Leadership and Ethics
Utilitarianism
Lesson # 4
Utilitarianism
What is Utilitarianism?
Utilitarianism
• Utilitarianism:
– The moral philosophy that actions derive their
moral quality from their usefulness as means to
some end, especially as means productive of
happiness or unhappiness.
– Applied to civics and politics, the greatest
happiness of the greatest number should be the
sole end and criterion of all public action.
Utilitarianism
• Who was Jeremy Bentham?
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism
• Recognized as ‘Act Utilitarian’
• Right actions result in ‘good or pleasure,’
wrong actions result in pain or absence of
pleasure.
• ‘Max pleasure/min suffering morality
criticized as “pig-philosophy”
• Hedonic Calculus
Utilitarianism
• Some have argued lecture, that “the
ends cannot justify the means” in moral
choices.
• Would a utilitarian say that the ends
can justify the means?
Utilitarianism
• “Hedonic Calculus:” measuring pleasure
and pain using what amounts to a formula
(for a group, it measures intensity, duration,
certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity,
and extent.). This calculation allows a
utility based decision to be made on
virtually any subject.
Is this useful?
Utilitarianism
“Hedonic Calculus Exercise”
Problems with
Utilitarianism
•Don’t always know the consequences of our
actions
•Difficulty in measuring pleasure and happiness
•May be counterintuitive – sacrifice one to save
many
•Concerned only with ends – only the bottom line
matters
•Does not take moral significance of individuals
seriously enough, we are mere conduits of utility
Utilitarianism
Who was John Stuart Mill?
Utilitarianism
John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism
• A more sophisticated form of
Utilitarianism.
• Concerned with quality of pleasure
and quantity of people who enjoy it.
• Recognized higher and lower types of
human pleasure.
Utilitarianism
John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism
• Lower pleasures: eating, drinking,
sexuality, etc.
• Higher pleasures: intellectuality,
creativity and spirituality.
• ‘Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than
a fool satisfied’
• ‘Rule’ Utilitarian?
Utilitarianism
Act (Contemporary) Utilitarianism
“An act is right if and only if it results
in as much good as any available
alternative.”
Utilitarianism
Rule Utilitarianism
“An act is right if and only if it is
required by a rule that is itself a
member of a set of rules whose
acceptance would lead to greater
utility for society than any available
alternative.”
Utilitarianism
Rule Utilitarianism
• Debated as a valid form of
Utilitarianism
• Exceptions to the rules can often be
found!
• Three levels of rules suggested:
Utilitarianism
Rule Utilitarianism: Levels of Rules
• Rules of thumb always to be
followed unless in conflict with
another rule.
• Higher level rules which override
thumb rules.
• No rules apply – do your best!
Utilitarianism
“Society and the Bomb”
• Who was Henry L. Stimson?
• Why did he advise President Truman to
drop the bomb?
Utilitarianism
“Society and the Bomb”
• Is killing the innocent always wrong, no
matter what the consequences?
• Would you have advised President
Truman to drop the bomb?
Questions?
Next:
Kantian Ethics
Medical Triage
1
Will D ie witho ut
Extraordinary
meas ures
2
W ill live
-- do n’t treat now
3
M ig ht save if they
Get Medical attention
Utilitarianism
• Your military strategists have targeted a significant
munitions factory located next to a children’s
hospital. Obliterating the factory is crucial to the
success of your overall campaigning. Any hit on
the factory will impact the hospital.
• How would you decide what to do using Utilitarian
principles?
• Do you find the Utilitarian recommendations
morally satisfactory?
Utilitarianism
• The Chief Executive Officer of large
corporations often earn from 18 to 30 times
more per year as the average employee in
those corporations.
• Can you think of a Utilitarian defense for
this “salary pyramid”?
• Can your think of some objections that a
Utilitarian might raise to this radically
unequal distribution of economic
benefits?
Utilitarianism
• Do you think that Mill’s version of
utilitarianism is an improvement of
Bentham’s?
• What is the chief difference?
• Can you think of situations in which an
action that wold maximize happiness
would, nonetheless, be a wrong act?
• Give some examples and explain them?
Utilitarianism
Exercise
• Directions: You are a group of survivors from a
ship which is rapidly sinking. A lifeboat is near at
hand but it can only hold ten people. The waters
outside of the boat are dangerous, insuring death
for those who do not make it aboard the life boat.
How long they will survive in the frigid, shark
infested waters is unclear - just that they will indeed
die.
Utilitarianism
•
•
•
•
Questions
How was the decision made? Did a leader
naturally emerge from the group?
Were the rights of the less fortunate
considered?
Did the survivors feel remorse for the
shipmates they consigned to death?
Was there a consistent theory (or
philosophy) which guided the decision
making?
Utilitarianism
“Society and the Bomb”
• Do you agree that in some
circumstances the use of nuclear
weapons is morally permissible?
• A tenet of Utilitarianism is that each
person counts for one and only one.
On this view then is there a difference
between the moral worth of the lives
of a civilian and a combatant? In
light of this, ought there to be a
difference?