UTILITARIANISM

CHAPTER II
 CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Discuss the basic principles of utilitarian ethics;
2. Distinguish between two utilitarian models; the quantitative mode of
Jeremy Bentham and the qualitative model of John Stuart Mill; and
3. Apply utilitarianism in understanding and evaluating local and
international scenarios.
 INTRODUCTION

1. While this is certainly a legal issue, can it also institute a moral concern?
2. By raising the distinction between moral and legal issues and concerns, do
you think that these two are different?

3. To simplify things, let us put aside the question of law and let us assume
that you were asked to decide whether wiretapping is morally permissible
or not. On what instances is wiretapping morally permissible and on what
instances is it not morally permissible?
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that argues for the goodness of pleasure
and the determination of right behavior based on the usefulness of the
action’s consequences.
Utilitarianism claims that one’s actions and behavior are good inasmuch as
they are directed toward the experience of the greatest pleasure over pain for
the greatest number of persons.
Utility refers to the usefulness of the consequences of one’s action and
behavior
 JEREMY BENTHAM (1748-1832)

• Born on February 15, 1748

• Teacher of James Mill, father or John Stuart Mill.
• First wrote about the Greatest Happiness Principle of Ethics.
• Known for a system of Penal management called PANOPTICON.
• An advocate of economic freedom, women’s rights, and the separation of
church and state
• He was also an advocate of animal rights and the abolition of slavery,
death penalty, and corporal punishment for children.
• He denied individual legal rights nor agreed with the natural law.
• On his death on June 6, 1832, Bentham donated his corpse to the
University College London, where his auto-icon is in public display.
• Their system of ethics emphasizes the consequences of actions.
• Utilitarianism is consequentialist.
• While this is the case, not all consequentialist theories are utilitarian.
• For Bentham and Mill, utility refers to a way of understanding the results
of people’s actions.
• The utilitarian values pleasure and happiness.
• Bentham and Mill understand happiness as the experience of pleasure for
the greatest number of persons, even at the expense of some individual’s
rights.
 THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY

• In the book of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and

Legislation (1789), Jeremy Bentham begins by arguing that our actions are
governed by two “Sovereign Masters”
• The principle of utility is about our subjection to these sovereign masters;
pleasure and pain.
• On one hand, the principle refers to the motivation of our actions as
guided by our avoidance of pain and our desire for pleasure.
• Also The principle also refers to pleasure as good if, and only if, they
produce more happiness than unhappiness.
• Mill supports Bentham’s principle of utility
• He reiterates moral good as happiness and, consequently, happiness as
pleasure.
• Mill clarifies that what makes people happy is intended pleasure and what
makes us unhappy is the privation of pleasure. The things that produce
happiness and pleasure are good; whereas, those that produce unhappiness and
pain are bad.
• Mill argues that we act and do things because we find them pleasurable and we
avoid doing things because they are painful. If we find our actions pleasurable,
Mill explains, it is because they are inherently pleasurable in themselves or they
eventually lead to the promotion of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
Bentham and Mill characterized moral value as utility.
 JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873)

• Born on May 20, 1806 in Pentonville, London, United Kingdom.

• Son of James Mill, a friend and disciple of Jeremy Bentham.
• He was homeschooled, studied Greek at the age of 3 and Latin at the age
of 8
• Wrote a history of Roman Law at age of 11
• And suffered nervous breakdown at age of 20
• Married to Harriet Taylor after 21 years of friendship
• His ethical theory and his defense of utilitarian views are found in his long
essay entitled UTILITARIANISM (1861)
• Died on May 8, 1873 in Avignon, France from erysipelas.
• Bentham identified as the natural moral preferability of pleasure, Mill
refers to as THEORY OF LIFE.
• If we consider, for example, what moral agents do and how they assess
their actions, then it is hard to deny the pursuit of happiness and the
avoidance of pain.
• For Bentham and Mill, the pursuit for pleasure and the avoidance of pain
are not only important principles---- they are in fact the only principle in
assessing an action’s morality
• In determining the moral preferability, of actions. Bentham provides a
framework for evaluating pleasure and pain commonly called FELICIFIC
CALCULUS.
• However, when we are to evaluate our tendency to choose this actions, we
need to consider two more dimensions, FECUNDITY OR PURITY
• When considering the number of persons who are affected by pleasure or
pain, another dimension is to be considered----EXTENT
• Felicific calculus allows the evaluation of all actions and their resultan
pleasure.
• Contrary to Bentham, Mill argues that quality is more preferable than
quantity. An excessive quantity of what is otherwise pleasurable might
result in pain.
• The test that Mill suggest is simple. In deciding over two comparable
pleasures, it is important to experience both and to discover which one is
actually more preferred than the other.
• What Mill actuallt discovers anthropologically is that actual choices of
knowledgeable person point that higher intellectual pleasures are
preferable than purely sensual appetites.
Mill stated: "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than pig satisfied; better to be
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool sarisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different
opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the
comparison knows both sides."
 PRINCIPLE OF THE GREATEST
NUMBER

• Equating happiness with pleasure does not aim to describe the utilitarian
moral agent alone and independently from others.
• Utilitarianism cannot lead to selfish acts. It is neither about our pleasure
nor happiness alone; it cannot be all about us.
• Utilitarianism is not dimissive of sacrifices that procure more happiness
for others.
• Therefore it is necessary fo us to consider everyone's happiness, including
our own as the standard by which to evaluate what is moral.
• Utilitatianism is interested with the best consequence for the highest
number of people.