UTILITARIANISM

 In reality, utility is defined as pleasure itself, and the absence of pain. Thus, another name
for utility is the Greatest Happiness Principle.
 This principle holds that "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote
happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is
intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of
pleasure."
 However, utilitarianism does not say that it is moral for people simply to pursue what
makes them personally happy. Rather, morality is dictated by the greatest happiness
principle; moral action is that which increases the total amount of utility in the world.
Pursuing one's own happiness at the expense of social happiness would not be moral
under this framework.
 Mill argues that utility is not simply a measurement of the psychological feeling of
pleasure; rather, there are different qualities of pleasure, and only people with a broad
range of experiences can dictate which pleasures are of a higher quality. Thus, all
actions and experiences are not judged by one reductive standard, but rather
according to a variety of different qualities of pleasure in correspondence with the type
of experience. Higher pleasures would be weighted heavily by utilitarianism, and Mill
argues that they are therefore not cheapened by the utility measurement.

The Classical Version of the Theory

 Classical Utilitarianism can be summed up in three propositions:
a) The morality of an action depends solely on the consequences of the action;
nothing else matters.
b) An action’s consequences matter only insofar as they involve the greater or lesser
happiness of individuals.
c) In the assessment of consequences, each individual’s happiness gets equal
consideration. This means that equal amounts of happiness always count equally;
nobody’s well-being matters more just because he is rich, or powerful or
handsome, or a man rather than a woman. Morally everyone counts the same.
 According to Classical Utilitarianism, an action is right if it produces the greatest overall
balance of happiness over unhappiness.

Is Pleasure All That Matters?

 The question ‘What things are good?’ is different from the question ‘What actions are
right?’ and Utilitarianism answers the second question by reference to the first.
 Right actions are the ones that produce the most good.
 The utilitarian version of good is happiness and happiness is pleasure.
 The point is that pleasure is the one ultimate good and pain the one ultimate evil.
 Utilitarian’s understand pleasure to include all mental states that feel good.
 Consider this example:
o You think someone is your friend, but he ridicules you behind your back. No one
tells you so you never know. Is this unfortunate for you? Hedonists would have to
say it is not, because you are never caused any pain. Yet we believe that
something bad is going on. You are being mistreated, even though you are
unaware of it and suffer no unhappiness.
 We value things other than pleasure, e.g. friendship.
 These things make use happy, but that’s not the only reason we value them. It seems
like a misfortune to lose them, even if there is no loss of happiness.
 It is for this reason that most present day-day utilitarian’s reject the classical assumption
of Hedonism. Some of them bypass the question of what’s good, saying only that right
actions are the ones that have the best results, however that is measured.
 G. E. Moore suggested that there are three obvious intrinsic goods – pleasure, friendship
and aesthetic enjoyment – and so right actions are those actions that increase the
world’s supply of these things.
 Still others say that we should act so as to maximise the satisfaction of peoples
preferences.

Are consequences all that matter?

 To determine whether an action is right, utilitarians believe that we should look at will
happen as a result of doing it.
 If things other than consequences are important in determining what is right, then
Utilitarianism is incorrect.
 Arguments that attack the theory at just this point:
o Justice – The case put forward by H. J. McCloskey in which false testimony is given
and an innocent man is convicted in order to stop riots and lynching’s resulting in
many lives being saved. According to utilitarianism, bearing false testimony is the
way forward as it achieves the best outcome, lying is the thing to do.
It is wrong to bring about the conviction of an innocent person and so
Utilitarianism must be incorrect.
Utilitarianism conflicts with the ideal of justice. Justice requires us to treat people
fairly, according to the merits of their particular situations. In this example,
Utilitarianism requires that someone be treated unfairly. Therefore, Utilitarianism
cannot be right.
o Rights – Utilitarianism says that actions are defensible if they produce a favourable
balance of happiness over unhappiness.
In the case of York vs Story, Utilitarianism would say that Officer Story was right in
taking the photographs of Ms. York undressed because the amount of pleasure
experienced by Officer Story and his friends outweighed the unhappiness caused
to Ms. York. Such reasoning is irrational, Story and his friends had no right to treat
Ms. York in the manner they did, and the fact that they enjoyed doing so is
irrelevant.
A similar case would be that of a Peeping Tom who violates the rights of women
by secretly taking pictures of them and keeping the pictures to himself. No one,
including the woman photographed is caused any unhappiness at all. How then
could a utilitarian accept the actions of a Peeping Tom when the rights of a
human being are being violated.
According to utilitarianism, an individuals rights may always be trampled upon if
enough people benefit from the trampling.
Utilitarianism has thus been accused of supporting the “tyranny of the majority”:
if the majority of people would take pleasure in someone’s rights being abused,
then those rights should be abused, because the pleasure of the majority
outweighs the suffering of the one.
o Backward-looking reasons – A small gain in happiness cannot overcome the
obligation created by a promise, the obligation should mean something morally.
Utilitarianism cares only about the consequences.
Utilitarianism makes the past irrelevant and so it seems flawed.
Should we be equally concerned for everyone?
The charge that Utilitarianism is too demanding
 Faithful adherence to Utilitarianism would require one to give away all they wealth until
they have made themselves as poor as the people they are helping. Or rather, you’d
need to leave yourself just enough to maintain your job, so that you can keep on giving.
Such actions are supererogatory.
 The problem is not merely that Utilitarianism would require us to give away most of our
things. It would also prevent us from carrying on with our lives. We all have goals and
projects that make our lives meaningful. But an ethic that requires us to promote the
general welfare to the maximum extent possible would force us to abandon those
endeavours.
The charge that Utilitarianism disrupts our personal relationships
 In practice, none of us is willing to treat everyone equally, because that would require
us to give up our special ties to friends and family.
 Utilitarianism argues that we should treat everyone equally, one’s spouse should not care
for they spouse no more than they care about complete strangers.

The defence of Utilitarianism

Contesting the consequences
 Lying, violating people’s rights, breaking one’s promises and severing one’s intimate
relationships all have bad consequences.
 While it is true that most acts of false witness and the like have bad consequences, it
cannot be said that all such acts have bad consequences.
 At least once in a while, one can bring about a good result by doing something
repugnant to moral common sense.
 Theories like Utilitarianism are supposed to apply to all situations, including situations that
are merely hypothetical.
 Read Rachels, J. and Rachels, S. (2015). The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 8th ed. New
York: McGraw-Hill Education, pp.119-120.
The Principle of Utility is a guide for choosing rules, not acts
 What we’ve looked at so far is called ‘act utilitarianism’. Every act is to be assessed for
its ability to promote utility
 But not only is this laborious and perhaps unworkable, it results in morally counter-intuitive
outcomes
 Perhaps we should move to ‘rule utilitarianism’: i.e. acts are no longer assessed per se,
but by whether they conform to utility-maximising rules
 This seems more workable, and to avoid morally worrying outcomes
 But what about cases where breaking a rule is overwhelmingly more useful? If we allow
exceptions to rules, will rule utilitarianism collapse into act?
 If we stick to rules, this looks like ‘rule worship’ (Smart). I.e. importing an extra-utilitarian
standard of correctness
 A ‘two level’ proposal: ‘government house utilitarianism’
 But the very idea of a ‘critical’ minority manipulating an ‘intuitive’ majority seems morally
problematic. It involves mass deception and esoteric knowledge. Not only
consequences matter, but how they are brought about
 This proposal drives a wedge between value theory and the theory of right action
 Is the proposal even viable? Could utilitarian goals be achieved in such an indirect
manner?
 Read Rachels, J. and Rachels, S. (2015). The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 8th ed. New
York: McGraw-Hill Education, pp.120-122.
“Common Sense” is Wrong
 All values have a Utilitarian Basis
 Our gut reactions can’t be trusted when cases are exceptional – Although some cases
of injustice serve the common good, those cases are exceptions. Lying, promise
breaking, and violations of privacy usually lead to unhappiness, not happiness.
Throughout our lives we have seen lies lead to misery and misfortune, thus we instinctively
condemn all lies.
But when we condemn lies that are beneficial, our intuitive faculties are misfiring.
Experience has taught us to condemn lies because they reduce happiness. Now,
however, we are condemning lies that increase happiness. When confronting unusual
cases, such as McCloskey’s (false witness), perhaps we should trust the Principle of Utility
more than our gut instincts.
 We should focus on all the consequences – When we are asked to consider a
“despicable” action that maximises happiness, the action is often presented in a way
that encourages us to focus on its bad effects, rather than on its good effects. If instead
we focus on all the effects of the act, Utilitarianism will seem more plausible.
 Read Rachels, J. and Rachels, S. (2015). The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 8th ed. New
York: McGraw-Hill Education, pp.122-123.
 Bentham's method of estimating pleasures and pains can be applied to egoistic
hedonism. With the addition of the utilitarian factor "extent" of pleasure, the hedonism
can be extended to any number of persons.
 Utilitarianism is the moral theory that an action is morally right if and only if it is productive
of the most utility (happiness, pleasure) for the greatest number of persons. Bentham
believed the right act is the act which of all those open to the agent, will actually or
probably produce the greatest amount of pleasure in the world-at-large. Pleasure and
pain form the basis of the standard of right and wrong.
 Bentham lists benefit, advantage, good, or happiness as suitable paraphrases of
pleasure. The good of the community is simply the sum of the pleasures of the individuals
who compose it.
 The main problem for the calculus is calculating the interpersonal utility comparison
using cardinal utility measurement rather than ordinal measurement.
 John Stuart Mill's addition of the quality of pleasures later (in terms of higher and lower
pleasures) is neglected for the moment since his distinction is patently qualitative rather
than quantitative.
The Modified Hedonistic Calculus:
 The major factors of sensations of pleasure and pain resulting from an action as
outlined by Bentham are summarized by these variables.
The first four variables (intensity, duration, certainty, and propinquity) show the value of
the pleasure or the pain "considered by itself." This phrase implies Bentham did not see
pleasure and pain as polar concepts or contraries.
The next two variables (fecundity and purity) are properties of the event or action
produced by the pleasure or pain-—not properties of the pleasure or pain, itself.

1. Intensity (I)--How intense is the pleasure or pain?

2. Duration (D)--How long does the pleasure of pain last?
3. Certainty (C)--What is the probability that the pleasure or pain will occur?
4. Propinquity (nearness or remoteness) (N)--How far off in the future is the pleasure
or pain?
5. Fecundity (F)--What is the probability that the pleasure will lead to other
pleasures?
6. Purity (P)--What is the probability that the pain will lead to other pains?
7. Extent (E)--How many persons are affected by the pleasure?