Utilitarianism

Keywords:

Consequentialist: Consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct.

Teleological: Moral philosophy where the rightness of an act is determined by its end.

Utility: A principle where the right action is one that promotes happiness and peace.

Normative Ethics: A branch of moral philosophy, or ethics, concerned with criteria of what is right and wrong.

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure"
“The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.”

Jeremy Bentham - Act Utilitarianism

It is human nature to find pleasure good and pain bad.
So, it is pleasure and pain which determine what we ought to do as well as what we will do.
An action is good if it leads to the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people; this is the principle of utility.
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory because it is the consequences of an action that determines whether it is good.
All pleasures are equal. No one person's happiness is more valid than anyone else's.

The Hedonic Calculus:

There are some things that just seem wrong regardless of the consequences.
There can be intrinsic rights such as human rights which aren't necessarily rooted in pleasure.
If 10 people gained happiness from torturing 1 person, an Act Utilitarian would say that was morally right as it led to the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
Response: Bentham could respond to this however and say that the morally correct action is maximising pleasure. In the above example, maximising pleasure would be making 11/11 people happy, not just 10.

Calculating utility is difficult in reality because we can't predict the future.
Some things can have unforeseen consequences: If I were to cook you a nice meal and then you ended up being allergic to one of the ingredients and became unwell, I have accidentally maximised pain.
Also, it is not clear how much weight we give to each of the seven parts of the Hedonic Calculus, is there a hierarchy? Are some more important than others?
Are we supposed to, in the moment, actually calculate each individual section of the Hedonic Calculus, apply weighting to each one and then do the action?

In order to be a good Utilitarian, we have to set aside personal feelings and act impartially. Everyone's happiness is equal, whether that is a stranger's or a family member's.
Think of the Trolley Problem but instead of 5 strangers and 1 stranger, the 1 stranger is someone you care about.
Maximising pleasure would be to save the 5 strangers. Realistically, we would not do that because we cannot ignore the moral obligations towards a loved one.

If someone does something evil, but accidentally ends up maximising pleasure, Utilitarians would say they've done a morally good thing.
Alternatively if I help an elderly lady cross the road and she gets hit by a car, I have maximised pain and therefore I've done a morally incorrect action.
Utilitarianism ignores the intention of the person doing the act.

If a machine existed which, when you were plugged into it, would only give you pleasurable experiences, would you get into it?
Nozick suggests not everyone would because humans value their connection to reality and having real experiences. However, if we were acting in the Utilitarian way, we should get into the machine and experience endless, albeit fake, pleasures.
But it can be argued there are things in life more important than simple pleasure, such as being in contact with reality. Act utilitarians however ignore our preferences for these things.
Pleasure, therefore, is not the only good.

Considered Bentham's Utilitarianism is "a doctrine worthy only of swine".
Mill combated this by distinguishing between lower pleasures gained from bodily activity, such as food, sex and drugs, and higher pleasures gained from mental activity, such as poetry, reading, philosophy, music.
Lower pleasures are costly because they are addictive and tempt people to choose a ‘nearer good’ over greater goods like health. Higher pleasures are enlightening.
Competent judges are people who have experience in both higher and lower pleasures and are able to distinguish between the two and understand the importance of higher pleasures.
Rule utilitarianism focuses on the consequences of general rules rather than specific actions.
Mill says he “entirely” agrees with Bentham’s principle of Utility, that what makes an action good is happiness over suffering. Mill calls this the principle of Utility the ‘first principle’.
But, we can't use the principle of utility to solve all moral dilemmas.
By trying to apply the principle of utility we get Secondary Principles which are society's current best attempts at making rules. These can change.
Another secondary principle Mill thought important enough to be adopted as the practice of government was the harm principle. It essentially states that people should be free to do what they want so long as they aren’t harming others.

“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”

Interesting to know: I love John Stuart Mill! Mill was an early advocate for women’s rights. He outlined his arguments for gender equality in his book The Subjugation of Women. He supported women’s education, employment, and suffrage. In 1865, he even introduced a parliamentary motion for women’s right to vote.
Together with his wife, Harriet Taylor Mill, he campaigned endlessly for the rights of women which continued after Harriet died.

Preference Utilitarianism was initially developed by R.M. Hare and later extended by Peter Singer.
This is a non-hedonistic version of Utilitarianism. it holds that we should act to maximise the satisfaction of people’s preferences or interests, rather than their happiness.
Peter Singer argued that ethics should adopt the perspective of an ‘impartial observer’, meaning that your own interests should not automatically take priority over the interests of others.
Each individual’s preferences count equally when evaluating the consequences of an action.
Preference Utilitarianism is still consequentialist, but its aim is not necessarily to maximise pleasure or minimise pain. Instead, it seeks to ensure that people’s preferences are fulfilled as far as possible, even if doing so does not increase happiness in the traditional sense.
This allows choices that promote autonomy or long-term goals, rather than just immediate pleasure or avoidance of suffering.

Negative Utilitarianism: Prioritises reducing suffering over increasing happiness. The idea is that preventing pain is morally more urgent than promoting pleasure. David Pearce is a prominent scholar of this type of Utilitarianism and he says that our moral obligation is to completely abolish suffering.

"No amount of happiness enjoyed by some organisms can notionally justify the indescribable horrors of Auschwitz. … Nor can the fun and games outweigh the sporadic frightfulness of pain and despair that occurs every second of every day"