Revision:Utilitarianism

TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Religious Studies > Utilitarianism

Act Utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham)

Bentham came from a family of lawyers working in the city of London, but became disgusted with the law as then practiced since he felt that it was more about making money than helping those in need.

He was a practical man concerned with the social conditions of his day and particularly with the conditions of prisions and hospitals. He wanted to find a moral basis for law that could serve to benefit the whole of society.

Whilst reading Priestley’s Essay on Government Bentham came across the expression ‘the greatest good of the greatest number’ and cried out, like Archimedes, ‘Eureka’

He applied this principle of utility to reforming areas of criminal law, the jury system, prisons, abolition of transportation and imprisonment for debt, development of savings banks, cheap postage, registration of births and deaths

In 1789 he wrote 'The priniciples of moral and Legislation' in which he put foward his ethical theory and divided his book into 3 sections:

• His view on what drove humans and what goodness and badness is all about

• The Hedonic Calculus

• The prinicple of Utlilty his moral rule

The Hedonic Calculus

The pursuit of happiness is the fundamental purpose of human life.  Bentham consisted in promoting whatever factors led to the increase of pleasure and in suppressing those which produced pain (Costigan, 1967, p. 8).  In chapter 4 of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Bentham sketched his idea of hedonistic calculus. As his theory implied, law should enforce actions and dispose sentences whereby this maximizing of pleasure and minimizing of pain could be most effective.  In short, Bentham stated that pleasures and pains, which exist only in individuals, could be constructed into a calculus of value   Hedonic calculus considers seven factors which include:

1. The intensity of the pleasure or pain

2. The duration of the pleasure or pain

3. The certainty or uncertainty of the pleasure or pain

4. The remoteness of any pleasure or pain. (Propinquity)

5. The chances of the same effects being repeated. (Fecundity)

6. The chances of the same effects not being repeated. (Purity)

7. The number of people who will be affected by any pleasure or pain arising as a result of the action(s) in question. 

The Prinicple of Ultilty

Laws he believed should be frammed according to reason and in order to bring about happiness. Everyone had an equal right to happiness, irrespective of thier situation. He wanted morality to be fair and democratic. beacuse he was practical, he believed that things should be judged right or worng according to whether or not they benefited the people involved. However he recognised that you cannot always tell what the result of your actions will be but your are right if you act in accordance with the intention of sharing happiness and benefit in this way

So in effect bentham was aying that to know what is right, one should not start with high flown universal teories about wright and wrong but with practical issues with framing laws that benefit people.

Strengths

• Utilitarianism dictates our current society. Its principles are useful in reality; we do live according the needs and wants of our society. You only have to look at our democratic voting and ruling system to see this.
• The theory is subjective and relative and so remains flexible and applicable to the greatest number of people.
• The theory looks at consequences, and, as most people judge the merits of an action based on its outcome, this means that most people can access and use the basic principles.
• As a theory based on the majority, it encourages people to take on an attitude of moral responsibility as what they do to each other reflects on the society in which they live.

Criticisms

• This theory is a relative, consequentialist approach which many would find unacceptable as they believe that there are absolute moral standards to be upheld.
• These moral standards could be seen as divine commands or basic human rights that must be maintained.
• This theory assumes that what is useful (principle of utility) is actually moral; there has been no proof to suggest this.
• Bentham defines good as what is pleasurable but this does not necessarily apply to everyone.
• Act Utilitarianism allows for brutal and socially unacceptable acts to be classed as ‘good’ through being performed by the majority and is therefore called a swine ethic
• John Rawls argued that utilitarianism is too impersonal. In the persute of the greates good utilitarianism disregards the rights of the individuals

Rule Utliltarianism (John Stuart Mill)

The main problem that Mill raised with Bentham was that it was purely quantative, in other words it was based purely on the amount of pleasure an action generated. He wanted to reformulate the utlitarian theory to reflect the fact that pleasures are not all of equal value. He wanted to take human nature into account

Thus he deicded to introduce a theory of utilit for the coomn person, which replaced pleasure for happiness. He definied happiness as something which is cultural and spiritual rather than just physical and distinguished between lower and higher pleasures. The plesures of the mind are far better than that of the body. Mill identifies pleasures of the mind or intellectual pleasures as higher pleasures and pleasures of the body or physical pleasures as lower pleasures.

He said that "It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied: better to be a socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisified"

Although he believed that the wellbeing of the individual was of a primary concern, happiness is best achieved when it is subject to the rules that protect the common good.

Strong Utilitarianism believe that these rules should never be disobeyed Weak Utliltarianism say that although there should be generally accepted rules or guideliness, they should not always be adhered to indefinitely

Strengths

• Supports the notion that human wellbeing is generally good
• Solves most of the problems with Act utlil
• Encorages Democarcy

Criticisms

• Sidgewick: "In practice it is hard to distinguish between higher and lower pleasures" This is due to the subjectivity of the word 'pleasure'
• WD Ross: 'Single factor' moral theories don't work because life is too complex
• Difficult to predict consequences

Comments

This can be used for students who are studying religious studies especially the OCR philosophy and ethics Religious Studies sylabus

This was created by Chrisateen