Utilitarianism

• What is utilitarianism

  Utilitarianism is the belief that the consequences of an action is what makes it right or wrong / gives the most pleasure and least pain
• What might a utilitarian justify

  A utilitarian may argue that it is justified for a poor person to steal from a rich person because the money would cause more happiness for the poor person than unhappiness for the rich person
• Name the three types of utilitiariansm

  • Act Utilitariansm
  • Ruel Utilitarianism
  • Preference Utilitarianism
• What is Act Utilitarianism

  We should act so as to maximise pleasure and minimise pain in each specific instance
• What is Rule Utilitarianism

  We should follow general rules that maximise pleasure and minimise pain (even if following these rules doesn't maximise pleasure in every specific instance)
• What is Preference Utilitarianism

  We should act to maximise people's preferences (even if these preferences do not maximise pleasure and minimise pain)
• Boil down act utilitarianism to three points

  • Whether an action is right/good or wrong/bad depends solely on its consequences
  • The only thing that is good is happiness
  • No individuals happiness is more important than anyone else's
• What is the synonym for act utilitarianism

  Quantitative Utilitarianism
• How is quantitative utilitarianism calculated

  • Intensity - how strong the pleasure is
  • Duration - how long the pleasure lasts
  • Certainty - how likely the pleasure is to occur
  • Purity - how likely the pleasure will lead to pain
  • Extent - the number of people affected
• Problem #1 : Difficult to calculate

  There are numerous issues with calculating utility

  • how do you quantify each of the seven variables
  • how do compare the seven variables against each other
  • what beings are included in this calculation

  It is very calculated
• Possible response to Difficult to Calculate

  Bentham says that felicific calculus is more of a general guide to keep in view than worked out precisely
• Problem #2: Tyranny of the majority

  • Imagine a scenario where a nasty murder has taken place and angry crowd are baying for blood. They want to see the perpetrator apprehended and punished.
  • But what if the police can't catch the murderer, the can just lie and frame an innocent man to satisfy the crowd
  • The crowds collective happiness would outweigh the innocent mans pain
• Problem #3: Moral status of particular relationships

  • Certain people, mainly friends and family are more dear to us
  • But act utilitarianism is only concerned with the greatest good for the greatest number
  • This would mean that it would be immoral for you to spend time with your friends than using that time to volunteer at a local soup kitchen.
  • If we sincerely follow A.U, we would never be morally allowed to spend time and money with loved ones

  A.U is too idealistic
• Problem #4: Ignores intentions

  • If someone tries do something evil but accidentally increases happiness, utilitarianism would label this as morally good

  Example: Someone tries to poison the towns water source but instead of killing them, he gets a mild high
• Problem #5: Higher and lower pleasures

  We can argue that the quantitative approach makes utiltiarianism a doctrine of swine in which it reduces the value of human life to the same simple pleasures felt by pigs and animals
• Response to Higher and Lower Pleasures

  • Mill rejects Bentham's felicifc calculus and argues that all pleasures and pains are equally valuable. Mill argues that people who experienced higher pleasures prefer them to lower pleasures.
  • Mill takes a qualitative approach rather than quantitative
• Problem #6: Other values/ preferences beyond happiness

  • Nozick's experience machine proves that humans value preference over utility because they would rather live real life than a false stimulation in which they are consistently happy
• What are the two categories of rule utiltiarianism

  • Strong rule utilitarianism
  • Weak rule utilitarianism
• What is strong rule utilitarianism

  Strictly follow the rules - even in instances where breaking them would lead to greater happiness
• What is weak rule utilitarianism

  Follow the rules - unless breaking the rule would lead to greater happiness
• What's the problem for strong rule utiltiarianism

  • It leads to "rule worship" and loses the essence of utilitarianism, which main purpose is to increase happiness.
  • If we were to follow the rule of "don't lie", then we can't tell a lie even if it saves everyone on earth
• What's the problem for weak rule utilitiarianism

  • How is it different from act utilitiarianism? There's no point of having a rule if we can justify breakingit
  • We're back to the issue of tyranny of the majority
• Preference utilitarianism

  P.U says we should respect peoples preferences because of examples like carrying out the wishes of the dead
• Possible response to P.U

  • how should we decide between competing preferences
  • What if someone has stupid or even evil preferences.
  • What grounds would preference utilitarianism have to say a preference to spend your life curing cancer is any better morally than a preference to spend your life torturing animals