Utilitarianism
- Created by: Freyae99
- Created on: 19-12-17 11:25
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- Utilitarianism
- Bentham 1748-1832
- Our actions should be aimed at maximising pleasure and avoiding pain.
- Felicific Calculus: tool used to help people make decisions when they are presented with a moral dilemma.
- Not intended to be used precisely but it must always be kept in view
- There are 7n categories that should be taken into consideration when working out FC: Intensity - Duration - (Un)Certainty - Near or Remote - Fecundity - Purity - Extent
- We cannot know the long term consequences of our actions and as we cannot predict this, there is no way of truly calculating happiness
- Over time, through trial and error people have automatically worked out what is likely to produce the most hapiness. We only really need to work out GHP when secondary principles conflict
- "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."
- "It is the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong."
- Singer 1946-present day
- The morally correct action is that which produces the consequences where the highest amount of rational interests are satisfied - including animal interests
- We must think about rational interests when deliberating between possible outcomes
- Singer provides the consequential theory of preference of UT which focuses on each persons preference in a moral dilemma
- "All beings interests are entitled to equal consideration"
- Key points
- The theory is relative - it is subjective and depends upon the situation and teleological - the moral course of action taken is based upon the consequences of a situation
- Act UT fails to rule out immoral actions because morally wrong things may produce the GH in some situations meaning UT would accept these actions
- Three foundational claims
- Act consequentialism: actions are morally right/wrong depending only on their consequence
- UT doesn't recognise individual rights as it prioritises happiness over anything else.
- Organ donar example
- UT doesn't take into account the motive of peoples actions e.g. I could be planning to kill someone and instead accidentally save them (car example)
- Mill responds that morality as a whole is concerned with a personas character as well as their actions and actions normally arise from characted - if you are a good person you are likely to do good things.
- UT doesn't recognise individual rights as it prioritises happiness over anything else.
- Value theory: the only thing that is good is happiness itself
- Equality: everyones happiness has equal value
- Act consequentialism: actions are morally right/wrong depending only on their consequence
- UT is an ethical theory based around the idea that maximising happiness is the correct thing to do
- UT doesn't understand the significance of relationships as it expects us to count each person as equal - including important people in my life
- The theory is relative - it is subjective and depends upon the situation and teleological - the moral course of action taken is based upon the consequences of a situation
- Mill 1806-1873
- All pleasures are not equal, therefore happiness is dependent on maximising the best sort of pleasure possible
- "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied"
- To determine what are higher and lower pleasures we just have to ask sensible people what pleasure they prefer. Pleasures can also be classed as higher if we still want to experience it even if it brings some pain.
- There are higher pleasures which are concerned with the mind, then there are lower bodily pleasures which are said to be more animalistic.
- Secondary principles = interited moral rules e.g 'keep your promises'
- Over time, through trial and error people have automatically worked out what is likely to produce the most hapiness. We only really need to work out GHP when secondary principles conflict
- Secondary principles = interited moral rules e.g 'keep your promises'
- Nozick 1938-2002
- There are things which matter to us more than simply having experiences
- Happiness is not a good guid for morality. If the right thing to do was always to maximise happiness then all we would want to do is plug into the Experience Machine
- 1. If all that mattered to us was pleasure then we would want to plug into the experience machine
- 2. We do not want to plug in
- 3. Therefore there are things that matter to us more than pleasure
- This premise is weak because it is just an assumption
- Points made to back up P2: We want to do certain things and not just have the experience of having done them so we wouldn't plug in. We would also be limited to a human created reality if we plugged
- 2. We do not want to plug in
- Bentham 1748-1832
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