Jeremy Bentham’s:

Utilitarianism
Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Ansari
Recent Political thought
• Changing environments
• Revision of Liberalism
• Location of sovereignty
• Varieties of Socialism
• Idealism: search for an ideal political order
• Recent political thought: contributions
Introduction
• Utilitarianism is a theory of morality that advocates actions that foster
happiness or pleasure and oppose actions that cause unhappiness or
harm.
• When directed toward making social, economic, or political decisions, a
utilitarian philosophy would aim for the betterment of society as a whole.
• Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher, economist, jurist, and legal
reformer and the founder of modern utilitarianism,
• an ethical theory holding that actions are morally right if they tend to
promote happiness or pleasure (and morally wrong if they tend to
promote unhappiness or pain) among all those affected by them.
Origin
• The origins of Utilitarianism are often traced back to the Epicureanism
of the followers of the Greek philosopher Epicurus.
• It can be argued that David Hume and Edmund Burke were proto-
Utilitarians. But as a specific school of thought, it is generally credited to
the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham.
• Utilitarianism is one of the best known and most influential moral
theories.
• Like other forms of consequentialism, its core idea is that whether
actions are morally right or wrong depends on their effects. More
specifically, the only effects of actions that are relevant are the good and
bad results that they produce.
Utilitarianism: Greatest good of the greatest
number
• Principle of utility- practical commandment+ scientific law, ie ‘what
is’ & ‘what ought to be’,
• Rejects- abstract notion of natural rights, social contract, meta-
physical conviction.
• Insist on- logic of usefulness, good and expediency
• Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation- Nature has
placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters-
Pleasure and Pain. – Principle of utility as criterion of every action.
Principle of utility: characteristics
• 1. Utility- all that is good, pleasant, useful, agreeable, advantageous,
beneficial or all that is reverse of pain, In simple term- utility can be
identified with pleasure, unlike Economist definition it is not want
satisfying power of a commodity.
• 2. Utility possesses the power of motivation.
• 3. Incontrovertible fact of human psychology- swayed by happy & painful
consequences
• 4. Mathematical computation of pleasure and Pain- felicity calculus- on
two conditions 1. Each to be counted as one, none more than one 2. No
qualitative difference between pleasure and pain but quantitative only.
Cont…
• 5. Quantitative difference created by seven factors- intensity, duration
certainty, propenquity, purity, fecundity and extensiveness
• 6. Establishment of felicity calculus by summing up all the values of pleasure
on one side and all the pain on other.
• 7. Work of mathematical computation to be more accurate and objective
must consider simple (which could not be resolved into another) or complex
(which could be resolved into various simple ones) pleasure or pain.
• 8. Other factors like- health, strength, hardiness, physical imperfection,
quantity of knowledge, power of mind, moral sensibility, natural aptitude,
sanity, habit, financial status, sex, religious views, age, climate and
government should also be considered.
Conflict and sanctions:
• Condition- what gives maximum possible pleasure to the maximum
number of persons should prevail- in case of conflict, thus- makes it
universalistic and different from egoistic hedonism of the Greeks.
• Conflict- of one with individual’s pleasure with that of the many –
formula of the greatest happiness of greatest number is the answer.
• Four sanctions- as a deterrence to potential offenders of the rule of
conduct- 1. Physical or natural 2. Moral 3. Political 4. Religious.
Criticism
• Ethical and psychological foundation of hedonism- never a sound philosophy
• Utility is one of the factors not the only factor that motivats human actions
• Wrong to say pleasure has no qualitative difference.
• Felicity calculus is absurd- pleasure is subjective not objective unit
• Confuses sphere of state activity, as acting as per formula of greatest good of
Greatest numbers being practically impossible to realize makes rulers despotic or
promotes majoritarianism.
• Atomization conception of society as believed by Benthem, militates against
individual as he considers vain to talk of interest of individual as interest of
community is interest of individual
• Reconciliation of egoism with altruism creates difficulty.