UTILITARIANISM

Chapter Content

• The Principle of Utility

• Principle of the Greatest Number
• Justice and Moral Rights
 Objectives

1. Discuss the basic principles of utilitarian ethics;

2. Distinguish between two utilitarian models: the quantitative model of
Jeremy Bentham and the qualitative model of John Stuart Mill; and
3. Apply utilitarianism in understanding and evaluating local and
international scenarios.
 Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
on the Principle of Utility
• the principle of utility is about our subjection to two sovereign
masters: pleasure and pain.
• refers to the motivation of our actions as guided by our avoidance
of pain and our desire for pleasure.
• refers to pleasure as good if, and only if, they produce more
happiness than unhappiness.
 John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
on the Happiness Principle
• He reiterates moral good as happiness and, consequently,
happiness as pleasure.
• What makes people happy is intended pleasure and what makes us
unhappy is the privation of pleasure.
• Things that produce happiness and pleasure are good; whereas,
those that produce unhappiness and pain are bad.
• 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, e.g., Why is it preferable to
eliminate criminality (or criminals)?
 Felicific Calculus
• a common currency framework that calculates the pleasure that
some actions can produce.
 Felicific Calculus
• Intensity: How strong is the pleasure?
• Duration: How long will the pleasure last?
• Certainty or Uncertainty: How likely or unlikely is it that the pleasure will occur?
• Propinquity or remoteness: How soon will the pleasure occur?
• Fecundity: The probability that the action will be followed by sensations of the
same kind.
• Purity: The probability that it will not be followed by sensations of the opposite
kind.
• Extent: How many people will be affected?
• Contrary to Bentham, Mill argues that quality is more preferable
than quantity.
• An excessive quantity of what is otherwise pleasurable might
result in pain. Whereas eating the right amount of food can be
pleasurable, excessive eating may not be.
• For Mill, there are higher intellectual and lower base desires.
• We as moral agents, are capable of searching and desiring higher
intellectual pleasures more than animals.
• We undermine ourselves if we only and primarily desire sensuality
because we are capable of higher intellectual pleasurable goods.
• In deciding over two comparable pleasures, it is important to
experience and to discover which one is actually more preferred than
the other.
• What Mill discovers anthropologically is that actual choices of
knowledgeable persons point that higher intellectual pleasures are
preferable than purely sensual appetites.
 The Principle of the Greatest Number
• Utilitarianism is not only about our individual pleasures, regardless of
how high, intellectual, or in other ways noble it is, but it is also about
the pleasure of the greatest number affected by the consequences of
our actions.
• Utilitarianism is not dismissive of sacrifices that procure more
happiness for others.
• Utilitarianism is not at all separate from liberal social practices that
aim to improve the quality of life for all persons.
 Justice and Moral Rights
• Mill understands justice as a respect for rights directed toward
society’s pursuit of the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
• For him, rights are a valid claim on society and are justified by
utility.
• Utilitarians argue that issues of justice carry a very strong
emotional import because the category of rights is directly
associated with the individual’s most vital interests. All of these
rights are predicated on the person’s right to life. Mill describes:
To have a right, then is, I conceive, to have something which society ought to defend me in
the possession of. If the objector goes on to ask why it ought, I can give him no other reason
than general utility. If that expression does not seem to convey a sufficient feeling of the
strength of the obligation, nor to account for the peculiar energy of the feeling, it is because
there goes to the composition of the sentiment, not a rational only but also an animal element,
the thirst for retaliation; and this thirst derives its intensity, as well as its moral justification,
from the extraordinarily important and impressive kind of utility which is concerned. The
interest involved is that of security, to everyone’s feelings the most vital of all interests.
• Mill creates a distinction between legal rights and their
justification. He points out that when legal rights are not morally
justified in accordance to the greatest happiness principle, then
these rights need neither be observed, nor be respected. This is
like saying that there are instances when the law is not morally
justified and, in this case, even objectionable.
• While it can be justified why others violate legal rights, it is an act
of injustice to violate an individual’s moral rights. Going back to
the case of wiretapping, it seems that one’s right to privacy can be
sacrificed for the sake of the common good. This means that
moral rights are only justifiable by considerations of greater
overall happiness.
• In this sense, the Principle of Utility can theoretically obligate us
to steal, kill, and the like.
• There is runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks.

• Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to
move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing
some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this
lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However
you notice that there is one person on the side track.

• You have two options:

• Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track.

• Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will
kill one person.

• Which is the moral choice?

Let us complicate an already complicated moral
dilemma:
• A. what if the one person on the side track is your loved one?

• B. What if the 5 people are hardened criminals each guilty of a

heinous crime?

• C. What if the solitary person is a toddler while the 5 people are

all elderly and individually sick?