UTILITARIAN PRINCIPLE: promoting the greatest good or happiness or pleasure (these are all the same) for the greatest number.
Textbook example: Since 1937, close to a thousand people have thrown themselves off the Golden Gate Bridge.
Some people have wanted to put up a barrier on the bridge to keep people from jumping off.
Some say this barrier would cost too much or destroy the view.
Won't really prevent suicides
Which point of view is more important?
How do we decide?
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: JEREMY BENTHAM and JOHN STUART MILL
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
Radical legal reformer (coined the term "radical" meaning one that goes to the root.
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
{talk about Bentham's "panopticon" prison}
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), son of Bentham's friend James Mill
Talk about Education (Greek at three, Latin at six)
Breakdown--recovered by reading Romantic poetry
Social Reformer: women can vote, blacks can't be slaves.
Utilitarianism 1861: Principle of the greatest good for the greatest number:
Difference between Qualitative and Quantitative pleasures.
Mill wrote: On Liberty 1859 Statement of "Classical Liberalism"
Limits of the right of society and government to legislate the activities of individuals: Principle of VERIFIABLE HARM.
Utilitarians: progressives: believed we could achieve a better, brighter world
Mill: All the grand sources of human suffering are in a great degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort
[Question: do you agree with this?]
THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY--pg. 49, 2
Basic Principle--two versions:
The Principle of Utility
The morally best (or better) alternative is that which produces the greatest (or greater) net utility, where utility is defined in terms of happiness or pleasure 49,2
The Greatest-Happiness Principle--49, 2
We ought to do that which produces the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.
[Question: Is pleasure the same as happiness?
How could happiness be the highest good?]
A CONSEQUENTIALIST PRINCIPLE
UTILITARIANISM is TELEOLOGICAL in orientation.
Stress is on the END or GOAL of actions.
CONSEQUENTIALIST: In order to evaluate human acts or practices, we do not consider the nature of the acts or practices nor the motive for which people do what they do. (50)
[Question: what does this mean?]
DIAGRAM FOR THIS:
What matters is the result:
If you save someone from drowning because you're hoping for a reward, that's just as moral as saving someone out of PURE ALTRUISM
We makes things right or wrong is the final consequence
THE INTRINSIC GOOD: PLEASURE OR HAPPINESS
Key issue of Utilitarianism.
Classical utilitarianism is a pleasure or happiness theory.
Naturalistic: finding the good in something in human experience!
Some other happiness or pleasure theories:
Aristotle: our highest aim (telos) is the achievement of happiness
But: happiness pleasure
Epicureanism: goal of rational pleasure: avoiding distress and desires for things beyond one's basic needs.
Mental pleasure and APPROPRIATE physical pleasures the goal.
HEDONISM {greek. Hedon = pleasure}: pleasure is the highest good
PURE HEDONISM: A life completely devoted to pleasure
The Marquis de Sade, Philosophy in the Boudoir
According to Bentham: "two sovereign masters: PAIN and PLEASURE
Everything else is good or bad only insofar as it produces pleasure
Fame, fortune, education, freedom, etc. = INSTRUMENTAL GOODS
HAPPINESS & PLEASURE = INTRINSIC GOODS
[Question: what about the identification of pleasure and happiness?]
What does it mean to get pleasure out of something?
Utilitarianism a CALCULATIVE theory of morality--greatest QUANTITY of pleasure or happiness
How do you CALCULATE the maximum amount of pleasure or happiness?
[Question: are avoiding pain and seeking pleasure enough?]
51 CALCULATING THE GREATEST AMOUNT OF HAPPINESS
Utilitarianism is not EGOISTIC: greatest happiness for the GREATEST NUMBER--not only ourselves, but others (and ourselves also)
It is a UNIVERSALISTIC theory of morality: the happiness or pleasure of EVERYONE has to be taken into account.
Everyone is counted equally
Page 51, 1: Act A makes me happy and two other people unhappy
Act B--makes me unhappy but five others happy
Example: Your two nephews want to go the circus, you don't want to go to the circus, you want to watch Thursday night TV.
How do you balance between what would make you happy and what would make them happy?
Happiness of two people v. the unhappiness of one person.
What else needed?
FIVE ELEMENTS: net amount, intensity, duration, fruitfulness, likelihood of any act to produce it.
CALULATIVE SUM: Pleasure minus pain equals net happiness
Anything we do to produce pleasure is going to produce some pain, if not for ourselves, then for someone else.
{No pain, no gain?}
[Question: examples?]
MAIN UTILITARIAN IDEA: Pain is intrinsically bad, pleasure is intrinsically good.
Goal: trying to find the NET happiness or unhappiness.
Bentham: believed exact calculations were available: units of HEDONS
[Question: can we CALCULATE happiness?]
Intensity--
Some forms of pleasure are more intense than others.
Could we make a scale of pleasure INTENSITY? and use it to calculate?
Duration how long does a pleasure last?
Figuring this into the calculations
Fruitfulness: Get into a different kind of measure: how WORTHWHILE is this pleasure?
A lot depends on the LONG-TERM results.
Going to the dentist: painful--but long run pleasure gained.
Likelihood: are you going have pleasure from this.
What is the likelihood. Gambling.
Also fit into the calculations [see calculations pp. 51-52].
52,2 QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF PLEASURE
Bentham and Mill had a disagreement over this issue.
Bentham: no difference in KINDS of PLEASURES.
"Pushpin is equal to poetry"
(Action-adventure movie (Sylvester Stallone movie) v. a critically acclaimed film (Ivory-Merchant film))
Aesthetic or intellectual pleasure not better than a more BASE pleasure.
Mill believed that the QUALITY of a pleasure counts.
Mill: intellectual pleasures are better--qualitatively better--than base pleasures.
Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.
Mill: we value the kind of pleasures as well as the amount of pleasure.
53,1 Question of how to EVALUATE UTILITARIANISM.
Can we really FIGURE OUT the GREATEST AMOUNT OF PLEASURE OR HAPPINESS?
EVALUATING UTILITARIANISM
APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE
Utilitarian answer to some of these criticisms:
We can't do this PERFECTLY, but we can do it BETTER or WORSE
No moral theory is simple in its application.
But: when we consider these variables, we can make better choices.
Major criticisms of utilitarianism:
1. Can we weigh our own happiness above the happiness of others.
Giving more weight to our own projects or our own children v. other people's projects or children.
(Ethical Theory: greatest happiness for the GREATEST NUMBER: what about my, your, own happiness?)
May be contrary to COMMON SENSE: Is it immoral to do things for yourself or your family, friends?
[Question: how could utilitarians respond to this? Giving preference to ourself might help achieve that happiness]
ENDS AND MEANS 54, 1
Critique of this CONSEQUENTIALISM: Does it imply that:
"the end justifies the mean?"
As a consequentialist moral theory, Utilitarianism holds that it is the consequences or ends of actions that determine whether particular means to them are justified (54).
Problem: Could utilitarianism justify punishing an innocent person as a "SCAPEGOAT"?
Someone kills the leader, everyone is unhappy, someone has to be punished, the killer can't be found.
One person is picked out and punished, everyone happy.
POSSIBLE BALANCING ACT
One person's [ultimate] unhappiness, v. the happiness of many.
Utilitarians might respond that such a thing would do more Long-run harm than good.
Another criticism against Utilitarianism is that it justifies any action just so long as it has better consequences than other available actions.
Therefore: something morally wrong might be justified on the grounds that it produces a good consequence
ACT AND RULE UTILITARIANISM 54 c2
Act v. Rule Utilitarianism Two different approaches to Utilitarianism:
One based on finding the greatest happiness with each ACTION
The Second based on finding the SET OF RULES that will lead to the GREATEST HAPPINESS
Act--the first--the consequence justifies the action--we look at each act separately
55, 1 {Act Utilitarianism: Consider the consequences of this act of promise keeping/breaking.}
55,1 Rule Utilitarianism: (a little bit of Kant mixed in): we consider the consequences of an act performed as a general practice.
{Rule Utilitarianism: Consider the consequences of the practice of promise keeping/breaking} 55 c1
BIG QUESTION HERE: What if EVERYONE did that?
"Honesty is the best policy" a good RULE OF THUMB for thinking about ethical situations.
Still a consequentialist approach, but with general moral rules
[Question: (is this still utilitarianism?]
Some RULE UTILITARIANS look at sets of moral rules.
Do they promote the best consequences--the greatest good for the greatest number?
How do we evaluate situations where rules conflict?
Now let's look at some CONTEMPORARY versions of UTILITARIANISM.
REMEMBER: importance of utilitarianism for MAKING POLICY DECISIONS.
WHO WILL THIS EFFECT. HOW TO MAKE THE MOST DEFENSIBLE CHOICES AMONG DIFFICULT OPTIONS.
56 CONTEMPORARY VERSIONS
PREFERENCE UTILITARIANISM
Affinities with MARKET RESEARCH: Preference Satisfaction
Problems with being able to MEASURE and COMPARE human feeling of HAPPINESS and PLEASURE.
One alternative is PREFERENCE SATISFACTION
Preference Utilitarianism: (pg 56-57)
The action that is best is the one that satisfies the most preferences, either in themselves or according to their strength or their order of importance.
Example: Democratic Election: we count the preferences of the voters.
Limited: no account of STRENGTH of preferences or RANK ORDER of SECONDARY CHOICES
POLLING: related here: Golden Gate Bridge suicide poll:
54% opposed putting up a barrier.
Best choice: satisfy the majority of preferences and not build the barrier.
[Question: what might some criticisms be here of this method:
1. how accurate was the poll:
how informed were those polled--possibility of propaganda
was the poll done scientifically?
2. If the majority of people PREFER something, does that make it right?]
Implied Preferences: people DO what they PREFER
If lots of people visit National Parks, that shows people appreciate them.
If you want to find out whether people prefer sports cars or four-wheel drives, look at what they buy.
Basic principles of MARKET RESEARCH
[Question: do anyone take marketing? How do you find out if there is a market for something?]
Problems with the theory:
A. Any preference seems to count equally with any other, no matter if it is helping or hurting others.
Possible Answer: only SELF-REGARDING preferences.
If what we prefer for others will harm them, our preferences won't be considered.
[Question: is this an adequate response to this objection?
Is PREFERENCE UTILITARIANISM a good thing?]
57: COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
Version of UTILITARIANISM
One policy is better than another if it is least costly compared to the benefits expected (57).
[Question: what kind of measure are we talking about here?
MONEY!--usually]
Cost-benefit analysis is a measure of EFFICIENCY
Problem:
[Question: how do we put a dollar value on INTANGIBLES:
individual freedom
a human life][Question: How much is a HUMAN LIFE WORTH?
How much money would you take for a lifetime of pain?]
Frequently: we implicitly or explicitly make these kind of dollar assignments.
Insurance companies.
What are people willing to pay to reduce their risk of death by a certain amount.
How much additional compensation would people accept to do a job in which the risk to their lives is correspondingly increased.
$$$$ amount.
[Question: how would this work in the Golden Gate Bridge example?]
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TURN TO UTILITARIANISM, by John Stuart Mill
Book Utilitarianism first published in Frazier's Magazine, 1861.
Book: a long magazine article.
First section: What Utilitarianism Is excerpts from Chapter 2
Statement of the: UTILITY PRINCIPLE or GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE
Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. (59)
So:
HAPPINESS = pleasure and the absence of pain
UNHAPPINESS = pain and the privation of pleasure
Important question: what are pleasure and pain?
PLEASURE and the FREEDOM FROM PAIN are the only things DESIRABLE AS ENDS.
Everything else is desired as a MEANS TO THIS END.
59, 2: Epicureans (ancient Greek philosophical group)
--humans are capable of higher pleasures than swine.
Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites and, when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification (59 c2).
Question: what does this mean: humans have more elevated faculties of pleasure than animals?
A: is this true?
B: how does this fit into Mill's version of Utilitarianism?
KEY POINT: HIGHER PLEASURES V. LOWER PLEASURES
Pleasures of the MIND v. pleasures of the BODY
The former are more permanent, safer, less costly.
THIS LEADS TO THE NEXT QUESTION:
How to determine differences in quality of pleasure:
(60) SOME PLEASURES ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS
Point here is about the difference in QUALITY OF PLEASURES
-->> basic part of Mill's version of utilitarianism.
How do you figure this out?
Ask someone who has experienced BOTH
==>which do they prefer?
60 c1
If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account.
Employment of higher faculties will be preferred
Mill calls this: an "unquestionable fact"
Question: {Can it be questioned?}
MILL'S ARGUMENT: pg. 60
No intelligent human being would consent to being changed into a lower animal. Or would rather be a dunce or a fool or an ignoramus than be wise. No person of feeling or conscience would be selfish or base
even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.
Better to be conscious of an imperfect happiness, than not to be conscious of it.
60 c2:
a being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and certainly accessible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence.
Question: Agree? Disagree? What does he mean by "a being of higher faculties?
bottom of 60 c2, top of 61:
It is better to a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the pig are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.
People that pick the lower over the higher do so out of infirmity of CHARACTER. (Where does Character come from?)
Mill complains that people lose their high aspirations as they get older.
61c1
Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying.
Big question: How to decide a ranking of pains and pleasures
===> through an appeal to FEELING and EXPERIENCE.
But also: by considering the pleasures of the HIGHER FACULTIES
THE MORAL STANDARD
Here Mill is trying to establish the principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number as the standard for morality.
61 Greatest happiness for the greatest number, not the greatest happiness of a particular individual
Utilitarianism requires a general cultivation of nobleness of character.
Mill's move: greatest happiness principle: the end of human action,
therefore:
61 c1 The standard of morality & "the rules and precepts of human conduct.
62 WHAT SORT OF PROOF IS THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY SUSCEPTIBLE
Mill says that questions of ultimate ends ===>
do not admit to absolute proof.
62: Questions about ends are questions about what is DESIRABLE.
Utilitarian doctrine: happiness is desirable.
Final end--everything else is a means to that end
PROOF OF UTILITARIANISM: 62 c1-c2
Only proof that something is visible is that people see it
Only proof that sound is audible is that people hear it
Only proof that something is desirable is that people desire it.
No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable
Except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness.
We can have no other proof, and we require no other that these are the only things desirable.
UTILITARIANISM is an EMPIRICIST ETHICAL THEORY!
It draws it EVIDENCE from EXPERIENCE!
Back to Textbook:
Mill's Problem: HOW TO EMPIRICALLY PROVE AN ETHICAL THEORY
Proofs of ethical theories are different than proofs of scientific theories.
Mill's argument:
Only proof that something is desirable is that people desire it.
No REASON can be given why the general happiness is DESIRABLE
Except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness.
Happiness is the only thing we desire for its own sake
Everything else we desire, we desire because it will lead to happiness
Happiness/pleasure is the only INTRINSIC good
All other goods are INSTRUMENTAL goods
--> They are good insofar as they lead to happiness/pleasure
[Question: does this make sense? Is happiness the FINAL END?]
[GIVE EXAMPLES OF THINGS: reading, eating, Question: what do you find pleasurable? Sex?--is it for its own sake?]
[Question: is this requirement empty?]
56: CRITICISM OF THE THEORY
Analogy between: visible, audible and desirable doesn't hold up.
"a-ble" Difference between being able to see or hear something and actually seeing or hearing it.
With desirable: Mill needs to prove not only that we can desire happiness but that it is worth being desired.
[Question: How come?]
NORMATIVE Moral theory a theory about what OUGHT TO BE, not about WHAT IS
Pg. 64: Mill argues that Happiness is the only intrinsic good.
Just because we do desire something, doesn't mean that we ought to desire it, or that it is an INTRINSIC GOOD
Problem of deriving and OUGHT from an IS
Mill's response gets to the matter of PROVING AN ETHICAL THEORY
Can't prove matters EXACTLY--only INDIRECT rather than DIRECT proofs are available.
Mill seeks to add support his case by an appeal to the universality of happiness.
The desire for happiness is universal
We are "constructed" so that we cannot desire anything except what appears to us to be or to bring happiness.
Question: is this idea consistent with his EMPIRICISM? What is his evidence for this claim?
Another possibility: Mill not trying for a proof, but merely trying to show what is obvious: You can find out what people believe is good by noticing what they do desire. People desire to be happy.
HAPPINESS AND VIRTUE
Mill seeks to prove that happiness is the only intrinsic end.
Mill REJECTS THE ALTERNATIVE OF VIRTUE:
Virtue ethics: promoting VIRTUE as the basis of morality
[Question: what is virtue: many different definitions]
Mill's position: virtue as a self-denying care for and sense of duty towards others, is desired because it produces happiness.
Virtue is desired because it promotes happiness
Some things SEEM TO BE desired as ends in themselves:
Mill gives example MONEY, POWER, FAME, HEALTH, LOVE OF MUSIC 63
What was once desired as an instrument for the attainment of happiness has come to be desired for its own sake. In being desired for its own sake it is, however, desired as part of happiness.
The ingredients of happiness are very various.
The things that lead to happiness are required to achieve the end,
But: Nothing is desired except happiness, everything else desired is as a means to happiness
Getting back to virtue: virtue is good because it promotes happiness.
64 c1
And consequently, the utilitarian standard, while it tolerates and approves those other acquired desires, up to the point beyond which they would be more injurious to the general happiness than promotive of it, enjoins and requires the cultivation of the love of virtue up to the greatest strength possible, as being above all things important to the general happiness.
Ultimately for Mill: HAPPINESS IS THE ONLY INTRINSIC GOOD
UTILITARIANISM: FINAL COMMENTS
Utilitarianism is a highly influential moral theory.
Influential on policy assessment methods.
[Question: how do we figure out if a policy is a good one?]
Mill was optimistic about the willingness of people to increase human happiness and reduce suffering.
Question is: can this be done?
