Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Utilitarianism
- Act Utilitarianism
- Benthamite
- Bentham believes all pleasure &
pain equal - some pleasures are not
"superior"
- Bentham used the Hedonic Calculus
to decide whether or not an action is
"right"
Anmerkungen:
- HEDONIC CALCULUS:
- INTENSITY
- DURATION
- CERTAINTY
- PROPINQUITY (how soon will the pleasure occur?)
- FECUNDITY (probability that the action will be followed by sensations of a similar kind)
- PURITY
- EXTENT
- Believed Utilitarianism
should be the guide
legislator of laws/rules
- Believed Utilitarianism was not
a "new" system - this is the way
that humans have always
operated
- Bentham
- Philanthropist (performs
generous/benevolant
actions)
- Social reformer
- Believed in
prison/legal reforms
- Saw society as a
collection of
individuals
- Supported
- Decriminalisation
of homosexuality
- Seperation of
church and state
- Abolition of death penalty
- Abolition of slavery
- Did not believe in the good of the
community being put above the
good of the individual
- Believed there is no such thing as
natural justice - rights are only
given to us by law
- Founder of Utilitarianism
- 1748-1832
- Mill
- Agreed with Utilitarianism's central tenets
- Disagreed that all
pleasures and pains are
equal
- A response to Utilitarinism being
called a "philosophy for pigs"
- "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" - Mill
- Why
- Intellectual
pleasures are just
intrinsically better
- They have a "greater permanency,
safety, uncostliness etc"
- PURER pleasure,
more FECUNDITY
- 1806-1873
- Was extremely well educated
- Rule Utilitarianism
- An action is right if it
conforms to the rule that
has the greatest good
Anmerkungen:
- "The rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the correctness of the rule of which it is an instance" - Garner and Rosen
- Rule utilitarians argue that acting for
the immediate good isn't always for
the greatest good
- Eg. executing the innocent man to avoid a riot may be
for the immediate greatest good but would it be right
in the long run as it would result in a world in which
people have no rights
- Preference Utilitarianism
- Goal: a "satisfaction of desires"
instead of decrease pain/increase
utility
- We should act on the preference of the individual
unless it is outweighed by the preference of
someone else
- This preference could be
avoid pain, experience utility
- However, can be more complex than this eg a human may have
a preference to establish and maintain a healthy relationship,
whilst a pig may have a preference to roll in mud
- To fulfil this, you need to work out people's deisires
and attempt to develop them
- Established by Peter Singer
- Condones abortion (particularly in the early stages)
- Weighs up mother's preference to foetus's
pain - mother is rational and conscious so it
outweighs
- Singer believes in vegetarianism, as preference
utilitarianism is extended to all sentient beings
- Still sees humans as "higher" than animals - if one
had to eat meat to survive, this would be permissible in
preference utilitarianism.
- Singer believes that an animal's preference to not get eaten
outweighs a human's preference to eat meat
- Negative Utilitarianism
- Karl Popper
- Focus on
minimisation of
suffering, not
maximisation of
happiness
- People tend to think
we should end
human suffering
- More realistic (?) -
people mostly try to
avoid pain more
- Advantages
- Comes from a time when there were great
social divides and treats all individuals as
equal
- "each is to count for one, none to count for more than one"
- Could extend (arguably) to all sentient beings
- "the question is not, can they reason? nor can they talk? but can they
suffer?" - Bentham
- Peter Singer
- "The good" and "the bad" are metaphysical concepts
- Utilitarianism says that these are physical concepts
eg pain and utility
- Avoids conflict of duties - eg keep a
promise or tell a lie, utilitarianism tells us to
do the one that will result in the most utility,
least pain etc
- Takes consequences into account and allows
for complex scenarios (unlike deontological)
- Disadvantages
- Rule util
- There are examples in which
keeping to a rule can lead to more
pain and less utility - contradiction?
- Act Util
- Theoretically, any leisure activities
are morally wrong, as this time
could be spent doing charity work
- Can disregard rights of
individuals
- Central Tenets
- Consequencialist system- not
interested in the actions as long as the
outcome itself is "right
- Only interested in utility/pain from action
- "It is the greatest happiness for the
greatest number that is the measure
of right and wrong" - Bentham