UTILITARIANISM

An Introduction to the Moral

Theories of Jeremy Bentham
and John Stuart Mill
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) John Stuart Mill (1808-
73) are British philosophers who had immense impact
in British thought. Bentham was the head of a group
of reformers called “the philosophical radicals” whose
members included James Mill and his son, John Stuart
Mill. Bentham and the younger Mill are considered
the main proponents of the moral theory called
utilitarianism.
 UTILITARIANISM
EXPLAINED 》》》》》》》》》》》
 TELEOLOGICAL
• ethical system judges the rightness of an act in terms
of an external goal or purpose.
• It basis in the cetermination of what one ought(or
ought not)to do rests exclusively on the
consequences of the act,not the nature of the act nor
the traditional moral rules.
 CONSEQUENTIALIST
ETHICS
• Proposes that actions, rules, or policies
should be ethically measured and
evaluated by their consequences, not by
intentions or motives of the agents. As
opposed to absolutists who hold that some
actions are intrinsically wrong and must
never be done no matter what the results
are, consequentialists suppose that
there is no kind of act which may not be
justified by its effects.
 UTILITARIANISM
DERIVED FROM:
• Latin term UTILIS which means 'useful',
utilitarianism basically states that what is
useful is good, and that the moral value of
actions are determined by the utility of its
consequences.
• Actions that bring about favorable effects are
moral while those that produce damaging
results are immoral.
• Utilitarianism opposed to ethical theories that
consider God's will or some inner some inner
sense or faculty, like the conscience, to be the
final arbiter of morality.
 UTILITARIAN ETHICS

• argues that the right course of action is

one that maximizes overall happiness.
• It general, it puts forward that an action is
right if it amplifies pleasures and
minimizes.
 PARTICULAR ACTIONS OR GENERAL
RULES

• Act: An Action is right if and • Rule: An action is right if and only

only if it produces the greatest if it conforms to a set of rules the
balance of pleasure over pain general acceptance of which
for the greatest number. would produce the greatest
(Jeremy Bentham) balance of pleasure over pain for
the greatest number. (John
Stuart Mill)
 ACT UTILITARIANISM

•The principle of utility is applied directly to each

alternative act in a situation of choice. The right act is
then defined as the one which brings about the best
results (or the least amount of bad results).
 ACT UTILITARIANISM

• Criticisms of this view point to the difficulty of

attaining a full knowledge and certainly of the
consequences of our actions.
• It is possible to justify immoral acts using AU:
Suppose you could end a regional war by torturing
children whose fathers are enemy soliders, thus
revealing the hide outs of the fathers.
 RULE
UTILITARIANISM
• The principle of utility is used to determine the
validity of rules of conduct (moral principles). A rule
like promise-keeping is established by looking at the
consequences of a world in which people broke
promises at will and a world in which promises were
binding. Right and wrong are then defined as
following or breaking those rules.
 RULE UTILITARIANISM

• One of the criticism against this view is that it is

possible to produce unjust rules according to the
principle of utility.
• For example,"slavery in Greece might be right if it led
to an overall achievement of cultivated happiness at
the ex of some mistreated individuals."
Jeremy
Bentham
 BENTHAM UTILITARIANISM
(QUANTITATIVE)

•Bentham explains that

'utility' as "that property in any object, whereby it
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."
BENTHAM’S FORMULATION OF
UTILITARIANISM
• Man is under two great masters, pain and pleasure.
• He observes that people act in their own interests.
• The great good that we should seek is happiness. (a
hedonistic perspective)
• Those actions whose results increase happiness or
diminish pain are good. They have “utility.”
 FORMULATIONS OF UTILITARIAN
THEORY
Principle of We ought to do
Utility: that which
The best action is produces the
that which greatest happiness
produces the and least pain for
greatest the greatest
happiness and/or number of people.
reduces pain.
 APPLICATION OF UTILITARIAN
THEORY
• If you can use eighty soldiers as a decoy in war, and
thereby attack an enemy force and kill several hundred
enemy soldiers, that is a morally good choice even
though the eighty might be lost.
• If lying or stealing will actually bring about more
happiness and/or reduce pain, Act Utilitarianism says we
should lie and steal in those cases.
FOR BENTHAM
•Nothing else but pleasure is intrinsically
good.
•4 Sanction/Sources of Pleasure
1.Physical-basis of all the others.
2.Moral
3.Religious Giving emphasize on
4.Political only one kind of
pleasure,Bentham gives
no importance to the
"quality of pleasures.".
 THE UTILITARIAN CALCULUS

• Math and ethics finally merge: all consequences must

be measured and weighed.
• Units of measurement:
• Hedons: positive
• Dolors: negative
 JEREMY BENTHAM’S HEDONISTIC
CALCULUS(QUANTITATIVE WORTH OF PLEASURES)

• In determining the quantity of happiness that might

be produced by an action, we evaluate the possible
consequences by applying several values:
• Intensity, duration, certainty or uncertainty,
propinquity or remoteness, fecundity or fruitfulness,
purity, and extent to which pleasure are shared
among the greatest number of people.
 CRITICISMS OF BENTHAM’S
THEORY
Bentham’s theory could mean that if 10 people would be
happy watching a man being eaten by wild dogs, it would
be a morally good thing for the 10 men to kidnap
someone (especially someone whose death would not
cause grief to many others) and throw the man into a
cage of wild, hungry dogs.
 MILL'S
UTILITARIANISM
• John Stuart Mill advocates the greatest happiness
principle which states that it is the greatest
happiness of the greatest number that is the
measure of right and wrong. Mill distinguished
between lower and higher pleasures. Physical
pleasure belongs to the lower pleasure or those
which animals too can experience, such as those
from food , drink and sex.
• Mill basically means “intellectual” on a higher
pleasure which includes artistic, political and spiritual
pleasures. Mill only wants qualitative distinctions
among pleasure and considered Qualitative Hedonist.
• Mill denies the identification of the term happiness
with physical pleasure and the absence of pain and
the concept of Unhappiness with pain and absence of
bodily pleasure.
 JOHN STUART MILL’S
ADJUSTMENTS TO
UTILITARIANISM
• Mill argues that we must consider the quality of the
happiness, not merely the quantity.
• For example, some might find happiness with a pitcher of
beer and a pizza. Others may find happiness watching a
fine Shakespearean play. The quality of happiness is
greater with the latter.
 CRITICISMS OF UTILITARIANISM

If I am to bring the greatest happiness to the

greatest number, not putting my own
happiness above others, that may lead to a
dilemma. I live in a neighborhood where 83%
of my neighbors use drugs. I could make
them most happy by helping supply them
with cheap drugs, but I feel uncomfortable
doing that. What should a utilitarian do?
 CRITICISMS OF UTILITARIANISM

• Bernard Williams criticizes the implied “doctrine of

negative responsibility” in Utilitarianism. For example,
a thug breaks into my home and holds six people
hostage, telling us he will kill all of us. “However,” the
thug says, “if you will kill two of your family, I will let
you and the other three live.”
• With Utilitarianism, the good thing to do is to kill two
members of my family.
CRITICISMS OF UTILITARIANISM

• Utilitarianism plays fast and loose with God’s

commandments. If lying, stealing, or killing could
lead to an increase of happiness for the greatest
number, we are told we should lie, steal or kill. Isn’t
that a rejection of God’s commands?
 AN ANALYSIS OF
UTILITARIANISM
• Utilitarianism appears to be direct
negative reaction against Kantian
ethics.While kant proposes that an act is
justified by the person's motive to
perform his duty, Bentham and Mill
counteract this by submitting that actions
are evaluated through their
consequences.
• Utilitarianism has transcultural appeal as all sentient
beings understand pain and pleasure . It proves an
action to be right or wrong by pointing to observable
evidence.
• Utilitarianism also allows for exceptions to the rules if
justified by the consequences. It is also impractical
and improbable to find out in advance,whether they
pleased or hurt and to what extent they will be
affected .
• Utilitarianism's principle that the total
number of outcomes should be considered
before an act can be declared to be right or
wrong is also problematic.For if we take
into account only the immediate amount of
pleasure and pain,we may be misguided
because the act may yieod a different
brand of long range effects may be
extremely detrimental.
• But if we can not determine the rightness
or wrongness of an action until we identify
all of its outcomes and we shall have to
wait considerably long for there may be a
countless amount of consequences,then
the theory is none less than impractical.
• These comments are somehow addressed
by Mill's introduction of secondary
principles', that is those experience-based
'practical rules' which teach us actions
more or less would yield good results and
which would not.
• We may argue that this supplementary
principle by Mill is not purely utilitarian and
can even viewed as supporting Kant's
categorical imperative.
• In such a case,we may ask Mill",Did we act
wrongly in acting upon'secondary
principles' or did we act rightly?"If he
answers that we act rightly ,then he in
effect rejects utilitarianism's core dictum
that a right action is one that yields
favorable outcomes.And if he replies that
we acted wrongly then his doctrine on
secondary principles should be ignored.
• Finally,Utilitarianism definitely
indicates that an act is right even if it
is done from an evil motive as long as
it brings about advantageous effects.
• Obviously,a society in which all
people act from evil motives is a
creepy place to live in regardless of
the consequences of their actions.
BUSINESS'S FASCINATION WITH
UTILITARIANISM
• Utilitarianism basically teaches that
a decision regarding business
conduct is proper if and only if that
decision generates the greatest
good for the greatest number of
people.
 BUSINESS'S FASCINATION WITH
UTILITARIANISM

• A pharmaceutical company,for
instance,may operate by the principle
that it will release any officially approved
drug with some side effects as lomg as it
aids more persona combat a specific
disease than the number bothered by a
minor side effect.On act utilitarian
grounds,if the benefits are adequately
great and the problems with the side
effects satisfactorily limited,then the
action of the pharmaceutical company
may be justified.
• Like utilitarians,business
executives recognizes that not
everybody will benefit from a
particular action.Thus,utilitarian
emphasis is on the net utility of
the set of outcomes resulting
from a decision being considered.