Explain
the
The theory of Utilitarianism takes its name from the Latin word Utilis,
meaning ‘useful’. Utilitarianism is
a theory created my Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century and further developed by John Stuart Mill in the 19th century. Bentham drew from the
roots of Aristotle which gave him a base on what to work on. Bentham wanted a
theory which anybody could use and which wasn’t dependent on God, this lead him
to create this theory based on empiricism (evidence) on the way humans act.
The key idea in Bentham’s Utilitarianism is that it’s a teleological
theory which means that an act is given moral quality once its consequences are
analyzed. In this case for an act to be moral it must maximize the pleasure and
minimize the pain to the majority of people affected. Bentham used this theory
because he believed that people were pain and pleasure organisms that in life
we tend to pursue pleasure and free from pain. “Nature has placed us under the
governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.” In his opinion what we
do naturally is what we ought to do, therefore this natural pursue of pleasure
is moral. Pleasure was therefore the summum bonum of this ethical approach
meaning it’s the one absolute.
Bentham went further to develop this theory by creating the Hedonic
Calculus which was a way of measuring how much pleasure is caused by an act. It
had 7 factors, these are; Intensity
(how strong is the pleasure), Extent
(how many people are affected), Nearness
(how long until the pleasure will be felt), Duration (how long the pleasure will last for), Certainty (how certain is it that pain will come), Fecundity (producing other pleasures)
and Purity (producing different
pain/pleasures).
Bentham would give each factor a score, for example on the case of “Embryo
experimentation on excess IVF”. The Extent would be huge because if the
experiments work and they find out new information then thousands of people will
benefit in the future by being able to have babies when the originally thought
they could not.
The Intensity will be huge as it gives them a child, and the child has a
life which is would have never had before – pleasure cannot get stronger than
this. The Duration would score highly as the new children will have a lifetime
of happiness and the parents get to live with a child of their own for many
years. However, the Certainty would score quite low because the scientists
cannot be certain that pleasures will be
People called Bentham’s theory Act Utilitarianism which meant that exceptions
were allowed to the rule because each situation was different. Rules would
start to emerge as each act is likely to produce a similar outcome. For
example, when measuring the morality of stealing, 9 times out of 10 stealing
would be wrong but one must measure each act anyway as it depends on the
consequences of the individual circumstances.
Mill went on to develop Benthams
theory and he made three alterations. The first alteration was the addition of higher and lower
pleasures. He believed that if people continued just to search for pleasures
they would tend to choose just lower pleasures because these are easily
attainable and it would make Utilitarianism a “Swine philosophy”.
The higher pleasures were ones of the mind and soul, for example
reading, studying and going to the theatre. Whereas the lower pleasures, were
pleasures of the body, for example eating, sport and sex. Mill said that if you
asked somebody who has experienced both higher and lower pleasures he would say
that the higher pleasures are more valuable. He also argued that we should
pursue these higher pleasures at the cost of feeling pain. Mill aimed to
increase the standard of living so that people were able to feel the higher
pleasures such as studying and/or going to the theatre.
Secondly Mill introduced the “Theory of
Justice”, which benefited the individual. Mill believed that we should not cause pain to the
individual just to cause pleasure to the majority. For example, bullying a
little boy because it gives pleasure to lots of boys is immoral as it creates a
tyranny of majority. Mill said that the individual should have freedom to do as
he wishes as long as it does not cause pain to others. For example, torturing a
suicide bomber could be moral because this person may kill thousands of people
in the future.
Main strengths and weaknesses of the theory
The strengths and weaknesses of Utilitarianism vary between different
versions of the theory. The advantages of Act Utilitarianism are not the same
as those of Rule; Mill’s outlook was very different from that of Bentham.
Overall, however, the strengths of both forms are outweighed by their
weaknesses. They are not convincing as ethical systems, and some other approach
to ethics is required.
An advantage of Bentham’s Act Utilitarianism is that it considers the consequences
and happiness which result from actions; this seems a sensible approach to
ethics which would find much support today. The theory is also flexible and
easy to apply; it does not prescribe many hard rules and provides a simple
method for decision making. The theory also enables tough decision making
through its relativism (i.e. it would
allow us to sacrifice individuals if it is of great benefit to society).
The problem with Bentham’s theory however is that it is truly
relativistic, so any conceivable action could be allowed (killing for the sake
of pleasure, or ideology). It also enables the suffering of the innocent under
a majority, despite obvious injustice. It further allows cruel or sadistic
pleasure, since Bentham regarded all pleasure as commensurate (equal), a point
noted by the philosopher Bernard Williams.
Mill’s theory offers many advantages which get around the problems of
Bentham’s Act Utilitarianism. By distinguishing between the quality of
pleasures, Mill rules out the possibility of sadism or evil pleasure (e.g. prison guards enjoying torturing an
innocent victim). Also, by offering Rule Utilitarianism, Mill is stating that
certain actions are explicitly prohibited because they tend to promote pain.
So, he would not allow torture, no matter how much it was enjoyed.
However, Mill’s theory lacks the flexibility of Bentham’s, which means
that sensible rule breaking is no longer possible (an objection pointed out by
R.M. Hare). One could not tell white lies, even to protect others. There is a
further weakness in Mill’s idea of different qualities of pleasure: how can we
judge what makes pleasure higher or lower? Surely this is a subjective matter,
as taste varies from person to person. It might also be argued that the concept
of a competent judge is vague, since it is not clear whether we can really
identify such people in today’s society.
Overall, the theories put forward by Bentham and Mill fail to provide a
convincing or useful approach to ethics. On the one hand, Bentham’s views are strikingly
relativistic, allowing any pleasure (even sadism). On the other hand, Mill’s
Rule system lacks the flexibility to make sensible choices in difficult
situations. It may be that some other and more modern version of the theory can
overcome these problems, such as Welfare Utilitarianism (as supported by Peter
Singer) or Two Rule Utilitarianism (as suggested by R.M. Hare).
jurisprudence
