UTILITARIANISM

Utilitarianism

“The greatest good for the greatest number”

Act Utilitarianism

The morally right act for an agent A at a time t, is that act available to A at t, that will maximize the total amount of good in the world (that will have the best consequences)

Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1831)

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Hedonistic Utilitarianism

What is good?

Pleasure and the absence of pain are good

Pleasure is any sensation you would rather have than no sensation at all; and pain is any sensation you’d rather not have than no sensation at all.

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What Bentham thinks are the advantages of Utilitarianism

Determinate in principle – in principle, you can use the hedonic calculus to get an actual answer to the question of “what should I do in this case?”.

Neutralistic – treats everyone in the same way

Realistic – it’s based on real psychology. It works with people as it finds them and organizes society so that they being that way actually has good consequences for everyone.

Non-metaphysical – it doesn't make goodness/badness right/wrongness some sort of weird qualities. What in the world is “a natural right?”

Non-elitist – it counts all sentient creatures. And all types of pleasures equally

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The Hedonic Calculus

Perform the action-alternative with the highest total

Determine Intensity x duration

Determine Probability

Calculate Total = (intensity x duration) x Probability

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For each action-alternative:

The Hedonic Calculus: what should I do with my $50

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If I buy CALL OF DUTY: Black Ops II

• I will receive pleasure of 7 intensity for 30 hours. The probably of this is high – 80%.

• The impact on me: 7 x 30 x .8 = 168 hedons

• My wife will be probably be somewhat annoyed that I’m wasting my time and using up the TV. (-3 intensity for 5 hours at probability of 50%)

• The impact on her: -3 x 5 x .5 = - 7.5 hedons

TOTAL IMPACT: 160.5 hedons

The Hedonic Calculus: what should I do with my $50

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If I donate the money to a children’s charity:

• I will receive pleasure of 3 intensity for 50 hours. The probably of this is high – 80%.

• The impact on me: 3 x 50 x .8 = 120 hedons

• 50 Starving children will be cared for, each receiving a pleasure of 9 intensity for 100 hours. The probability for this is very high – 90%.

• The impact on her: 50 x 9 x .9 = 405 hedons

TOTAL IMPACT: 525 hedons

The Hedonic Calculus: what should I do with my $50

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1. If I buy myself Black Ops II, the world will be improved by 160.5 hedons

2. If I donate the money to a children’s charity the world will be improved by 525 hedons

3. I should do whatever will bring about the greatest pleasure in the world

4. I should donate the money to the charity

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An important distinction

The subjectively right act – the act you believe will maximize utility.

The objectively right act – the act that will actually maximize utility

The epistemically right act – the act that you are rationally warranted to perform.

What is the right action for you to do? The action that a good person would do?

How do we regard different types of pleasures?

What counts as pleasure?

Are there higher and lower pleasures?

Bentham: the source of pleasure doesn’t matter

J.S. Mill: There is an objective quality to different pleasures that should also be factor into our calculations

Quality comes from what people would choose if they had access to all possible pleasures

Bentham: It’s a subjective criterion – “Pushpin is as good as poetry”

What about sadistic and masochistic pleasures?

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Are all goods commensurable?

Can all pleasures be roughly compared? Can they be reduced to some sort of homogenous value?

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Intellectual skill development: Objection by counter-example

An objection shows that there’s something wrong with the theory or with one the assumptions that supports that theory.

A counter-example is a specific

case to which the theory gives the wrong answer according to our ordinary intuitions

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Counter-examples and Utilitarianism

Assumptions made by Bentham’s Act Utilitarianism:

① The right action is the one that maximizes the total balanced of pleasure in the world

② The source of pleasure doesn't matter③ Each person is to count for one, and none

for more than one ④ Tradeoffs of cost to some for gains to

others are acceptable⑤ Values are homogenous

Criticisms of Utilitarianism

It’s too difficult to apply

People care about more than just pleasure

We can not reduce all human goods into quantifiable units which can be aggregated and compared

There is no non-arbitrary limit to how far into the future we should consider consequences

Intention is important for determining the moral status of actions, but no room for this in utilitarianism

Justifies acts that seem to be plainly wrong like murder and rape

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Other forms of Utilitarianism

Rule Utilitarianism - Always act according to the rule that would produce the most utility in the world (vs. “act” utilitarianism)

Preference Utilitarianism: Always act so as to maximize satisfaction of people’s preferences (vs. “Hedonistic” Utilitarianism)

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Mill’s personal relationship to Bentham

Son of Bentham’s best friend Raised to be the perfect

Utilitarian Prodigy – Oxford by 12 Became an amazing Utilitarian

thinking machine completely committed to the cause

Had a complete mental breakdown by the time he was 21 followed by disabling clinical depression

This caused him to rethink the basic assumptions of Utilitarianism

Mill’s central correction to Utilitarianism

o Pleasures differ in quality as well as in quantity

o Humans prefer the higher pleasures – those activities that engage their higher faculties

o Higher pleasures are always going to trump lower pleasures – have an infinite value by comparison.

o Hedonic calculus can’t help us decide what is right anymore – we need something else

“The Decided Preference Criterion”:

“Of two pleasures … if one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other than they prefer it… and would not resign it for any quality of the other pleasure … we are justified in ascribing to it a superiority in quality…”

- Utilitarianism, Ch. II

We want happiness not contentment

There are things almost no one would be willing to trade for no amount of something else

Therefore, The most satisfactory life for anyone will contain a mix of higher and lower pleasures

"it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied”

“it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied”

This is true as a matter of empirical fact – its what people want out of life. We want to be proud of our lives. We want to live with human dignity.

A good enough life?

o A life with few and transitory pains

o A life with many and various pleasures

o A life that is more active than passive

o A life lived with a realistic expectation of one’s prospects

What sort of life is a good (enough) life?

There are as many different kinds of good lives as there are individual persons: Different mixes of excitement

and tranquility Different combinations of

higher and lower pleasures Unique individuals require

unique recipes for happiness

Differences between Bentham and Mill

Hedonistic

Pleasures are homogeneous

Maximizing

Indifferent to distribution

Non-hedonistic

Pleasures vary in quality

Non-maximizing. Aims for a threshhold of happiness

Sensitive to distribution

Bentham’s Utilitarianism

Mill’s “Utilitarianism” (?)

Mill’s Utilitarian principle: Actions are right in proportion to their tendency to increase the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

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Williams’s “Integrity objection” against Utilitarianism

Jim is a botanist doing research in a South American country led by a brutal dictator. One day he finds himself in the central square of a small town facing 20 Indians who have been randomly captured and tied up as an example of what will happen to rebels. The army captain tells Jim that if he agrees to kill one of the Indians, the others will be released in honor of Jim’s status as a guest. If, however, Jim refuses, then all the Indians will be shot.

What should Jim do?

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There’s a crucial moral distinction between what happens and what I do

Without this distinction we can not understanding what it means to have integrity

Moral integrity requires the individual to view himself as a moral agent whose actions flow “from projects or attitudes which in some cases he takes seriously at the deepest level, as what his life is about”

Utilitarianism can’t understand this notion of moral integrity, because it leaves no room for describing the ethical importance of the relationship between our projects, identity, and actions.

Williams’s “Integrity objection” against Utilitarianism