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Utilitarian Part I
Utilitarian Part I
UTILITARIANISM UTILITARIAN
What is the “Good”?
• Utilitarianism takes its name from the concept of utility, meaning the use or benefits to be
derived from an action or situation.
The Greatest Good (Cont’d)
?
• Utilitarianism usually state that “the greatest good
means the greatest happiness.”
What is the “Good”? (Cont’d)
• Everybody wants to be happy.
• It is the one universal thing that everybody desires and agrees is a good thing.
• So if everybody desires happiness, perhaps happiness is the universal good that provides a satisfactory
criterion for determining what is ethical or moral and what is unethical or immoral.
• The moral thing to do is whatever maximize happiness; the immoral thing to do is whatever minimizes
happiness and maximizes unhappiness.
Jeremy Bentham: Pleasures and Pains
• Second, it is argued that pleasure and pain are the wrong measures of
happiness and unhappiness.
Human being dissatisfied ~ A pig satisfied
Socrates dissatisfied ~ A fool satisfied
John Stuart Mill
They also say “We should not be willing to trade these things away for a certain
• Most modern utilitarian believe that Bentham’s equation of happiness with simple pleasure and the
absence of pain is too narrow.
• Therefore, they either agree with Mill by making qualitative distinctions between types of
pleasures and pains.
The Quality of Happiness (Cond’t)
and the minimization of human unhappiness (or human harm or costs) is the goal of morality.
• Utilitarianism make sense that we have a moral duty to behave in ways that create as
many benefits for human society as possible, and to avoid as much as possible the
• So there is no doubt that utilitarianism has a strong hold on our moral thinking and
reasoning.
Thank You!