Utilitarianism
- Created by: Lishamxrie
- Created on: 10-01-19 12:44
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- Utilitarianism
- Rule
- Mill
- Quality over quantity
- Higher and lower pleasures
- Higher: pleasure of the mind
- Reading
- Lower: pleasure of the body
- Sports
- Sex
- Higher: pleasure of the mind
- Greatest good for the greatest number of people, as long as we abided by the rules of morality
- Strong and week rule
- Weak: may break the rule as a secondary principle
- Strong: will never break a rule, regardless of the situation
- Issues
- Does weak rule collapse into act utilitarianism?
- Everyone has a different idea about a higher and lower pleasure (e.g. sportsmen may find sports a pleasure of the mind rather than a pleasure of the body
- Can morality be summed up by rules?
- Preference
- Non-hedonistic: maximising 'something'
- Meeting the preferences of the most amount of people
- No way to calculate, only consulting those involved
- Hare
- Not all preferences bring pleasure
- Nozik thought machine
- Not all preferences bring pleasure
- Singer
- seeks to maximise the choice of the individual
- Minimising pain
- Issues
- What about bad or crazy preferences?
- Weighing up preferences can be hard
- Act
- Seek pleasure and avoid pain
- Most amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people
- Bentham
- Calculate what will bring the most pleasure using the hedonic calculus
- Intensity (how strong the pain/pleasure is
- Duration: how ling the pain/pleasure will last
- Certainty: what is the likelihood of the pain/pleasure
- Remoteness: how closely the pain/pleasure effects you
- Richness: the depth of the pain/pleasure
- Purity: how pure the action is that will produce the pleasure
- Extent: how far does the pain/pleasure go
- Issues
- Impossible to compare pleasures
- Ignores morality
- Quantity over quality
- Everyone has a different idea about pleasure
- Teleological argument (focused on the consequences not the action)
- Psychological hedonism: an individuals potential pleasure and avoidance of pain are the aims of an individuals actions
- Strengths
- Considers the consequences of an action
- Suggests a way of calculating what will bring the most happiness
- Issues
- Ignores morality
- Can justify immoral acts
- Hedonistic: maximising happiness
- Rule
- Mill
- Quality over quantity
- Higher and lower pleasures
- Higher: pleasure of the mind
- Reading
- Lower: pleasure of the body
- Sports
- Sex
- Higher: pleasure of the mind
- Greatest good for the greatest number of people, as long as we abided by the rules of morality
- Strong and week rule
- Weak: may break the rule as a secondary principle
- Strong: will never break a rule, regardless of the situation
- Issues
- Does weak rule collapse into act utilitarianism?
- Everyone has a different idea about a higher and lower pleasure (e.g. sportsmen may find sports a pleasure of the mind rather than a pleasure of the body
- Can morality be summed up by rules?
- Rule
- Hedonistic: maximising happiness
- Rule
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