Hedonic Calculus

• Pleasure and pain can be measured
• Bentham was a hedonist


  Greek for pleasure
• In order to calculate, need to consider:

  • intensity
  • duration
  • certainty or uncertainty
  • propinquity (closeness/remoteness)
  • fecundity (easy to reproduce offspring)
  • purity
  • extent
• Wanted to have a rational, evidential basis for his moral, legal and political choices
• How does this apply to animals?

  should be treated as members of the moral community as their pleasure and pain can be measured
• What is the calculus looking to do?

  to establish whether an act has a balance of pleasure over pain - if it does then the action is right