utilitarian and

pragmatic ethics
 HAPPINESS

as the ultimate goal of human

endeavor
 Utilitarianism
○ It is a philosophical view or theory about how
we should evaluate a wide range of things that
involve choices that people face.
○ A consequentialist theory
○ Extension of hedonism beyond mere selfish
pleasure to the pleasure of the group
○ Founding Father Jeremy Bentham
 Utilitarianism

○ In general, whatever is being evaluated, we ought to choose the one that will
produce the best overall results. In the language of utilitarians, we should
choose the option that “maximizes utility”
The central idea, according to utilitarianism, is that one should always act in such
a way as to bring about the greatest amount of happiness possible for those who
are affected by one’s actions. This principle is known as Utility or Greatest
Happiness Principle: the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

“
 Car Accident
A doctor witnesses a car accident.
In the car, there are three people.

1. A pregnant woman

2. The young woman’s husband

3. The woman’s father.

 All have an equal chance of
survival but he can only save
two person in time. One
person is bound to die
 Car Accident
 If the doctor was a utilitarian, he
would save
 The pregnant woman first – this
is because she and the baby
would have the
happiness/pleasure of two
people.
 The husband would be next
because the happiness of a new
family would outweigh the
happiness of one man.
 The old man would be left
because he has had his portion
of happiness
 Jeremy Bentham
 He was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer.

 He proved to be something of a child prodigy: while still a toddler he was discovered sitting
at his father's desk reading a multi-volume history of England, and he began to study Latin
at the age of three.

 He received his bachelor’s degree at 15 years old and master’s degree at 18 years old.

 Wrote ‘The Principles of Morals and Legislation’ in 1789 in which he proposed his ethical
theory of utilitarianism.
 Fundamentals of Utilitarianism

○ All humans by nature seek to attain pleasure and avoid pain.

○ All humans, by nature, seek utility.

Utility - tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or
happiness or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness
to the party whose interest is considered.
 Fundamentals of Utilitarianism

○ The community is a fictitious body, composed of individual persons who

are considered as constituting as it were its members.

○ Every individual’s utility counts the same as every other individual’s utility.

○ For Bentham, utility is judged quantitatively only.

 Bentham’s Seven Quantitative
Utilitarian Criteria

Intensity Duration Certainty

How strong is it? How long does it last? How likely is it to
happen?

Extent Propinquity
The number of people How near at hand is it?
affected by it.

Fecundity Purity
How likely is it to How free from pain is
produce more? it?
 Mill’s Utilitarianism
• Tried to reform utilitarianism so that quality, not just quantity, matters,
when evaluating utility.

• Some pleasures are ‘higher’ than others.

“It is better to be a human being satisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be
Socrates satisfied than a fool satisfied”

• The pleasures of the mind are higher than those of the body.
 BENTHAM J.S. MILL: Higher and Lower Pleasures

INTELLECTUAL
QUALITY of pleasure For Mill

H
G

H
R
E

I
QUANTITY of intellectual
pleasure. “…better to be a pleasures are
dissatisfied human being intrinsically
All pleasures than a pig satisfied; and more valuable
are of equal better to be a Socrates than physical
value. pleasures.
dissatisfied than a fool Those who have
satisfied” felt both kinds
W
O
R
E

L
will prefer
PHYSICAL intellectual
pleasures.
Act and Rule Utilitarianism
How do they differ?
Overall aim in evaluating actions should be to create the
best results possible.
 Act Utilitarians

○ Act utilitarians make decisions which promote the greatest pleasure

for the greatest number for a particular situation, without following
any principles, other than utility.
○ They assess each individual situation on its own merits.
 Rule Utilitarians

○ They stress the importance of moral rules.

○ According to them,
a. A specific action is morally justified if it conforms to a justified moral
rule.
b. A moral rule is justified if its inclusion into our moral code would create
more utility than other possible rules.
 Pragmatism

◉ This was developed in the U.S. during

post civil war period.
◉ A method and theory that could be of
tremendous utility in solving intellectual
problems and in forwarding man’s
progress.
 Pragmatism
KEY THINKERS

William James Charles Sanders Pierce John Dewey

 Pragmatism

◉William James shared the American

distrust of purely theoretical or
intellectual activity.
 A theory is true if it
works
It has been verified and has been found to deal successfully with
experience.
 Pragmatism and Ethics

○ Since truth is that which works, or yields satisfactory results in terms of our
experience, what is true, in these terms, turns out to be what is profitable for us to
believe, or what is good.

○ Thus, given a problem in human behavior, we can ask, “Would performing

certain actions be right in order to solve a given problem?”
 Pragmatism and Ethics

○ For the pragmatist there is no “fixed” world to be revealed by experience;

there is only a continuous quest to find workable solutions to life’s
problems.

○ The way to discover what is morally right or wrong is the same as when
seeking truth: a good action is one that works to solve a given problem.
 Relativism
Pragmatism cannot offer any absolute moral principles. We
must always act on the hypothesis that works, and this must
involve a purely subjective evaluation.