MILL AND BENTHAM
JEREMY BENTHAM
1748 – 1832
Legal and social
reformer, advocate
for progressive
social policies:
woman’s rights,
abolition of slavery,
end of physical
punishment, animal
rights
BENTHAM AND WELFARISM
 What is the aim of social policy and the law – what ends or
goals should they aim to bring about?
BENTHAM’S CENTRAL AIM
 Notions of utility were popular in Bentham’s day (and before).
 Bentham’s aim was to reduce utility to a single measure and
develop a method for measuring it.
 Moral science to be based on a felicific or hedonic calculus.
WHAT IS UTILIT Y?
 Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two
sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to
point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what
we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong,
on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to
their throne. They govern us in all we do…
 By the principle of utility is meant that principle which
approves or disapproves of ever y action whatsoever. according
to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the
happiness of the par ty whose interest is in question
DIMENSIONS OF UTILIT Y
1 The intensity of pleasure or pain
2 Its duration
3 Its certainty or uncertainty
4 Its propinquity or remoteness
5 Its fecundity, or the chance it has of being followed by
sensations of the same kind (i.e., pleasure followed by more
pleasure, or pain followed by more pain)
 6 Its purity, or the chance it has of not being followed by
sensations of the opposite kind
 For n>1 , Its extent; that is, the number of persons to whom it
extends; or (in other words) who are af fected by it.
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BENTHAM’S PROCEDURE
 B e g i n w i t h a ny o n e p e r s o n o f t h o s e w h o s e i n te r e s t s s e e m m o s t i m m e d i a te l y to b e
a f f e c te d b y i t : a n d t a ke a n a c c o un t ,
 1 . O f t h e v a l u e o f e a c h d i s t i n g uis h a b l e p l e a s u r e w h i c h a p p e a r s to b e p r o duc e d by i t
in the first instance.
 2 . O f t h e v a l u e o f e a c h p a i n w h i c h a p p e a r s to b e p r o d uc e d b y i t i n t h e f i r s t
instance.
 3 . O f t h e v a l u e o f e a c h p l e a s u r e w h i c h a p p e a r s to b e p r o d uc e d b y i t a f te r t h e f i r s t .
T h i s c o n s t i t ute s t h e f e c un d i t y o f t h e f i r s t p l e a s ur e a n d t h e i m p ur it y o f t h e f i r s t
pain.
 4 . O f t h e v a l u e o f e a c h p a i n w h i c h a p p e a r s to b e p r o d uc e d b y i t a f te r t h e f i r s t . T h i s
c o n s t i t ute s t h e f e c u n dit y o f t h e f i r s t p a i n , a n d t h e i m p ur i t y o f t h e f i r s t p l e a s ur e .
 5 . S u m u p a l l t h e v a l u e s o f a l l t h e p l e a s ur e s o n t h e o n e s i d e , a n d t h o s e o f a l l t h e
pains on the other…
 6 . Ta ke a n a c c o un t o f t h e n u m b e r o f p e r s o n s w h o s e i n te r e s t s a p p e a r to b e
c o n c e r n e d ; a n d r e p e a t t h e a b o v e p r o c e s s w i t h r e s p e c t to e a c h . S u m u p t h e n u m b e r s
ex p r e s s i ve o f t h e d e g r e e s o f g o o d te n d e n c y, w h i c h t h e a c t h a s , w i t h r e s p e c t to e a c h
i n d i v i d ua l , i n r e g a r d to w h o m t h e te n d e n c y o f i t i s g o o d u p o n t h e w h o l e : d o t h i s
a g a i n w i t h r e s p e c t to e a c h i n d i v i d ua l , i n r e g a r d to w h o m t h e te n d e n c y o f i t i s g o o d
u p o n t h e w h o l e : d o t h i s a g a i n w i t h r e s p e c t to e a c h i n d i v i d ua l , i n r e g a r d to w h o m
t h e te n d e n c y o f i t i s b a d u p o n t h e w h o l e .
BENTHAM’S LEGACY
 Welfarism: the judgment of the relative goodness of
alternative states of af fairs must be based exclusively on, and
taken as an increasing function of, the respective collections
of individual utilities in these states.
 Sum-ranking: one collection of individual utilities is at least
as good as another if and only if it has at least as large a sum
total
 Amartya Sen, Utilitarianism and Welfarism
CRITICISM OF BENTHAM
 Psychological hedonism: only pleasure or pain motivates us
 normative hedonism: only pleasure has worth or value, only
pain has disvalue
 Quantitative hedonism: pain and pleasure are measured along
a single-dimension scale.
 Bentham notoriously claimed that “the game of push-pin is of
equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry ”
provided the quantities of pleasure yielded were equal.
 Bentham thought a benefit of his system was that it could
easily be applied to nonhuman animals, since they can also
experience pleasure and pain . However, Bentham’s view was
criticized on these grounds. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
called it a “pig philosophy”, based on the “swinish pleasures”
of the multitude’
JOHN STUART MILL
1806-1873
Father James Mill
and Bentham
educated J.S. Mill
AIMS
 To defend principle of utility from Bentham’s critics and to
expand the theory
 Introduce not only quantitative but also qualitative differences to
pleasure
GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE
 The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility,
or the Greatest Happiness 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
 pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things
desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as
numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are
desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as
means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of
pain.
QUALITATIVE DIFFERENCES
 Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds, and among
them in some of the most estimable in feeling and purpose,
inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as they express it)
no higher end than pleasure - no better and nobler object of
desire and pursuit- they designate as utterly mean and
grovelling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine
 It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise
the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and
more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in
estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as
quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to
depend on quantity alone.
THE COMPETENT JUDGE
 Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all
who have experience of both give a decided preference,
irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that
is the more desirable pleasure
 Higher pleasures: pleasures of the intellect, e.g. poetry,
debate Non-human animals incapable of these pleasures
 Lower pleasures: pleasures of the body, e.g. consumption, sex
Can be shared by humans and non-humans
THE COMPETENT JUDGE
 Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally
acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and
enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the
manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few
human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the
lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a
beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent
to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no
person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and 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
PIGS AND PHILOSOPHERS
 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 a dif ferent opinion, it
is because they only know their own side of the question.
SELF-REGARDING VS OTHER-REGARDING
UTILIT Y
 As between his own happiness and that of others,
utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a
disinterested and benevolent spectator.
SUMMARY
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Some Attractions of Utilitarianism
Simple
A decision procedure which is easy to follow
A criterion of right action which is easy to apply
Intuitively appealing (at least initially)
Deterministic: delivers a verdict in (almost) every case
Applies to both acts and omissions
Impartial: individual prejudices and preferences are irrelevant
Can be extended to animals (though Mill won’t count them
equally)
PROBLEMS FOR MILL
 Imprecision
 Having abandoned Bentham’s calculus, how are we to assign
precise quantities
 to pleasure and pains, especially when they are other
people’s?
 The timescale of consequences is also not defined. Many
actions have both short-term and long-term consequences.
Which should we consider? When utilitarianism is used as a
decision procedure, this is an urgent question which could
make all the dif ference to what we do.
 2. Pleasure is not always good
 Consider some apparently bad pleasures:
 Pleasure in others’ suffering (sadism)
 Pleasure in overeating/drinking
IS PLEASURE THE ONLY GOOD
 What we take pleasure in is important to us too. Consider the
experience machine again. Just experiencing a supremely
satisfying life would not be enough.
 value pluralism?
TOO DEMANDING?
 Since overall pleasure is to be maximized, and everyone’s
pleasure is equally important, the Utilitarian is committed to
saying that whenever it’s possible to do so, one should do so.
 Given the current state of the world, and that a small sacrifice could
relieve a huge amount of suffering in distant countries, Utilitarianism
commits us to saying that we should forego our luxuries (which would
only increase overall pleasure by a very small amount) until this
suffering has been relieved.
 Intuitively we think that charity, while perhaps morally
desirable, is not actually obligatory.
PERMITS INTUITIVELY
IMMORAL ACTIONS?
 Since the end (of overall maximized pleasure) always justifies
the means (whatever that is), no action is ruled out however
appalling it may seem.
 Consider the transplants example:
 5 people are dying in intensive care. All of them are young and
have promising careers ahead of them, as medical doctors,
entertainers, Nobel peace prize winners, etc.. Each of them
would make a full recovery were they to receive a healthy organ
(heart, kidney, liver, etc.).
 Bill is single, middle -aged and has no family. He will not
contribute much to the world in the remainder of his lifetime. But
he is perfectly healthy, and as luck would have it, has a set of
organs which are a perfect match for the five people in intensive
care.
 What should we do?
IS UTILITARIANISM SELF -ALIENATING
 Joe and the Indians
 The biological warfare job