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?
Utilitarianism: Two Main Figures: Jeremy Benthan, John Stuart Mill
Bentham: trying to be a simple and analytic as Hobbes:
We have two sovereign masters: pain and pleasure
Best ethical theory is the one that promotes the greatest amount of pleasure over the least amount of pain.
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.
Key contention of Utilitarianism: pleasure = happiness = good
Follow the ancient Epicurean philosophers.
Aristotle disagrees.
[Question: Is pleasure the same as happiness?
How could happiness be the highest good?]
➔ Utilitarianism is a Teleological and Consequentialist theory.
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?]
MOTIVE ➔ ACTION ➔ CONSEQUENCE
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
Question: does that make sense to you?
Do you agree with that view?
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!
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
Key notion here: Instrumental v. Intrinsic Goods
Intrinsic goods: good in themselves, good just because they are good.
Instrumental goods: good for some purpose–useful means to some end
Question: is wealth an intrinsic or instrumental good?
For the Utilitarians: Happiness & Pleasure = Intrinsic Goods
Question: what about the identification of pleasure and happiness?
What does it mean to get pleasure out of something?
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
Question: what about the identification of pleasure and happiness?
What does it mean to get pleasure out of something?
Utilitarianism is also a Calculative theory of morality
The Utilitarian Calculus: the 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
Remember: 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.
What else needed?
Bentham comes up with five elements to determine the quantity of pleasure:
FIVE ELEMENTS: net amount, intensity, duration, fruitfulness, likelihood of any act to produce it.
Net amount: a calculated 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.
MAIN UTILITARIAN IDEA: Pain is intrinsically bad, pleasure is intrinsically good.
Remember: 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.
Goal: trying to find the NET happiness or unhappiness.
2. Intensity
Some forms of pleasure are more intense than others.
Skiing v. seeing some pretty wallpaper.
3. Duration how long does a pleasure last?
Chewing gum vs. eating a candy bar
4. Fruitfulness: Get into a different kind of measure: how WORTHWHILE is this pleasure?
What are the long-term results.
Going to the dentist: painful--but long run pleasure gained of not having your teeth hurt or fall out.
5. Likelihood: are you going have pleasure from this?
Going to Reno. What is the likelihood you’re going to enjoy gambling.
Also fit into the calculations
The textbook gives sample calculations for all of these see pp. 51-52.
Question: is this going to work? Can we mathematically calculate pleasure v. pain?
52,2 QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF PLEASURE
Disagreement of two Main Utilitarians:
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
Bentham: no difference in KINDS of PLEASURES.
"Pushpin is equal to poetry"
Playing Sega or X-Box equal to reading a great novel.
Mill, by contrast, believed that the quality of a pleasure counts.
Mill: intellectual pleasures are better--qualitatively better--than base pleasures.
Famous saying: Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.
Mill: we value the kind of pleasures as well as the amount of pleasure.
EVALUATING UTILITARIANISM
Question: Can we really figure out the greatest amount of pleasure or happiness?
Some key criticisms of utilitarianism:
1. Why can’t we weigh our own happiness above the happiness of others?
Is it really egoistic to give more weight to our own concerns than the concerns of others?
Caring for our children more than other children?
Utilitarian Ethical Theory: greatest happiness for the greatest number:
But what about my, your, own happiness?
Criticism: utilitarianism may be contrary to common sense:
Is it really immoral to do things for yourself or your family, friends?
Utilitarians might respond to this saying that giving preference to ourselves might help achieve that happiness
ENDS AND MEANS 54, 1
2. Critique of Utilitarian consequentialism:
Does it imply that: "the end justifies the means?"
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 (40).
Problem: Hypothetical case: could utilitarianism justify punishing an innocent person as a "scapegoat"?
E.G. terrorist bombing in 1996 Olympics. Man who warned everyone about the bomb, Richard Jewell, actually accused of planting it.
One person is picked out and punished, everyone else is happy.
{Short story: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” by Ursula LeGuin–takes up this theme.
2a. Does Utilitarianism justifies any action so long as it has better consequences than other available actions?
Something morally wrong might be justified on the grounds that it produces a good consequence
Example: cloning, euthanasia–might produce good consequences, but under another moral conception–be morally wrong.
3. (not in textbook) Should pleasure or happiness really the basis for ethics?
Kant would say no–need something more.
Nietzsche:
Question: what do you think of these criticisms?
Some refinements of Utilitarianism
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
Critiques say this would justify any action.
Propose instead: Rule Utilitarianism:
Finding a set of rules that will lead to the greatest happiness
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
Why should we be honest?
Honesty promotes the best consequences.
Does honesty promote the greatest good for the greatest number?
3 Minute Assignment: write down three rules that would promote the greatest good for the greatest number?
55,1 "PROOF" OF THE THEORY
J.S. Mill takes up a key question: how do you prove the theory of Utilitarianism?
Best way to evaluate a theory:
What are the reasons given in support of it!
Remember: utilitarianism is an empiricist ethical theory!
It draws it evidence from experience!
Digression: EMPIRICAL v. NON-EMPIRICAL ethical theories
Mill's Problem: how to empirically prove an ethical theory
Proofs of ethical theories are different than proofs of scientific theories.
Mill's argument:
Mill admits that 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.
Argument by analogy:
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.
Mill argues that happiness is the only thing we desire for its own sake
Everything else we desire, we desire because it will lead to happiness
Therefore: Happiness/pleasure is the only intrinsic good
All other goods are instrumental goods
--> They are good insofar as they lead to happiness/pleasure
Question: how 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 Mill’s proof:
Mill only shows that happiness is desired, not necessarily that is it is worth being desired.
Question: How come?
Normative Moral Theory a theory about what ought to be, not about what is
Just because we do desire something, doesn't mean that we ought to desire it, or that it is an intrinsic good
Problem philosopher Hume raises of deriving and OUGHT from an IS
Mill's response
Hard to prove an Ethical Theory
Mill can only prove it indirectly by showing that the desire for happiness is universal
He argues that 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.
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?
TURN TO UTILITARIANISM, by John Stuart Mill
Book Utilitarianism first published in Frazier's Magazine, 1861.
Book: a long magazine article.
Emphasize Two Points:
1. Qualitative v. Quantitative Differences of Pleasures
2. Proof of the Principle of Utility.
1. Qualitative v. Quantitative Differences
Mill makes his case citing the:
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).
Questions:
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.
So: how do we determine differences in quality of pleasure:
Mill contends:
(60) SOME PLEASURES ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS
How do you figure this out?
Mill’s experienced judge:
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.
Objection: what about people who pick the lower over the higher?
Mill says they do so out of infirmity of character.
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
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Question 2: Pg. 62:
What Sort of Proof Is the Principle of Utility Susceptible
Part of Utilitarianism: a theory about Intrinsic Good
A theory about Ultimate Ends
Both Mill and Aristotle recognize that questions of ultimate ends do not admit to absolute proof.
Kant disagrees
(Page 55,1)
So how do you prove the theory of Utilitarianism if you can’t prove it absolutely?
Mill wants to look at the reasons given in support of it.
Remember: utilitarianism is an empiricist ethical theory!
It draws it evidence from experience!
In Kant, we’ll see a non-empirical theory of ethics.
So: Mill's Problem: how to empirically prove an ethical theory?
Proofs of ethical theories are different from proofs of scientific theories.
Pg. 62: Questions about ends are questions about what is desirable.
Essentially: What we want is what we want
Utilitarian doctrine: happiness is the desirable Final end
--everything else is a means to that end
PROOF OF UTILITARIANISM: 62 c1-c2 -- drawing evidence from experience!
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.
Mill concludes: 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, only 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.
Mill needs to prove not only that we can desire happiness but that it is worth being desired.
Question: How come?
Ought / Is distinction again: Problem of deriving and OUGHT from an IS
A normative moral theory a theory about what ought to be, not about what is the case.
Mill argues that Happiness is the only intrinsic good.
Problem: Just because we do desire something, doesn't mean that we ought to desire it, or that it is an intrinsic good
Maybe it’s a bad thing that people desire happiness.
Especially if happiness is defined as pleasure minus pain!
Mill says he can only give an indirect rather than direct proof.
The desire for happiness is universal
Mill says that we are "constructed" so that we cannot desire anything except what appears to us to be or to bring happiness.
Hence: happiness should be the basis of our ethics.
Question: is making as many people as happy as possible a good basis for ethics?
Another way out for Mill
He’s not really trying for a proof of utilitarianism, 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 is a good thing to desire
Therefore, an ethical theory based on happiness will be a good theory.
UTILITARIANISM: FINAL COMMENTS
Utilitarianism is a highly influential moral theory.
Influential on policy assessment methods.
Especially versions like cost-benefit analysis
Mill was optimistic about the willingness of people to increase human happiness and reduce suffering.
Question is: can this be done?
