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Utilitarian Approach
Utilitarianism
 The founder of classical utilitarianism is Jeremy
Bentham.
 According to Bentham human beings always try to
avoid pains and seek pleasures.
 This kind of moral behavior is also called hedonism.
Hedonism equates good with pleasure.
Defining Utilitarianism
 The founder of classical utilitarianism is Jeremy
Bentham.
 Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory
 It is consequentialist because it tells us that an act’s
rightness or wrongness is determined solely by the
act’s consequences and not by any feature of the act
itself.
An example
 For example, if I make a promise to you and then act in
such a way as to break it, my act has the feature of
breaking a promise, and many people would claim my
act was wrong because it has that feature.
 However, according to utilitarianism, that feature does
not make the act wrong for that feature is irrelevant to
whether the act is right or wrong.
 For the utilitarian, whether breaking a promise is right
or wrong depends entirely on the act’s consequences.
Best consequences (?)
 Whether an act is morally right or wrong depends on
whether the act does or does not bring about the best
consequences.
 But how are we going to define the best consequences?
 According to Bentham human beings always try to avoid
pains and seek pleasures.
 This kind of moral behavior is also called hedonism.
Hedonism equates good with pleasure.
How can we evaluate pain and
pleasure
 When called upon to make a moral decision one measures an
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action's value with respect to pleasure and pain according to the
following:
intensity (how strong the pleasure or pain is)
duration (how long it lasts)
certainty (how likely the pleasure or pain is to be the result of the
action)
proximity (how close the sensation will be to performance of the
action)
fecundity (how likely it is to lead to further pleasures or pains)
purity (how much intermixture there is with the other
sensation).
One also considers extent — the number of people affected by
the action.
Two Formulations of Utilitarian Theory
Principle of
Utility: The best
action is that
which produces
the greatest
happiness and/or
reduces pain.
Greatest Happiness:
We ought to do
that which
produces the
greatest happiness
and least pain for
the greatest
number of people.
 Stripped down to its essentials, utilitarianism is a
moral principle that holds that the morally right
course of action in any situation is the one that
produces the greatest balance of benefits over
harms for everyone affected.
 So long as a course of action produces maximum
benefits for everyone, utilitarianism does not care
whether the benefits are produced by lies,
manipulation, or coercion.
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.
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.
Mill’s Quality Arguments
“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied; 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 own side of the
question. The other party to the comparison knows both
sides.”
Mill’s Quality Arguments
“As between his own happiness and that of others,
utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial
as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the
golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the
complete spirit of the ethics of utility. ‘To do as you
would be done by,’ and ‘to love your neighbor as
yourself,’ constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian
morality.”
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.
A Second Criticism of Utilitarianism
If one must decide the probable outcome of an act
before knowing whether it is good or bad, how can
children learn to evaluate acts, since they know so little
of what consequences might arise from their actions?
Mill’s “Rule” Utilitarianism
“ . . . Mankind must by this time have acquired positive
beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness;
and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of
morality for the multitude, and for the philosopher until he
has succeeded in finding better.” Mill concludes, however,
that we should always seek improvements.
Rights and Utilitarianism
 Many philosophers hold that we have certain
rights, either from God, nature, or from a social
contract
 Can the idea of rights be made compatible with
Utilitarianism?
 If ignoring rights brings about more happiness to
the greatest number, should we ignore so-called
rights?
 Mill’s rule-based view in On Liberty; having a right
to liberty will bring the greatest happiness