A Brief Discussion

on Utilitarianism
 Preliminary Question:

What is the right thing to do in

certain kinds of situation?

One can answer this question from a

Traditional point of view…
 Intrinsic Value
▪ Many things have instrumental value, that
is, they have value as means to an end.
▪ However, there must be some things which
are not merely instrumental, but have value
in themselves.
▪ This is what we call intrinsic value.
▪ What has intrinsic value? Four (4) principal
candidates:
1.) Pleasure 3.) Ideals
- Jeremy Bentham - George E. Moore
2.) Happiness 4.) Preferences
- John Stuart Mill - Kenneth Arrow
 Two (2) Major Types of Moral Theory:
A.) Deontological Ethics
▪ Etymologically, the word deontology comes from
the Greek word: deon, which means duty or
obligation.
▪ An ethical system that considers certain
characteristics or qualities in the moral act itself to
have intrinsic value.
▪ A deontologist is merely concerned with the
rightness of an act having intrinsic worth.
▪ For Kant, duty is an act done out of one’s good
will. For an act to have moral worth, must be
universalizable, must not violate human
dignity, and must be autonomous.
 An
ACTION
done
out of one’s To qualify the
GOOD WILL WILL to be GOOD,
is our It must be
DUTY. AUTONOMOUS,
for the act to have
MORAL WORTH.

A simple formula would be something like this…

 For example, for the deontologist,
like the German philosopher,
Immanuel Kant…

▪ There is something right about truth-telling,

even when it may cause pain or harm;

▪ There is something wrong about lying, even

when it may produce good consequences.
B.) Teleological Ethics or Consequentialist Ethics
▪ Etymologically, the teleology comes from the
Greek word: Telos, which means ‘purpose’,
having reached one’s end, or goal-directed.
▪ An ethical system which holds that the ultimate
criterion of morality lies in some non-moral
value that results from actions.
▪ The locus and weight of value is the outcome or
consequences of the act.
▪ A Teleologist is a person whose ethical
decision-making aims solely at maximizing
non-moral goods, such as pleasure, happiness,
welfare, and the improvement of suffering.
The moral standard of rightness
or wrongness of an action is the
comparative consequences of
the available actions.

It means that an act is

right if it produces the
best consequences.
For example, for the Teleologist,

▪ Lying is morally right if it results or produces

the best consequences.

▪ If you can reasonably calculate that a lie

will do even slightly more good than telling
the truth, then you have an obligation to lie.
Different Types of Teleological Ethics
1. Ethical Egoism – is a prescriptive or
normative theory about how people ought
to act. They ought to act according to
their perceived best interests.
2. Utilitarianism ???
 What is Utilitarianism?
The theory that right action is
one that maximizes utility.

Sometimes utility is defined in terms of:

- Pleasure (Jeremy Bentham),
- Happiness (John Stuart Mill),
- Ideals (George Edward Moore), or
- Interests (R.B. Perry)
Its motto, which characterizes one version
of utilitarianism, is…

“The greatest happiness for

the greatest number of people.”
• How is utilitarianism related to Jesus’ Golden Rule?
• The happiness which forms the utilitarian standard is
not the agent’s own happiness, but that of all
concerned. As between his own happiness and that of
others, utilitarianism requires him to be as impartial as
a disinterested and benevolent spectator. To do as you
would be done by, and to love your neighbor as
yourself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian
morality.
 Two (2) Major Characteristics of
Utilitarianism:
1.) Consequentialist Principle
This principle states that the rightness or
wrongness of an action is determined by the
goodness or badness of the results that flow
from it.
It follows the maxim:
“The end justifies the means.”
2.) Utility Principle
- This principle states that the only thing that
is good in itself is some specific type of state
(pleasure, happiness, welfare).
- This principle also conforms to ‘Hedonistic
Utilitarianism’, which views pleasure as the
one and only good and pain as the only evil.
- Therefore, an act is right if it brings about
more pleasure than pain or prevents pain.
An act is wrong if it either brings about more
pain than pleasure or prevents pleasure from
occurring.
 Two (2) Divisions of Utilitarianism:
1.) Act-utilitarianism holds that the right act in a situation
is one that results (or is most likely to result) in the best
consequences.
▪ Looks at the consequences of each individual act and calculate
utility each time the act is performed.
▪ Short-term
2.) Rule-utilitarianism holds that the right act is one that
conforms to the set of rules that in turn will result in the
best consequences (as compared with other sets of rules).
▪ Looks at the consequences of having everyone follow a
particular rule and calculates the overall utility of accepting or
rejecting the rule.
▪ Long-term
 Jeremy Bentham
Born: Houndsditch, London –
February 15, 1748
Died: London – June 6, 1832

▪ A British gentleman, political activist, legal

scholar, social philosopher, linguist.
▪ He is best known as the founder of British
“utilitarianism” or “philosophical radicalism.”
 What is his Moral Philosophy?
▪ To begin with, Bentham's moral philosophy
reflects what he calls at different times “the
greatest happiness principle” or “the principle
of utility” – a term which he borrows from
David Hume.
▪ In adverting to this principle, however, he was
not referring to just the usefulness of things or
actions, but to the extent to which these things
or actions promote the general happiness.
▪ Specifically, then, what is morally obligatory is
that which produces the greatest amount of
happiness for the greatest number of people,
happiness being determined by reference to the
presence of pleasure and the absence of pain.
▪ Bentham emphasizes that this applies to “every
action whatsoever.”
▪ That which does not maximize the greatest
happiness (such as an act of pure ascetic sacrifice)
is, therefore, morally wrong.
▪ His moral philosophy, then, clearly reflects his
psychological view that the primary motivators in
human beings are pleasure and pain.
• Bentham held that there are advantages to a
moral philosophy based on a principle of
utility.
• To begin with, the principle of utility is clear
(compared to other moral principles), allows
for objective and disinterested public
discussion, and enables decisions to be made
where there seem to be conflicts of (prima
facie) legitimate interests.
• Moreover, in calculating the pleasures and
pains involved in carrying out a course of
action (the “hedonic calculus”), there is a
fundamental commitment to human equality.
- He invented the Hedonic Calculus.
- The quantitative score for any pleasure or pain
experience is obtained by summing the seven
(7) aspects of a pleasurable or painful
experience.
- Seven aspects: Intensity,
Duration,
Certainty,
Nearness,
Fruitfulness,
Purity, and
Extent.
 The Utilitarian Calculus

• Math and ethics

finally merge: all
consequences must
be measured and
weighed.
• Units of
measurement:
– Hedons: positive
– Dolors: negative
 What do we calculate?
▪ Hedons/dolors may be defined in terms of
• Pleasure
• Happiness
• Ideals
• Preferences
▪ For any given action, we must calculate:
• How many people will be affected, negatively (dolors) as
well as positively (hedons)
• How intensely they will be affected
• Similar calculations for all available alternatives
• Choose the action that produces the greatest overall
amount of utility (hedons minus dolors)
The principle of utility presupposes that “one man
is worth just the same as another man” and so
there is a guarantee that in calculating the
greatest happiness “each person is to count for
one and no one for more than one.”

For Bentham, then, there was no inconsistency

between the greatest happiness principle and
his psychological hedonism and egoism.
Thus, moral philosophy or ethics can be
simply described as…

“the art of directing men's action to the

production of the greatest possible quantity
of happiness, on the part of those whose
interest is in view.”
 Pleasure
▪ Definition: ▪ Criticisms
The enjoyable feeling we ▪ Came to be known
experience when a state of as “the pig’s
deprivation is replaced by philosophy”
fulfillment. ▪ Ignores higher
▪ Advantages values
▪ Easy to quantify ▪ Could justify living
▪ Short duration on a pleasure
▪ Bodily machine
 John Stuart Mill
Born: Pentonville, London, England –
May 20, 1806
Died: Avignon, France –
May 8, 1873

An English philosopher and political economist, was an

influential liberal thinker of the 19th century.
He was an advocate of utilitarianism, the great ethical
theory that was systemized by his godfather Jeremy
Bentham.
 What is his Moral Philosophy?

His version of Utilitarianism is Eudaimonistic

in essence.
It means that happiness is defined in terms of
certain types of higher-order pleasures or
satisfactions, such as,
- Intellectual pleasure
- Aesthetic pleasure, and
- Social Enjoyments.
 Two (2) Types of Pleasure:

A.) Lower or Elementary Type of Pleasure

Example: Eating, Drinking, Sexuality,
Resting, and Sensuous titillation

This type of pleasure may seem more gratifying

and satisfying, yet they may lead to a painful,
agonizing, and distressing experience if one
overindulged in it.
B.) Higher Type of Pleasure
Example: Intellectuality, Creativity,
and Spirituality

This type of pleasure is more extended, continuous,

and gradual, since it is more refined and superior. It
focuses more on the quality of pleasure than its
quantity.
Such idea is explicitated in the proposition:

“It is better to be a human dissatisfied

than a pig satisfied.”
“Whoever supposes that this preference takes place at a sacrifice of
happiness – that the superior being, in anything like equal
circumstances, is not happier than the inferior – confounds the two
very different ideas, of happiness, and content. It is indisputable
that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are
low, has the greatest chance of having them fully
satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always
feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the
world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear
its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make
him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections,
but only because he feels not at all the good which those
imperfections qualify. 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,
are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of
the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.”
Explanation…

It means that a person may chose to suffer

or may tend to endure pain because of
higher ideals or reason than merely
satisfying oneself with senseless and
capricious interest.
Utility must be understood in terms of the
good result/s towards the achievement of
higher ideals or faculties of desire.
• How does Mill respond to the charge that utilitarianism
is a “godless” doctrine of “mere expediency”?
• If God desires the happiness of his creatures, and this
was his purpose in their creation, utility is not only not a
godless doctrine, but more profoundly religious than any
other. A utilitarian who believes in the perfect goodness
and wisdom of God, necessarily believes that whatever
God has revealed on morality must fulfil the
requirements of utility in a supreme degree.
• Is virtue desired only as a means to pleasure?
• Utilitarianism maintains that virtue is to be desired,
disinterestedly, for itself. The mind is not in the state
most conducive to the general happiness, unless it loves
virtue as a thing desirable in itself. The ingredients of
happiness are various, and each of them is desirable in
itself. Virtue can become part of the end in time.
• Lying might seem a good way out of tough
situation, but if and when the people we
deceive find out, not only will they be
unhappy, but our reputation and relationship
with them will be damaged.
• If I take my friend’s money (without his
knowledge) , and by buy lotto tickets with
its there is a chance that we will end up
millionaires ― happiness.
- loss of money (most likely), and
friendship, too
THUS, gambling is not justified
• Are Consequences all that matter?
• JUSTICE
1. Suppose a utilitarian were visiting an area in which
there was racial strife, and that during his visit, a
Negro rapes a white woman, and that race riots occur
as a result of the crime, white mobs, with the
connivance of the police, bashing and killing negroes,
etc. Suppose too that our utilitarian is in the area of
the crime when it is committed such that his
testimony would bring about the conviction of a
particular Negro. If he knows that a quick arrest will
stop the riots and lynching, surely, as a utilitarian, he
must conclude that he has a duty to bear false witness
in order to bring about the punishment of an innocent
person.
• RIGHTS
2. In October 1958, appellant Ms. York went to
the police dept. of Chino for the purpose of
filling charges in connection with an assault
upon her. Appellee Ron Story, a police officer,
then acting his control of authority as such,
advised appellant that it was necessary to take
photographs of her. Story then took appellant
to a room in the police station, locked the door,
and directed her to undress, which she did.
Story then directed appellant to assume various
positions. These photographs were not made
for any lawful purpose.
▪ Appellant objected to undressing. She stated to Story that
there was no need to take photographs of her in nude, or in
the positions she was directed to take, because the bruises
would not show in any photograph.

• Late that month, Story advised appellant that the pictures did
not come out and that he had destroyed them. Instead, Story
circulated these photographs among the personnel of the
Chino police department. In April 1960, two other officers of
the police department, appellee Louis Moreno and defendant
Henry Grote, acting under color of their authority as such,
and using police photographic equipment located at the
police station made additional prints of the photographs
taken by Story. Moreno and Grote then circulated these
prints among the personnel of the Chino police department.
• Ms. York brought suit against these officers
and won.
• Her legal rights had clearly been violated.
• But what of the morality of the officer’s
behavior?
• Utilitarianism says that actions are
defensible if they produce a favorable
balance of happiness over unhappiness.
3. Matthew Donnely was a physicist who had
worked with X-rays for 30 years. Perhaps as a
result of too much exposure, he contracted
cancer and lost a part of his jaw, his upper lip,
his nose, and his left hand, as well as two
fingers from his right hand. He was also left
blind. Donnely’s physician told him that he
had about a year to live, but he decided that he
did not want to go on living in such a state. He
was in constant pain. One writer said that, “at
its worst, he could be seen lying in bed with
teeth clinched and beads of perspiration
standing out of his forehead.”
Knowing that he was going to die eventually
anyway, and wanting to escape this misery,
Donnely begged his 3 brothers to kill him.
Two refused, but one did not. The youngest
brother, 36 year old Harold, carried a .30-
caliber pistol into the hospital and shot
Matthew to death. What is your moral
evaluation of the case?
4. Suppose a dying woman (under her bad
condition) asked you to promise to send the
P90,ooo to her nephew in U.S.A. She dies
without anyone else knowing of the money or
of the promise that you made. Now, suppose that
you know the nephew is a drunkard, and , were
the money delivered to him, it would be wasted
in a week of outrageous partying. On the other
hand, a very fine orphanage in your barangay
needs such money to improve its recreational
facilities, something that would provide
happiness to many children for years to come.
What is your moral evaluation of the case?
 William’s Critique of Utilitarianism
5. George, who has just taken his Ph.D. in chemistry,
finds it difficult to get a job. He is not robust in
health, which cuts down the number of jobs he might
be able to do. His wife has to work, which causes a
great deal of strain, since they have small children.
The results of all this, especially on the children, are
damaging. An older chemist says that he can get
George a decently paid job in a laboratory which
pursues research into chemical warfare. George says
that he cannot accept this, since he is opposed to
chemical warfare.
The older man replies that he is not too keen
on it himself, but George’s refusal is not
going to make the job or the laboratory go
away; what is more, if George refuses the
job, it will certainly go to a contemporary of
George’s who is not inhibited by such
scruples and is likely to push the research
with greater zeal than George would. What
should George do?
6. Jim finds himself in the central square of a small
South American town. Tied up against the wall are
a row of twenty Indians, most terrified. A heavy
man in a khaki shirt turns out to be the captain in
charge and explains that the Indians are a random
group of the inhabitants who, after recent acts of
protest against the government, are about to be
killed to remind other possible protesters of the
advantages of not protesting. However, since Jim is
an honored visitor from another land, the captain
is happy to offer him a guest’s privilege of killing
one of the Indians himself.
If Jim accepts, then the other Indians will be let
off. If Jim refuses, then Pedro will kill them
all. The men against the wall, and the other
villagers, understand the situation, and are
begging him to accept. What should he do?

To these dilemmas, utilitarianism replies, in

the first case, that George should accept the
job, and in the second, that Jim should kill the
Indian. Not only does utilitarianism give these
answers but, if there are no further special
factors, it regards them as obviously the right
answers.