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A2 Philosophy –Ethics

UTILITARIANISM In its simplest form, utilitarianism is defined by three claims.

1. Actions are morally right or wrong depending on their consequences and nothing else. An act is right if it maximises what is good.

2. The only thing that is good is happiness. 3. No-one’s happiness counts more than anyone else’s.

Act Utilitarianism (Bentham) – Key features

The theory is concerned with individual actions which are to be judged right or wrong purely in relation to their consequences. Right actions are, simply, those that have good consequences and wrong actions are those that have bad consequences.

In assessing consequences, the only thing that counts is the amount of happiness or unhappiness that is caused to everyone affected by the action. Good consequences are those which bring more happiness than unhappiness and bad consequences are those which bring more unhappiness than happiness.

The theory is hedonistic in that it equates happiness with pleasure and sees pleasure as the ultimate aim of human activity – it is the sole intrinsic good.

Each person’s welfare is equally important. The happiness of a rich person is not worth more than the happiness of a poor person.

o ‘Each should count for one and no one for more than one’.

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This can all be summed up in the Principle of Utility. Right actions are those that produce the greatest balance of pleasure over pain for all those affected by the action.

Bentham’s Utility Calculus – how we measure pleasure

Bentham suggested the Hedonic Calculus as a way of measuring the quantity of pleasure (in units called “hedons”), according to certain criteria.

First we measure the amount of pleasure and pain given to those affected by the action. We measure this in terms of intensity, duration, certainty and remoteness.

Next we are to measure the effects of the pleasure or pain, including the tendency of that pleasure to produce other pleasures (its capacity for succession) and the tendency of the pleasure to produce only pleasure (its purity).

Finally we measure the extent of the pleasure or pain caused to other people affected by the action, if relevant.

Add up all the units of pain / pleasure involved and the action which brings the most pleasure over pain is the most moral one to choose!

Revision Tip!

To help you remember these seven criteria, use the mnemonic DRICEPS:

DurationRemotenessIntensityCertaintyExtentPuritySuccession

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Attractions of act utilitarianism

The theory is flexible - there are no rigid set rules to be followed. An action may be right in one situation but wrong in another situation.

The theory is egalitarian - everyone is treated equally, a poor person’s happiness is just as important as a rich person’s happiness.

There is no reference to God - the theory is open to everyone in that it does not require a certain type of religious belief. Also, it is concerned with this world; the reward for good actions is not in some other world (heaven).

It appeals to people’s natural desire to seek happiness and pleasure and avoid unhappiness and pain.

It promotes altruism and prevents selfish behaviour. E.g. I may wish to do something but if it would bring more pain than pleasure to all affected I must not do it.

Criticisms of act utilitarianism

1. Individual liberty / rights

Utilitarianism, which says that only consequences matter, seems mistaken. There are other things which may be considered relevant to moral decision making such as respecting people’s individual liberty.

Take the punishment of an innocent person. A utilitarian judge would be right to condemn someone to death, knowing that they were innocent, if she believed that a greater good would result - such as restoring law and order, preventing an increase in crime etc. The problem is, that while this action may well maximise the sum total of happiness, it may be regarded as unjust: people should not be punished because of the

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effects of their punishment on others, but solely because of what they themselves have or have not done.

In order to explain what is wrong about the judge’s decision in this case we can appeal to moral rights, understood in terms of restrictions placed on how people can treat each other. For instance, I have a right that other people don’t kill me (the right to life). I also have a right to act as I choose as long as this respects other people’s rights (the right to liberty).One of the purposes of rights is to protect individual freedom and interests, even when violating that freedom would produce some greater good. For example, my right to life means no one should kill me to take my organs, even if doing so could save the lives of four other people. Utilitarianism doesn’t respect individual rights or liberty, because it doesn’t it doesn’t restrict any actions that create the greatest happiness.

Response

Some utilitarians simply accept this. We have no rights. As long as we consider situations realistically, then whatever brings about the greatest happiness is the right thing to do.

Counter-response

However this does not seem to fit with our moral intuitions. Consider another imaginary case. A Peeping Tom spied on Ms York and secretly took pictures of her undressed, which he used entirely for his own amusement. It seems the only consequence of his action is the increase in his own happiness. Utilitarianism is committed to the claim that the Peeping Tom’s actions are morally right. But, it is evident to moral common sense that they are not right. Utilitarianism does not allow that people have rights (e.g. a right to privacy) that may not be trampled on just because of the expected good results. Personal rights place limits on how an individual may be treated, regardless of the consequences, and they play an important part in morality.

2. The moral status of particular relationships

It is often objected that utilitarianism treats all conscious persons capable of experiencing pleasure and pain as equally important to us in

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making our moral choices. However, there is a strong tendency in our ordinary moral understanding to regard our obligations to others as differing depending on who the others are. The obvious example is to contrast our moral attitude to our own family members and strangers. Surely, a mother whose child is about to be run over has a special duty to save it and would be justified in ignoring the plight of others also at risk, whereas Bentham says that she should be solely concerned with the happiness of humanity as a whole, and not the happiness of her loved ones.

3. Problems with calculation

Unforeseen consequencesWe might be able to say, with some certainty, that this action (A) will have this consequence (B) in five minutes time, but B will inevitably have other consequences, and these consequences will in turn have other effects, and so on, until the end of time. At what point, therefore, do we make our calculations and determine that our original action was right or wrong?

Can we really measure pleasure?An additional problem arises for act utilitarianism when we look more closely at Bentham’s hedonic calculus. Bentham does not explain, nor has anyone since, how we go about measuring things like the ‘intensity’ or ‘remoteness’ of the pleasure or pain. Any methods we think of seem either unrealistically bureaucratic, or in the realms of science fiction.

What is meant by pleasure?

Bentham’s utility calculus, although it considers many dimensions of pleasure, ignores the quality of the pleasures and pains that are being measured. He once famously wrote that pushpin (a game played in pubs at the time) was as good as poetry, and therefore that both should be treated equally in the utility calculus.

This purely quantitative assessment could be used to condone any action which, though increasing the total amount of pleasure, is morally repugnant. E.g. a group of sadistic thugs bully a child. It looks like there is nothing inherently better about the pleasure of altruism than the pleasure of abuse, but this is fatally counter-intuitive. This led John Stuart Mill, Bentham’s student, to provide a revised account of utilitarianism that distinguished between different types of pleasure.

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Adapting Bentham’s theory

Since Bentham formulated utilitarianism, many philosophers have been attracted by some elements, whilst noting the problems with it. So, there are now many new forms of utilitarianism as well as “act”. They are still based on the Principle of Utility, but have various adaptations which should make them easier to use and more sensitive to people’s moral intuitions.

Higher and lower pleasures

Bentham saw all pleasures as equal, so the pleasure derived from reading a celebrity magazine, in Bentham’s calculus, has the same quality as the pleasure derived from solving a complex philosophical problem. JS Mill, unlike Bentham, emphasises the variety and complexity of pleasures and especially the quality as opposed to just quantity. He argues that ‘higher’ pleasures are more desirable because of their distinctive, refined quality. So noble pleasures and pleasures of the intellect, such as unbiased sympathy for others and enjoyment of art and music, are preferable to sensual and physical lust. Such a distinction would prevent morally repugnant actions such as above – the pleasure of the thugs would be of low quality.

The evidence for this is that people who have experienced higher and lower pleasures (competent judges), express preferences for higher. We do not always choose higher pleasures because lower ones are more immediate and easier to satisfy. We therefore sink through ignorance or laziness to sensual indulgence rather than strive for higher pleasure.

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“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 side of the

question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.”


Criticism

But, to talk of qualities of pleasure is to conceal a value judgment. One pleasure is superior to another in respect of X, which cannot be pleasure but must be something else. This quality of X is thus another value, such as ‘intellectual’ or ‘virtuous’. For example, the pleasure of watching Shakespeare rather than Eastenders lies in his emotional complexity. Then complexity is itself a value. So, Mill is introducing under the guise of higher and lower pleasures, a set of values, such as mental, intellectual and spiritual which themselves need to be justified, and cannot be justified in terms of pleasure. Indeed, some see Mill’s distinction as an intellectual’s justification for his own particular preferences and the interests and values of his social class.

Rule Utilitarianism Stage 1 – Making the rules

Stage 2 – Applying the rules

Rather than assessing the consequences of each individual action separately, rule utilitarians adopt general rules about the kinds of action which tend to produce greater happiness for the greatest number of people. For example, because, in general, breaking promises produces

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Hmm… which rules will generally bring about the most

happiness?

Now, should I kill this man? Oh no – I’ve got a rule that says “Don’t kill people”.


more unhappiness than happiness, the rule “always keep promises” would be adopted, even though there may be particular instances in which breaking a promise would produce more happiness than unhappiness. But consequences are still the means of making moral decisions – but general, rather than specific consequences. Rules are to be determined by asking which will promote the greatest good for everyone. Mill suggests some examples: we shouldn’t encroach on the rights of others, we shouldn’t lie or deceive or cause injury to others.

Attractions of rule utilitarianism

This version avoids the issue of complicated calculations for every moral decision. Rule utilitarianism can simply appeal to a rule.

It also avoids the problems associated with individual liberty and rights. If it is clear that in the long run, the benefits of having rights make everyone’s lives happier, then these rights can be protected. For example, while a judge may be tempted under act utilitarianism to sentence an innocent man to death, to placate public opinion, under rule utilitarianism, he knows that a rule which violates basic rights will breed increased fear and insecurity.

In a similar way it gets around the problem posed by our intuition that it is right to prioritise certain relationships over others. If it can be shown that, in general, protecting one’s own family and friends increases overall happiness (for instance by increasing our sense of security and trust) then a rule that one ought to give these relationships a higher moral status is justified.

An act utilitarian might object that the point of the rules is to bring about the greatest happiness. But if I know that, e.g. lying in a particular situation will produce more happiness than telling the truth, it seems pointless to follow the rule “always tell the truth”, causing unhappiness. The whole point of the rule was to bring about happiness, so there should be an exception to the rule in this case. But then, whenever a

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particular action causes more happiness by breaking the rule than by following it, we should do that action. And then we are back with act utilitarianism, weighing up the consequences of each action in turn.

Rule utilitarians respond that following a rule, even when in a particular case it will cause less happiness than breaking the rule, is still justified, because if people kept breaking the rules, that would cause less happiness in the long run.

Criticisms of rule utilitarianism Problems with calculation

Although rule utilitarianism neatly avoids the need to make complex calculations in order to make every moral decision, there are still issues when it comes to calculating utility.

Fundamentally we may question whether there is any single experience (or qualia) called ‘pleasure’ that can actually be measured. Bentham asks us to add up units of pleasure and pain for different choices and pick the one with the most units of pleasure and the least units of pain; Mill asks us to use a similar process for choosing general rules, rather than individual acts. But Aristotle suggests (in Book X of the Ethics) that the word ‘pleasure’ doesn’t refer to one single sensation. For Aristotle there are as many different pleasures as there are pleasurable activities, and these pleasures cannot be compared with one another. So, for example, the pleasures of tea-drinking can’t be compared to, or represented on the same scale of measurement as, say, the pleasures of winning the lottery.

The value of motives / characterUtilitarianism does not recognise the moral value of our motives in acting as we do. For instance, in the case of the unforeseen consequences of an action, utilitarianism led us to the counter-intuitive conclusion that the moral right or wrongness of my action might change as the consequences of the action unfolded, possibly even changing back again over time. Take the example of saving a drowning baby Hitler. Utilitarianism says it’s wrong because of the negative consequences,

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however our intuition says it seems like the right thing to do. What matters is my character, and that I was trying to be a good person.

This shows that consequences are not the sole factor in moral decision making: motive and character are also important.

Response

However Mill has a response. Utilitarianism does indeed argue that motives are irrelevant in determining whether my action was morally right. However they are relevant in determining my worth as a person, or my character. And it is important for utilitarianism that I have a good character, as a good character is more likely to produce morally right actions, and a bad character, bad actions. So the overall happiness in the world is increased if I pay attention to my motives and character.

In addition, Mill argues that having a desire to do good actually makes us happier. In other words our character is one of the ‘ingredients’ of our happiness. So being the kind of person who likes making people happy makes me happier, and this also contributes to the overall happiness in the world.

Counter-response

The issue for rule utilitarianism is that its explanation of why motives and character are important rests on the utilitarian claim that happiness is the only good. It still may seem more morally intuitive to say that having the motive to do good is just good in itself, and not solely because it adds to the overall sum of happiness in the world.

Preference Utilitarianism This version replaces Bentham’s hedonistic psychology with the idea of ‘preference satisfaction’. Actions are judged not by their tendency to maximise pleasure, but by the extent to which they satisfy the preferences or interests of those affected by the action or its consequences. When contemplating an act which will affect someone else, consistency demands that I not only consider my own interests, but give equal consideration to the interests of everyone else affected. We

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then need a principle to judge people’s interests by and surely a majority interest should outweigh the minority.

Attractions of preference utilitarianism:

It avoids the problems of identifying pleasure as the sole end and makes no judgement about what people desire. What matters is interests or preferences so, if lying is wrong, it is because it goes against the preference we have to know the truth.

Also, it can be right to satisfy someone’s preferences even when they don’t know this has happened, and so don’t derive any pleasure from it. For example, I can want you to look after my dog when I die. You should still look after my dog even though I cannot gain any pleasure from this. Thus, this version differs from hedonistic utilitarianism in that it accepts that some of our preferences go beyond (or even counter to) hedonistic pleasure.

Criticisms of preference utilitarianism More problems with calculation!

However, assessing interests could be as complex as understanding happiness. Some people would be seduced by short-term interests (e.g. to drown their sorrows in alcohol), rather than the long-term interests of health. But once we try to discover a person’s real interest as opposed to their expressed interest, we enter into all kinds of irresolvable disputes and while the process of consulting everyone’s preferences has the

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By 'best consequences', I understand that which satisfies the most preferences, weighted

by an accordance with the strength of the preferences. Thus my ethical position is a form

of preference-utilitarianism.


merit of being democratic, some will argue that all we arrive at is a popular decision, not a moral one.

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