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6. What was the felicific calculus also known as?

  • The 'hedonic' or 'utility' calculus
  • The utilitarianism principle
  • The happiness equation

7. Name one utilitarian whose ideas have gained great popularity in recent years

  • James rachael
  • Immanuel Kant
  • Peter Singer
  • Aquinas

8. What does the P mean?

  • Purity - how free from pain it is
  • Past - the past the individual has with pain and happiness
  • Predetermination - we predetermine how we are going to feel about something that will happen, making the outcome bias

9. What is Utilitarianism known as?

  • a way of measuring everyone's happiness
  • The greatest happiness principle
  • The principle of utility

10. What did Bentham equate happiness with?

  • He equated it with pleasure and the absense of pain
  • The amount of pleasure you get and how long it lasts
  • Love

11. What did Bentham's theories lead to in society?

  • extensive social reform affecting parliament, criminal law, the jury system, prisons, cheap postage, saving banks etc
  • They didn't lead to anything. Bentham was considered lacking in reason and logic for his opinions
  • It lead to some discussion within parliament about how a person should be charged with a crime

12. What did Bentham's theories result in? [for Law making]

  • He was considered unimportant, therefore his opinion did not matter
  • It resulted in all people being considered when making a law
  • It resulted in mass disagreement among political parties and created confusion

13. What does the R mean?

  • Richness - to what extent it will lead to other pleasures
  • Rate - the amount of pleasure [how good it is]
  • Relayed emotions - if your not feeling happiness you may, for some reason, try and remember an event where you felt genuine happiness and fake it

14. What does the C mean?

  • Certainty - how likely it is to happen
  • Creativity - how unique is the happiness, have you felt it before or is it useless to the senses due to familiarity?

15. How was this an empirical observation?

  • He looked back at history
  • Bentham could see that people desire pleasure and seek to avoid pain
  • He looked at science and the reactions are bodies have to pain

16. What does the D mean?

  • Duration - how long the happiness lasts
  • Dictation - does the happiness dictate what you do with yourself afterwards, what long term affect will it have?

17. What sort of observation did bentham make?

  • Empirical [using what he can see in the world - evidence in reality]
  • he just observed people's happiness and looked at the situation
  • from reason and logic

18. What did Bentham think we should do before deciding what choice to make?

  • We should carefully measure the possible consequences or outcomes of that action beforehand
  • Don't think. Just go with your gut instincts
  • Write down all the possible positive and negative outcomes, think whether it is worth the risk