGAINST act util - tyranny of the majority

  Issue with justifying evil acts or making some people suffer because the majority will benefit e.g. making slaves of few to benefit many
• Rule util (Mill) response to tyranny of the majority

  Mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he were to have the power, would be justified in silencing mankind
• AGAINST act util - Marx

  It fails on the grounds that it fails to afford attention to the fact that people from different socioeconomic backgrounds perceive joy differently
• Rule/qualitative hedonic utilitarianism (Mill)


  • Involving the quality of pleasure
  • Some types of pleasure are higher and more rewarding than others
• Mill's proof


  P1) The only evidence that something is visible is it can be seen

  P2) The only evidence something is desirable is it is desired

  P3) Each person desires their own happiness

  C1) Therefore, each person's happiness is desirable

  P4) The general happiness is desirable

  P5) Each person's happiness is good for that person

  P6) The general happiness is an aggregate of all persons goods

  C2) Therefore, happiness is the only good
• Mill's harm principle

  If what we wish to do as a majority would increase GHGN but would infringe or hurt others within a minority it should not be morally permissible
• AGAINST rule util - rule collapses into act

  Many argue that we end up with a two tiered system of rule utilitarianism:

  • Strong rule: always follow the rule as it will promote GHGN
  • Weak rule: follow rules but you can disregard them if needed if you think you need to to create GHGN
• AGAINST rule util - fallacy of equivocation

  Mill's utilitarianism theory suggests that we can determine what is desirable by observing people's desires. However, this analogy fails as 'desirable' is usually used as a normative term, not a descriptive term. Mill's conclusion is not justified as it contains 'desirable' in a descriptive sense, indicating that people do desire their happiness
• AGAINST rule util - Herzog stock problem

  ‘Desirable’ means ‘ought to be desired’ while ‘visible’ and ‘audible’ mean 'can be seen and heard’ so the analogy breaks down and only personal calculation makes the greatest happiness a good to all. The 'aggregate of all persons' may not be an entity with a good, and even if it is, Mill gives no reason for any individual to care for others’ happiness. Mill’s proof is a pragmatic one however, not a deductive one and he wishes to show that, since we are motivated in this direction, why it is the only intrinsic end
• AGAINST rule util - fallacy of composition

  Here Mill argues that because I desire my own happiness I can infer that I desire everyones happiness - on its own this is difficult to prove
• AGAINST rule util - naturalistic fallacy

  1. Mill moves from an is to an ought (everyone desires happiness = is, to we ought to ensure everyone's happiness = ought)
  2. If we try to move from a factual statement - an is, to a statement about what we ought do we are in the is ought gap
• AGAINST util - Nozick experience machine

  Imagine a machine that provides any desired experience or sequence of experiences. Connected to this machine, you can experience writing a great poem for example. You can program these experiences for the rest of your life, using suggestions from biographies and novelists. Nozick argued most people would not choose to do this for the rest of their lives, as they fear that if their experiences were fake, their lives would be denuded of something important
• Utilitarian response to Nozick



  We are motivated by pleasure and to not want to plug in is irrational. Once we are plugged in we will not know so it will be a perfect and great life; we just fear doing so as we know the life we now live
• Preference utilitarianism


  • An act should be judged by how it conforms to the preferences of those affected by it and its consequences
  • A good act therefore does not maximise just pleasure or happiness but the satisfaction of the preferences of those involved
• AGAINST preference util - weighing up preferences

  What if my preference is opposite to yours? Does mine outweigh yours? How do we decide the actual 'weight' or 'value' of one preference over another?