Utilitarianism

• Utilitarianism is a teleological and consequentialist theory, meaning that it looks at the consequences of an action to determine whether it is right or wrong.
• The Principle of Utility is often referred to as ‘greatest good for the greatest number of people’.
• Strengths of the Principle of Utility:

  • Bernard Williams says, “Its [utilitarianism] basic good, happiness, well-being or preference seems quite reasonable.”   
  • Utilitarianism focuses on pleasure, which is consistent with what human’s desire, making the theory realistic to human nature. 
  • Epicurus - Believed that humans seek pleasure & try to avoid pain.  
  • Dewar - Many people automatically make Utilitarian judgements. 
• Weaknesses of the Principle of Utility:

  • Alasdair MacIntyre is suspicious of using notions of happiness: ‘that men are happy with their lot never entails that their lot is what it ought to be. For the question can always be raised of how great the price is that is being paid for the happiness.’ 
  • Oscar Wilde once said, ‘Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you; they may have different tastes.’ 
• Weaknesses of the Principle of Utility continued:

  • W. D. Ross refers to utilitarianism as "a single factor theory” because pursuing pleasure alone is a very primal and callous view of humanity; people are influenced by emotion & ethics. 
  • Nozick’s ‘experience machine thought experiment’ also shows that there is more to life than just pleasure. 
  • Dostoyevsky highlights the dangers of utilitarian thinking and the thought of punishing the minority to please the majority. 
• Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832) 

  • Father of utilitarianism 
  • He said that moral acts are those that maximise pleasure and minimise pain for any creature that can experience pain or pleasure: 
  • Happiness = pleasure – pain 
• “Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.” - Bentham
• Bentham also provides a guide to making moral decisions through the hedonic calculus: PRICED F

  • Purity - will it bring pure pleasure or will there be some pain involved as well? 
  • Remoteness - how far off (in the future) is the pleasure or pain? 
  • Intensity - will it bring intense pleasure or just mild? 
  • Certainty - will it definitely bring pleasure, how likely is it? 
  • Extent - how far reaching will the pleasure be; will it affect a lot of people? 
  • Duration - how long is the pleasure likely to last? 
  • Fecundity - is the pleasure likely to lead to other pleasures too? 
• Strengths of Bentham and Hedonic Calculus:

  • Can easily be applied to our day-to-day actions.  
  • Bernard Williams says it offers a common currency of moral thought that seems relatively straightforward to apply.
  • The various concerns of different interest groups can be accommodated and weighed against one another. 
  • The consequentialist nature allows us to apply utilitarianism to our own situation and looks onwards.  
  • Calculating the greatest happiness for the greatest number seems rational and calculable
• Weaknesses of Bentham and the Hedonic Calculus:

  • Pleasure is unpredictable
  • Pleasure is incalculable 
  • Pleasure is immeasurable 
  • There is also something instinctively wrong with judging the morality of an action by its outcome
  • The theory seems to support the exploitation and abuse of minority groups if it pleases the ruling majority. 
• Hedonism: 

  • Because utilitarianism defines ‘good’ as pleasure and happiness makes the theory hedonistic. 
  • Plato and Aristotle both agreed with this and Aristotle when as far as to say that happiness is the ultimate telos. 
  • Pleasure is not the same as happiness, as happiness results from the use of reason and cultivating virtues. It is only if we take pleasure in good activities that pleasure itself is good. 
• John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873) slightly adapts the utility principle so that not all pleasure is equally valued. He creates two divisions: 

  • Higher pleasure = reading a book (tend to be more long-term and progressive) 
  • Lower pleasure = eating chocolate (tend to be more intensely gratifying but can cause pain in long-term) 
• ‘Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness is intended pain, and the privation of pleasure’  - Mill
• ‘It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.’ - Mill
• Weaknesses of Mill's lower and higher pleasures:

  • What makes utilitarianism so appealing is its simplicity and practicality but Mill ruins this with his principle of higher and lower pleasures. 
  • What if lower pleasures are more enjoyed by the majority? As a good utilitarian, we should accommodate this.  
  • Progress can be equally made through lower pleasures as well as higher pleasures. 
  • Sidgwick 
• Henry Sidgwick argued that balance of pleasure over pain is the ultimate goal of ethical decisions. This makes his theory closer to Bentham than Mill because he questions how it is possible to distinguish between higher and lower pleasures. He argues that the process of deciding is intuitive. 
• “Whatever action any of us judges to be right for himself, he implicitly judges to be right for all similar persons in similar circumstances.” - Sidgwick
• Act Utilitarianism 

  • Act Utilitarians calculate the consequences of each situation on its own merits. From this, a general rule can be derived. 
  • The rule is only a guideline and can be broken if another actions will bring more happiness. 
  • Associated with Bentham and hedonic calculus.  
• Strengths of Act Utilitarianism:

  • It is egalitarian – everyone is treated equally. 
  • Act utilitarianism is flexible. 
  • Bernard Williams says Act Utilitarianism offers a common currency of moral thought that seems relatively straightforward to apply.  
  • Various concerns of different interest groups can be accommodated and weighed. 
  • The consequentialist nature allows followers to apply to their own situation and into the future. 
• Weaknesses of Act Utilitarianism:

  • Act utilitarianism only has one rule. Kant would argue that they must be universalizable into general laws of conduct.  
  • A purely consequentialist theory is not a good way of making moral decisions as an act can be right or wrong based on more than the amount of good/ evil it produces.
  • It is often objected that utilitarianism treats all conscious persons capable of experiencing pleasure and pain as equally important.  
• More weakness of Act Utilitarianism:

  • MacIntyre/Rand - Reject the theory as it allows horrendous acts to be permitted, just because a majority want it. 
  • Occasionally, act utilitarianism appears to recommend courses of action that go against our moral intuitions. E.g. innocent scapegoat.
• Rule Utilitarianism 

  • Rule Utilitarians follow accepted laws that lead to the greatest overall balance of good over evil or pleasure over pain. 
  • Human beings have already developed universal rules that lead to the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. 
  • Associated with Mill.  
• Strengths of Rule Utilitarianism:

  Peter Vardy - solves the problem of minority groups being discounted because it concentrates on how decisions are reached 

  Michael Palmer – It makes moral conduct is more straightforward by having a general guide for people to follow and by using previous experiences to help us make decisions. They do not need to calculate every individual situation.  

  It also doesn’t treat all conscious persons capable of experiencing pleasure and pain as equally important to us in making our moral choice – allows for special circumstances (e.g. relatives) 
• Weaknesses of Rule Utilitarianism:

  Weak rule utilitarians (who state that on certain occasions the rules can be disobeyed if a greater amount of happiness will result) become the same as Act Utilitarians and so suffer the same weaknesses. 

  J.J. Smart criticises Strong Rule Utilitarianism for committing rule worship – not allowing exceptions to rules, even when following the rule seems crazy. 
• Ideal Utilitarianism 

  • A Utilitarian theory which denies that the sole object of moral concern is maximizing pleasure and happiness. 
  • Developed by G.E Moore in Principia Ethica 
  • It says that things such as friendship have intrinsic value and therefore ought to be sought and promoted where things such as pain have intrinsic disvalue and should be shunned and prevented. 
  • Hastings Rashdall, in the theory of good and evil, then used this concept for non-hedonistic utilitarianism.  
• Negative Utilitarianism 

  • Developed by Karl Popper but has connotations with Edmund Gurney and Buddhism. 
  • The principle is to minimize suffering rather than maximize pleasure. 
  • By doing this, we avoid ‘utopianism’ and dictatorship.  
  • A criticism is that it could be said to promote mass euthanasia.
• More on Preference Utilitarianism:

  • R.M Hare argued that we should treat everyone, including ourselves, with impartiality and therefore respect everyone’s preference.  
  • Peter Singer said that non-bias is crucial to ensuring everyone's interests are equally weighed. 
  • Richard Brandt commented that if people went through cognitive psychotherapy, we would be able to recognize the reasons for our preferences and then disregard the immoral ones. This meant that he considered morality to be a form of utilitarianism. 
• Preference Utilitarianism 

  • A preference (or Interest) Utilitarian judges moral actions according to whether they fit in with the preferences of the individuals involved.  
  • Developed by R.M Hare, Peter Singer and Richard Brandt. 
• Overall strengths of Utilitarianism:

  • It is straightforward and based on the single principle of minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure and happiness. 
  • It relates to actions which can be observed in the real world. 
  • Its consequentialism is also a strength, as when we act it is only natural to weigh up the consequences. 
• More overall strengths of Utilitarianism:

  • Utilitarianism’s acceptance of the universal principle is essential for any ethical system. 
  • The idea of prompting the ‘well-being’ of the greatest number is also important. 
  • Preference utilitarianism also gives the valuable principle of being an impartial observer. It is important to think about others’ interests or preferences as long as one also includes behaving justly.  
• Overall weaknesses of Utilitarianism:

  • It is good to consider the consequences of our actions, but these are difficult to predict with any accuracy. 
  • Utilitarianism can also be criticized because it seems to ignore the importance of duty. An act may be right or wrong for reasons other than the amount of good or evil it produces. 
  • Utilitarianism can also advocate injustice. 
  • Another weakness is the emphasis on pleasure or happiness. If I seek my own happiness, it is impossible for me to seek general happiness and to do what I ought to do.
• More overall weaknesses of Utilitarianism:

  • The qualitative and quantitative approaches pose problems, as all we can really do is guess the units of pleasure – how do we measure one pleasure against another? 
  • Utilitarianism does not consider motives and intentions and so rejects the principle of treating people with intrinsic value. Utilitarianism can be seen as too impersonal and does not consider the right of individuals in its attempt to look for the ‘greater good’.