errr ee LESSON Principle of Utility At the end of this lesson, you are expected to: a 2. Understand the principle of utility; distinguish Benthan from Mill's understanding of the said principle; and 3. apply the distinction, The princi ple of utility constitutes the heart of utili that which mak tarian philosophy; it is also ‘es it a consequentialist one. THINK In the book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Jeremy Bentham begins by arguing that our actions are governed by two sovereign masters—which he calls pleasure and pain. These “masters” are given to us by nature to help us determine what is good or bad and what ought to be done and not; they fasten our choices to their throne, Nature has placed mankind under the governance 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. On the one hand, the standard of right and wrong, on the other, the chain of Causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The Principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law.2 The principle of utility is about our subjection to these sovereign masters: pleasure and pain. On the one hand, the principle refers to the motivation of our actions as guided by our avoidance of pain and our desire for pleasure. It is like saying that in our everyday actions we do what is pleasurable and we do not do what is painful. On the other hand, the principle also refers to pleasure as good if and only if they produce more happiness than unhappiness. This means that itis not enough to experience pleasure, but to also inquire whether the things we do make us happier. Having identified the tendency for pleasure and the avoidance of pain as the principle of utility, Bentham equates happiness with pleasure. UNITIL UTILITARIANISM 3716, 1748 in London, Englan for a syste panopticon, He w freedom, Worn ‘of church and also an advocate of animal rights and the abolition of sry, death penalty, and corporal punishment for children. Bentham 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- Jeremy Bentham icon is in public display to this day to serve as his memorial. f economic paration He was 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 explains: The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, 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, pain and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure, and to what extent, this is left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded—namely, that pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable either for pleasure inherent in themselves or as a means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.* Clearly, 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 and understood it as whatever produced ‘ACourse Module for Ethicshappiness or pleasure and the avoidance of pain. The next step is to understand the nature of pleasure and pain, to identify a criterion for distinguishing pleasures, and to calculate the resultant pleasure or pain; it is in relation to these aforementioned themes that a distinction occurs between Bentham and Mill What Bentham identified as the natural moral preferability of pleasure, Mill refers to as a theory of life. It we consider, for example, what moral agents do and how they assess their actions, then it is hard to deny the pursuit for 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. Why is it justifiable to wiretap private conversations in instances of treason, rebellion, espionage, and sedition? Why is it preferable to alleviate poverty or eliminate criminality? Why is it noble to build schools and hospitals? Why is it good to improve the quality of lite and the like? There is no other answer than the principle of utility, that is, to increase happiness and decrease pain. What kind of pleasures is morally preferable and valuable? Are all pleasures necessarily and ethically good? Does this mean that because eating or exercising is good, it is morally acceptable to eat and exercise excessively? While utilitarian supporters do not condone excessive pleasures while others are suffering, it cannot be justified on utilitarian grounds why some persons indulge in extravagant pleasures at the expense of others. Suppose nobody is suffering, is it morally permissible on utilitarian principles to maximize pleasure by wanton intemperance? While Bentham and Mill agree on the moral value of pleasure, they do not have the same view on these questions. John Stuart Mill was born on May 20, 1806 in Pentonville, London, United Kingdom. He was the son of James Mill, a friend and disciple of Jeremy Bentham. John Stuart Mill was homeschooled. He studied Greek at the age of three and Latin at the age of eight. He wrote 2 history of Roman Law at age 11, and suffered a nervous breakdown at the age of 20. He was married to Harriet Taylor after 21 years of friendship. His ethical theory and his defense of utilitarian views are found in his long essay titled Utilitarianism (1861). Mill died on May 8, 1873 in Avignon, France from erysipelas. UNIT il UTILITARIANISM = 39,tions, Bentham provides a framework led felicific calculus. Felicific calculus sure that some actions on the basis of intensity In determining the moral preferability of ac' for evaluating pleasure and pain commonly call is a common currency framework that calculates the plea can produce. In this framework, an action can be evaluated or strength of pleasure, duration or length of the experience of pleasure; certainty, uncertainty, or the likelihood that pleasure will occur, and propinquity, remoteness, or how soon there will be pleasure. These indicators allow us to measure pleasure and pain in an action, However, when we are to evaluate our tendency to choose these actions, we need to consider two more dimensions: fecundity or the chance it has of being followed by sensations of the same kind, and purity or the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind. Lastly, 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 resultant pleasure. This means that actions are evaluated on this single scale regardless of preferences and values. In this sense, pleasure and pain can only quantitatively differ but not qualitatively differ from other experiences of pleasure and pain accordingly. Milldissents from Bentham’s single scale of pleasure. He thinks that the principle of utility must distinguish pleasures qualitatively and not merely quantitatively. For Mill, utilitarianism cannot promote the kind of pleasures appropriate to pigs or to any other animals. He thinks that there are higher intellectual and lower base pleasures. We, as moral agents, are capable of searching and desiring higher intellectual pleasures more than pigs are capable of. We undermine ourselves if we only and primarily desire sensuality; this is because we are capable ‘of higher intellectual pleasurable goods. For Mill, crude bestial pleasures, which are appropriate for animals, are degrading to us because we are by nature not easily satisfied by pleasures only for pigs. Human pleasures are qualitatively different from animal pleasures. It is unfair to assume that we merely pursue pleasures appropriate for beasts even if there are instances when we choose to pursue such base pleasures. To explain this, Mill recognizes the empirical fact that there are different kinds of pleasures: Itis quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasure should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.” Contrary to Bentham, Mill argues that quality is more preferable than quantity. An excessive quantity of what is otherwise pleasurable might result in pain. We can consider, for example, our experience of excessive eating or exercising. Whereas eating the right amount of food can be pleasurable, excessive eating may not be. The same is true when exercising. If the quality of pleasure is at least sometimes more important than quantity, then it is important to consider the standards whereby 40 A Course Module for Ethicsdifferences of pleasures can be judged. The test that Mill suggests 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.’ There is no other way of determining which of two pleasures is preferable except by appealing to the actual preferences and experiences. What Mill discovers anthropologically is that actual choices of knowledgeable persons point to higher intellectual pleasures as more preferable than purely sensual appetites.” In defending further the comparative choice between intellectual and bestial pleasures, Mill offers an imaginative thought experiment. He asks whether a human person would prefer to accept the highly pleasurable life of an animal while at the same time being denied of everything that makes him a person. He thinks that few, if any, would give up human qualities of higher reason for the pleasures of a pig. In the most famous quote in Mill’s Utilitarianism, we read: It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. 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.’ While itis difficult to understand how Mill was able to compare swinish pleasures with human ones, we can presume that it would be better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. Simply put, as human beings, we prefer the pleasures that are actually within our grasp. It is easy to compare extreme types of pleasures as in the case of pigs and humans, but it is difficult to compare pleasures deeply integrated in our way of life. The pleasures of an Ilonggo eating chicken inasal and an lgorot eating pinikpikan is an example. This cannot be done by simply tasting inasal or pinikpikan. \n the same way, some people prefer-puto to bibingka, or liking for the music of Eraserheads than that of the APO Hiking Society. EXPERIENCE Imagine that you find yourself in dire circumstances that forces you to kill an innocent person in order to prevent many innocent people from dying. Considering the principle of utility, what do you think is the right thing to do? This question arose in The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens (1884), an English law case involving four men stranded in a lifeboat without food or water. If we are the judge, how should we judge the action of Dudley and Stephens? Was it morally justified or morally wrong? Go to the website and read the case: https://la.utexas.edu/users/ jmciver/357L/QueenvDS.PDF