Consequentialism
Utilitarianism
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John Stuart Mill (18061873)
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Principle of Utility: 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. (Utilitarianism, Chapter II)
Mill’s utilitarianism is a modification of the hedonism expounded upon by
Jeremy Bentham.
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Bentham advocated a form of utilitarianism known as hedonism, where pleasure
(regardless of the type of pleasure) was to be maximized and pain minimized.
Bentham’s hedonic calculus: Value = intensity, duration, certainty/uncertainty,
closeness/remoteness in time, fecundity, purity.
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2. One of the classic criticisms of utilitarianism is that it is the ethics of swine.
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3. One of the modifications Mill makes to utilitarianism is to include a notion
of qualitative vs. quantitative pleasures.
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Mill’s Defense of
Utilitarianism
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If human beings were only capable of experiencing
the things that swine can, then the criticism would
perhaps be telling.
Human beings have faculties much more elevated
than swine, and require different types of
gratification of the higher faculties in order to be
happy.
“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, is 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.”
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Quantitative vs.
Qualitative pleasures.
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“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,
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.”
We don’t always follow the calling of our higher faculties, but
few if any people would consent to having their faculties
lowered to that of a mere brute.
For Mill, it is the competent judge, i.e., those who have
experience of both pleasures who are the authority on
quantitative vs. qualitative pleasures.
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Proof for the Principle of
Utility
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The only evidence we have that
something is visible is that people
actually see it, the only evidence that
something is audible is that people
hear it. Similarly the only way we
know something is desirable is that
people actually desire it.
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Why then is the general
happiness desirable?
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1) Each person desires his own
happiness
2) Happiness is a good.
3) Each person’s happiness is a good
to that person.
4)Therefore, the general happiness is
a good to the aggregate of all
persons.
Fallacy of Composition
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Rule Utilitarianism
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Although Mill advocates acceptance of
the Greatest Happiness Principle some
have argued that Mill did not believe it
should be used to guide individual
actions
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When to Use the Principle
of Utility
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Principle of utility was to be used to derive
and adjudicate between other moral rules.
We appeal to the principle of utility only
when two moral rules or principles conflict.
Some philosophers have argued that this is
how the Principle of Utility should be
understood, i.e., that it applies to types of
actions and not token actions.
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Debate Over
Utilitarianism
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Happiness is not the only thing that
matters
Consequences are not the only things
that matter
Utilitarianism is too demanding of a
moral theory
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Defense of Utilitarianism
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Fanciful examples don’t count against
a theory
Principle of utility is a guide to
choosing rules not judging individual
acts
Common sense can’t be trusted
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