DAMODARAM SANJIVAYYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

VISAKHAPATNAM, A.P., INDIA

NAME OF THE PROJECT TOPIC

JEREMY BENTHAM’S UTILITARIAN THEORY

SUBJECT
JURISPRUDENCE

NAME OF THE FACULTY

MR. ARVINDNATH TRIPATHI

NAME OF THE STUDENT: ANGELA ELSA JOHN

REGD NO: 2018LLB011
SECTION: A
3RD SEMESTER

BENTHAM’S UTILITARIAN THEORY Page 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1) ACKNOWLEDGMENT………………………………………………………….3

2) ABOUT JEREMY BENTHAM………………………………………………….4

3) UTILITARIANISM………………………………………………………………6

4) HEDONISTIC CALCULUS……………………………………………………..8

5) CRITICISMS OF BENTHAM’S THEORY…………………………………….15

6) APPPLICATIONS OF BENTHAM’S PAIN AND PLEASURE THEORY……18

7) FORD PINTO CASE…………………………………………………………….

8) COVENTRY DURING WORLD WAR II………………………………………

9) EUTHANASIA AND THE PAIN AND PLEASURE THEORY……………….

10) CONCLUSION

BENTHAM’S UTILITARIAN THEORY Page 2

 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Firstly, I would like to be extremely grateful to my Jurisprudence teacher, Prof. Arvindnath
Tripathi for giving me an opportunity to do this project. I will be forever indebted to him lending
his extraordinary support during the process of making the project. I would also like to thank my
friends and family for encouraging me, thus helping me complete the project in a limited time
frame.

I would also like to thank DSNLU for providing all necessary resources and a suitable
workplace, thus helping me come up with a satisfactory project.

BENTHAM’S UTILITARIAN THEORY Page 3

 ABOUT JEREMY BENTHAM

Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher and political radical. He is primarily known today
for his moral philosophy, especially his principle of utilitarianism, which evaluates actions based
upon their consequences. The relevant consequences, in particular, are the overall happiness
created for everyone affected by the action. Influenced by many enlightenment thinkers,
especially empiricists such as John Locke and David Hume, Bentham developed an ethical
theory grounded in a largely empiricist account of human nature. He famously held a hedonistic
account of both motivation and value according to which what is fundamentally valuable and
what ultimately motivates us is pleasure and pain. Happiness, according to Bentham, is thus a
matter of experiencing pleasure and lack of pain.

Although he never practiced law, Bentham did write a great deal of philosophy of law, spending
most of his life critiquing the existing law and strongly advocating legal reform. Throughout his
work, he critiques various natural accounts of law which claim, for example, that liberty, rights,
and so on exist independent of government. In this way, Bentham arguably developed an early
form of what is now often called "legal positivism." Beyond such critiques, he ultimately
maintained that putting his moral theory into consistent practice would yield results in legal
theory by providing justification for social, political, and legal institutions.

Bentham's influence was minor during his life. But his impact was greater in later years as his
ideas were carried on by followers such as John Stuart Mill, John Austin, and other
consequentialists.

Most of the writings of Bentham were never published in his own lifetime; much of that which
was published was prepared for publication by others. Works published in Bentham's
lifetime included:
• Fragment on Government (1776). This was an unsparing criticism of some introductory
passages relating to political theory in William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws
of England.

• Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation (printed for

publication 1780, published 1789)
• Defence of Usury (1787)
• Panopticon (1787, 1791)
• Emancipate your Colonies (1793)
• Traité de Législation Civile et Penale (1802)
BENTHAM’S UTILITARIAN THEORY Page 4
• Punishments and Rewards (1811)
• A Table of the Springs of Action (1815)
• Parliamentary Reform Catechism (1817)
• Church of Englandism (printed 1817, published 1818)
• Elements of the Art of Packing (1821)
• The Influence of Natural Religion upon the Temporal Happiness of Mankind (1822)
• Not Paul But Jesus (1823)
• Book of Fallacies (1824)
• A Treatise on Judicial Evidence (1825)

The essay Offences Against One's Self, argued for the liberalization of laws prohibiting
homosexuality. It was published for the first time in 1931.

BENTHAM’S UTILITARIAN THEORY Page 5

UTILITARIANISM

Utilitarianism is a family of consequentialist ethical theories that promotes actions that maximize
happiness and well-being for the majority of a population. Although different varieties of
utilitarianism admit different characterizations, the basic idea behind all of them is to in some
sense maximize utility, which is often defined in terms of well-being or related concepts. For
instance, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, described utility as "that property in any
object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness...[or] to
prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is
considered." Utilitarianism is a version of consequentialism, which states that the consequences
of any action are the only standard of right and wrong. Unlike other forms of consequentialism,
such as egoism and altruism, utilitarianism considers the interests of all beings equally.

Utilitarianism, in normative ethics, a tradition stemming from the late 18th- and 19th-century
English philosophers and economists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill according to which
an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of
happiness—not just the happiness of the performer of the action but also that of everyone
affected by it. Such a theory is in opposition to egoism, the view that a person should pursue his
own self-interest, even at the expense of others, and to any ethical theory that regards some acts
or types of acts as right or wrong independently of their consequences (see deontological ethics).
Utilitarianism also differs from ethical theories that make the rightness or wrongness of an act
dependent upon the motive of the agent, for, according to the utilitarian, it is possible for the
right thing to be done from a bad motive. Utilitarians may, however, distinguish the aptness of
praising or blaming an agent from whether the act was right.

The Nature Of Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an effort to provide an answer to the practical question “What ought a person to
do?” The answer is that a person ought to act so as to produce the best consequences possible.

Basic concepts
In the notion of consequences the utilitarian includes all of the good and bad produced by the act,
whether arising after the act has been performed or during its performance. If the difference in
the consequences of alternative acts is not great, some utilitarians do not regard the choice
between them as a moral issue. According to Mill, acts should be classified as morally right or
wrong only if the consequences are of such significance that a person would wish to see the
agent compelled, not merely persuaded and exhorted, to act in the preferred manner.
In assessing the consequences of actions, utilitarianism relies upon some theory of intrinsic
value: something is held to be good in itself, apart from further consequences, and all other

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values are believed to derive their worth from their relation to this intrinsic good as a means to an
end. Bentham and Mill were hedonists; i.e, they analyzed happiness as a balance of pleasure over
pain and believed that these feelings alone are of intrinsic value and disvalue. Utilitarians also
assume that it is possible to compare the intrinsic values produced by two alternative actions and
to estimate which would have better consequences. Bentham believed that a hedonic calculus is
theoretically possible. A moralist, he maintained, could sum up the units of pleasure and the units
of pain for everyone likely to be affected, immediately and in the future, and could take the
balance as a measure of the overall good or evil tendency of an action. Such precise
measurement as Bentham envisioned is perhaps not essential, but it is nonetheless necessary for
the utilitarian to make some interpersonal comparisons of the values of the effects of alternative
courses of action.

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 HEDONISTIC
CALCULUS/FELICIFIC CALCULUS
I. Bentham's method of estimating pleasures and pains can be applied to egoistic hedonism. With
the addition of the utilitarian factor "extent" of pleasure, the hedonism can be extended to any
number of persons. The felicific calculus is an algorithm formulated by utilitarian philosopher
Jeremy Bentham (1747–1832) for calculating the degree or amount of pleasure that a specific
action is likely to cause. Bentham, an ethical hedonist, believed the moral rightness or wrongness
of an action to be a function of the amount of pleasure or pain that it produced. The felicific
calculus could, in principle at least, determine the moral status of any considered act. The
algorithm is also known as the utility calculus, the hedonistic calculus and the hedonic calculus.

A. Utilitarianism is the moral theory that an action is morally right if and only if it is
productive of the most utility (happiness, pleasure) for the greatest number of persons.
Bentham believed the right act is the act which of all those open to the agent, will
actually or probably produce the greatest amount of pleasure in the world-at-large.
Pleasure and pain form the basis of the standard of right and wrong.

B. Bentham lists benefit, advantage, good, or happiness as suitable paraphrases of pleasure.

The good of the community is simply the sum of the pleasures of the individuals who
compose it.

C. The main problem for the calculus is calculating the interpersonal utility comparison
using cardinal utility measurement rather than ordinal measurement.

II. The Modified Hedonistic Calculus:

The major factors of sensations of pleasure and pain resulting from an action as outlined
by Bentham are summarized by these variables.

A. The first four variables (intensity, duration, certainty, and propinquity) show the value of
the pleasure or the pain "considered by itself." This phrase implies Bentham did not see
pleasure and pain as polar concepts or contraries.

The next two variables (fecundity and purity) are properties of the event or action
produced by the pleasure or pain-—not properties of the pleasure or pain, itself.

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 1. Intensity (I)--How intense is the pleasure or pain?

2. Duration (D)--How long does the pleasure of pain last?

3. Certainty (C)--What is the probability that the pleasure or pain will occur?

4. Propinquity (nearness or remoteness) (N)--How far off in the future is the

pleasure or pain?

5. Fecundity (F)--What is the probability that the pleasure will lead to other
pleasures?

6. Purity (P)--What is the probability that the pain will lead to other pains?

7. Extent (E)--How many persons are affected by the pleasure?

B. How are the individual factors to be quantified or measured?

1. Intensity (I)--Bentham apparently thought intensity would vary from zero to

infinity, but psychological data indicates an upper threshold of pleasure; hence,
we can use an ordinal relation from 0 to 10. Pain could be measured in the same
manner, where for both pleasure and pain, 0 represents indifference.

E.g., a contemporary approach in the psychophysics of pain is reported by

Price, et al.: "Someone who is having pain is asked to match the perceived
intensity of the pain to a scale. This can be done in a variety of ways. For

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 example, one can match words or numbers to pain intensity, or match an intensity
of experimental pain to that of clinical pain, or use more than one of these
procedures. … The clinician or investigator … provides the scaling procedures,
records the reported values, and uses a measurement method that has been chosen
to be reliable and valid." Donald C. Price, et al. "Psychophysical Approaches to
Measurement of the Dimensions and Stages of Pain"1
2. Duration (D)--We can use increments of time: seconds, minutes, and so forth.
The time interval from the perceived beginning of the pleasure until the end of the
pleasure in question. (Bentham did not consider the notion of psychological or
subjective time as opposed to clock or physical time. E.g., as Simone de Beauvoir
wrote, "Our private inward experience does not tell us the number of our years, no
fresh perception comes into being to show us the decline of years." 2

3. Certainty (C)--The assigned probability can be drawn from records of out past
experience and records from persons similar to us. What proportion of times has
the pleasure followed actions of the kind under consideration?

4. Propinquity (nearness or remoteness) (N)--We can set up a future indifference

curve based on a "store of satisfaction" such as money (q. v., below). Propinquity
of pleasure depends upon how long one must wait for the pleasure to occur.

5. Fecundity (F)--The probability that the pleasure or pain will lead to other pleasure
or pain of the same kind can be drawn from records of our own past experience
and the past experience of others like us. Also, as the Epicureans noted, many
extreme pleasures are not likely to be followed by other pleasures.

1
Dennis C. Turk and Ronald Melzack, Handbook of Pain Assessment (New York: Guilford
Press, 2001) 54

2
Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age (New York: Warner Books, 1973), 420.)

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 6. Purity (P)--Bentham writes, "Of the value of each pain which appears to be
produced by it after the first. This constitutes the fecundity of the first pain, and
the impurity of the first pleasure."

7. Extent (E)--The total amount of utility or pleasure can be had by summing a

similar calculation for every other person who is affected by the action in
question.

III. How can the general equation be set up?

A. In setting up the calculus, we need to make a number of assumptions about preferences

and satisfaction in order to insure consistency. Initially, the following assumptions or
principles seem reasonable to assume when faced with choices concerning pleasure and
pain ...

1. We can decide when we prefer one thing to another or whether we are indifferent.

2. Our preferences are transitive. If I prefer activity A over activity B, and

activity B over activity C, then I prefer activity A over activity C. Our
preferences as any given moment are transitive, but these preferences can differ at
different times. Consider, for example, the "law of diminishing utility" or
"satiable wants": "The total utility of a thing to anyone (that is, the total pleasure
or other benefit it yields him) increases with every increase in his stock of it, but
not as fast as his stock increases." 3
3. An egoistic hedonist prefers more pleasure to less pleasure and less pain to more
pain.

3
(Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics (London: Macmillan, 1890), 168.)

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 B. The magnitude of a pleasure (the product of the dimension of pleasure) is
the duration multiplied by the intensity of the pleasure. (Try working out specific
examples for (1) studying, (2) sleeping late, and (3) going to a small party.)

D × I

C. The certainty is a factor of probability that the pleasure will occur. The expected pleasure
value equals the probability multiplied by the magnitude of the pleasure.

P × M

D. How do we get a weighting for the propinquity? I.e., the nearness or remoteness of the
pleasure? How can we quantify our feelings about pleasures in the future? One possibility
is to set up a future indifference curve based on a "store of satisfaction" such as money.

1. Ask yourself the following questions: Would you rather receive $1 in one week or
$10 in one month?

a. If you prefer $10 in one month, then ask yourself about $9, $8, and so
forth, until you are indifferent about when you receive the money.

b. If you would prefer $1 in one week to $10 in one month, then ask yourself
about $11 in one month, $12, $13, and so forth until you are indifferent
about whether you receive the money in one week or one month.

c. Ask the similar question about whether you prefer $1 in one week
to x dollars in six months. Continue the questioning for one year, five
years, ten years, twenty years.

2. When you are finished, you should have a set of amounts of money corresponding
to the various time periods. Each item numbered below represents one student's
values:

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 Question Time Amount in Dollars

1. one week 1

2. one month 10

3. six months 44

4. one year 110

5. five years 700

6. ten years 5,000

7. twenty years 12,000

3. The student is indifferent about questions 1 through 7. That is, this student is
unable to decide which one of these is preferred. (Obviously, your list will differ
in the amounts in dollars, and you should also be indifferent about the values you
adopt.)

E. The fecundity of the action for that individual could be determined by the summation of
the measure of the sensations of pleasure and pain for that individual which follow the
initial sensation of pleasure and pain.

F. The purity of the sensation of pleasure and pain resulting from the action would be the
summation of the measures from the complex of individual pleasures and pains resulting
from the action. This factor might be expresses as a ratio of pleasure to pain. Since
pleasure is scaled from 0 to 10 and pain is scaled from 0 to -10 a positive ratio would
represent an aggregate purity value in the pleasure range, and a negative ratio would
represent a purity value in the negative range. It's quite possible that empirical
measurements of pain and pleasure would result in a logarithmic relation rather than a
scalar one.

G. The factor of the extent is employed by repeating the above calculation for each person
affected by the original action in question. The result would be the sum of the results of
the each calculation with respect to the number of the individuals in the community under

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 examination.

(If we were to assume deterministic natural laws, then there would have to be a
calculation not only for each person who is alive at the time of the action but also for
every person who will live in the future—a calculation that could only be vaguely
estimated.)

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 CRITICISMS OF BENTHAM’S
THEORY
Criticism of Utilitarianism:
Utilitarianism has been criticised as follows:
(1) The moral and psychological basis of utilitarianism is not real:
Utilitarianism is based on the notion that whatever functions should or should not be performed
by the individual should be tested on the touch-stone of utility. If this notion is accepted, each
individual will work only for his own pleasure.

He will ignore benevolence, renunciation, service and sacrifice. This is the main drawback of
Bentham’s theory. That is why Carlyal said angrily, “Bentham’s theory is the theory of the pigs”.
He thought that “man is also a fleshy body, who need only physical pleasure and nothing else.
There is no place for a thing like moral consciousness in his conscience”.

Robert A. Murrary writes, “If we take away conscience, as Bentham does, there is no such thing
as moral or immoral action, though there may remain acts that are generally useful of the reverse.
As there is no individual conscience, so there is no collective conscience. The culprit does not
feel the censure of the community”.

(2) Against human nature:

The utilitarian’s are of the view that the individual does every work for the attainment of
pleasure and for the avoidance of pain. But this analysis of human nature is one-sided. The fact is
that human nature is complex. He has qualities like pity, faith, service, benevolence, love,
sympathy, sacrifice and forgiveness in him.

He fixes his high ideals on the basis of these qualities and bears every type of pain smilingly. For
instance, when India was under the foreign rule, many people faced many hardships at the hands
of Britishers. They did all these not for their personal pleasure but for their high ideals.

Similarly, when in 1962 China invaded India and later on when in 1965 and 1971 Pakistan
invaded India, thousands of heroes displayed exemplary courage and also sacrificed their lives.
They did all this not for their personal interest but for the high ideal of the protection of their
country.

Buddha, Christ, Shivaji, Guru Gobind Singh, V.D. Savarkar, B.G. Tilak, Subhash Chandra Bose
and Mahatma Gandhi sacrificed everything not for any personal pleasure but for high ideal of
benevolence.

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(3) The utilitarian’s laid emphasis upon the material comforts only and ignored the
spiritual happiness:
The utilitarian’s have cared only for physical comfort, and have ignored the suppression of sense
and self-control. They have also no cared for the spiritual comfort which one derives from self-
sacrifice for the sake of humanity.

(4) It is improper to lay emphasis solely upon the quantity of pleasures:

Bentham has stressed only upon the quantity of pleasure. He has not taken up the qualitative
difference; therefore, John Stuart Mill has taken up the qualitative difference, which is
appropriate.

(5) Bentham did not establish any reconciliation between the interests of the individual and
those the society:
Maxy has written, “Nor was Bentham able to cross the chasm between individual and social
utility”. He did not agree that it was difficult to make any difference between the individual
interests and social interests. C.L. Wayper has rightly said, “Besides in his portrayal of the
hedonistic individual, Bentham seems to have left life out of the picture……..in his study of the
atomic individual, he has left out both society and history”.

(6) The doctrine of maximum welfare of the maximum number is not free from
complications:
Sometimes it is possible that the majority may become selfish and in the name of maximum
welfare of maximum number; it may suppress the minority. For instance, the Muslims of
Pakistan have turned out the Hindus from their country. This is altogether unfair. Therefore,
many atrocities can be committed in the name of this doctrine.

(7) This theory ultimately leads to the theory of Laissez Faire:

A majority of the utilitarians were in favour of the view that the government should not interfere
in the affairs of the individual, so that the individual should be in a position to achieve maximum
welfare. Though, in public interest, John Stuart Mill accepted some control of the state, yet he
was chiefly a utilitarian. The policy of Laissez Faire harms the interests of the poor and the weak
sections of society. Thus this theory suffers from many weaknesses.

If I am to bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number, not putting my own happiness
above others, that may lead to a dilemma. I live in a neighborhood where 83% of my neighbors
use drugs. I could make them most happy by helping supply them with cheap drugs, but I feel
uncomfortable doing that. What should a utilitarian do?

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Bernard Williams criticizes the implied “doctrine of negative responsibility” in Utilitarianism.
For example, a thug breaks into my home and holds six people hostage, telling us he will kill all
of us. “However,” the thug says, “if you will kill two of your family, I will let you and the other
three live.”
With Utilitarianism, the good thing to do is to kill two members of my family.

Utilitarianism plays fast and loose with God’s commandments. If lying, stealing, or killing could
lead to an increase of happiness for the greatest number, we are told we should lie, steal or kill.
Isn’t that a rejection of God’s commands?

If one must decide the probable outcome of an act before knowing whether it is good or bad,
how can children learn to evaluate acts, since they know so little of what consequences might
arise from their actions?

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 APPLICATIONS OF THE
UTILITARIAN THEORY/PAIN AND
PLEASURE THEORY
A) You attempt to help an elderly man across the street. He gets across safely.
Conclusion: the Act was a good act.

B) You attempt to help an elderly man across the street. You stumble as you go, he is
knocked into the path of a car, and is hurt.
Conclusion: The Act was a bad act.

C) If you can use eighty soldiers as a decoy in war, and thereby attack an enemy force
and kill several hundred enemy soldiers, that is a morally good choice even though the
eighty might be lost

D) If lying or stealing will actually bring about more happiness and/or reduce pain, Act
Utilitarianism says we should lie and steal in those cases
E) The decision at Coventry during WWII.
The decision was made not to inform the town that they would be bombed.
F) The Ford Pinto case: A defective vehicle would sometimes explode when hit.
The model was not recalled and repaired by Ford because they felt it was cheaper to pay
the liability suits than to recall and repair all the defective cars.

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 Act Utilitarianism Applied to the Ford
Pinto Release
When Ford began development of the Pinto in 1968, the company hoped that the car’s smaller
size and price tag would help it compete with Japanese and German competition, who were
mounting their takeover of the subcompact auto market. Ford president Lee Iacocca wanted the
Pinto to be less than 2,000 pounds and less than $2,000 so it could stand out when released into a
division of automobiles Ford did not have much experience in. In order to get the Pinto released
as soon as possible, the design and manufacturing process was cut from three and a half years
down to two.

While testing the Pinto, it became apparent that due to the gas tank in the car was at great risk for
fire hazard when struck from the rear, even at low speeds. The necessary improvements to make
the Pinto safer were not complex or costly; they simply needed a barrier between the gas tank
and the bumper of the car, which meant an added $5 to $8 to produce each car. To prevent the
gas tank leaking during rollovers, another $11 would have to be spent on production. Ford was
presented with a dilemma: to release the Pinto as scheduled and risk the safety of those who
purchased it or spend more time designing the car, thereby seceding more of the subcompact
auto market to the competition. After a cost-benefit analysis of the safety improvements and the
potential death toll, Ford decided to release the model without the safety improvements. Their
estimation showed that it was cheaper to ignore public safety. The release of the Pinto lead to an
estimated 21 to 475 deaths that could have been prevented if the necessary safety features had
been installed.

Act utilitarianism is part of the utilitarian theory, one of the most widely accepted ethical theories
in existence. It was developed by Jeremy Bentham and introduced to the world in his book An
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, which was released in 1789. Its basic
principle is that human nature is ruled by our reactions to pain and pleasure, and the good is the
action that maximizes the overall pleasure for the greatest number of people. In order to
determine whether an action produces more pain or pleasure for the majority, the hedonistic
calculus is used. The seven factors used in the hedonistic calculus are intensity, duration,
certainty, purity, propinquity, fertility, and extent. This calculus makes weighing in on an ethical
decision much easier because it allows all the factors involved in the choice to be given equal
consideration and when applied correctly, the right choice will be obvious in the end.

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The effectiveness of the hedonistic calculus is best demonstrated when used on a serious ethical
issue, and the Ford Pinto dilemma is a perfect example for this. First off is intensity, which is
obvious. Although Ford may have made a lot of money from the Pinto and captured a significant
portion of the subcompact auto market, the loss of human life is far more intense, for both the
deceased as well as their loved ones. Pain also wins out in the duration category, as the success
of company like Ford is constantly changing due to a variety of factors; the success of the Pinto
could not determine Ford’s overall success as a company. Death however, is permanent, and
clearly represents more pain for the deceased and their families than the pleasure for the few
Ford executives who could have benefitted from the Pinto doing well. Certainty goes to Ford
and pleasure, as the early release of the Pinto bringing in more revenue and helping them capture
more of a competitive market is practically a foregone conclusion, while deaths associated due to
the design flaw, although likely, are not certain. Propinquity is clearly in favor of the pain, as
approximately 50 lawsuits were brought against Ford as a result of rear-end collisions in the
Pinto, and Forbes and Time magazines both listed it in their “Worst Cars of All Time” lists in
2004 and 2008, respectively. Propinquity is in pleasure’s favor, as the positive effects felt by
Ford were immediate to its release of the car, while the deaths and lawsuits took place over the
course of several years and the car was not recalled until 1978, seven years after the release date.
Fertility is clearly in pain’s favor, because if automakers began to make a habit of cutting corners
on safety features the general well being of the public would be placed in grave and immediate
danger. This would negatively affect millions more than few auto executives who would benefit
from cutting corners on safety, which places extent in the pain category as well. After all the
factors are considered, pain wins with five categories in the calculus compared to pleasure’s two,
making it clearly unethical for the Pinto to have been released early without the necessary safety
features.

There may be some who stand by Ford’s actions and would reject the idea that they acted
unethically when releasing the Pinto. They would have several facts to draw upon in their
argument, the most impactful being that the Pinto did not break any of the standards set by the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and in certain areas surpassed the government
standards. They would also claim that in one of the most emotionally compelling cases, that of
Ulrich family, Ford was found not guilty of criminal homicide. In addition to these facts, they
would argue that despite appearing inhumane on the surface, cost-benefit analyses are the basis
of many important business determinations and Ford should not be faulted for using a standard
technique to make their decision.

However, there are several ways to rebut these counterarguments. Although Ford did not break
any of the existing NHTSA rules when releasing the Pinto, they had been actively lobbying
against new safety standards since the release of the Pinto. While Ford was found not guilty in

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that one specific case where they were charged with criminal homicide, the fact that roughly 50
lawsuits were brought against Ford, many of which Ford lost, and 21 to 475 lives could have
been saved by making minor changes to the design still makes Ford responsible due to their
negligence and oversight when releasing the car. They hadn’t even done their due diligence
when making the decision, as they relied on mathematical formulas as opposed to road tests in
their testing. When looking at the cost benefit analysis, Ford should have also considered the
bigger picture; that lives hung in the balance of their decision and they were gambling with
merely at $11 per car. Also, there were roughly 40 European and Japanese cars of similar price,
design, yet better features out at the time, meaning that it was not an unreasonable option to
make the safety changes to the car and remain competitive in the market. In conclusion, through
the application of act utilitarianism and the hedonistic calculus it is clear that Ford acted
unethically in their release of the Pinto.

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 The Decision at Coventry during WWII.
It's 70 years since Germany launched one of the most devastating bombing raids of World War
II, on Coventry. But did Winston Churchill have prior warning of the attack?

It has been claimed in a number of books that the wartime prime minister knew that the city was
to be targeted by the German Luftwaffe, but chose to do nothing because it would have alerted
Adolf Hitler to the fact the Allies had recently cracked the Nazis' top-secret Enigma codes.

Coventry and its people were sacrificed, the theory goes, "for the greater good" - that is, that the
benefits of playing the long game outweighed the short-term costs of leaving the West Midlands
city to a terrible fate.

It's not just historians who have written about the so-called Coventry conspiracy, though - it's a
theory which lives on to this day.

Jean Taylor spent the night of her 14th birthday in a communal shelter, utterly terrified. Speaking
ahead of the 70th anniversary, she said: "The rumour was that they decided to sacrifice the few
(in Coventry) to save the many. Nobody has ever confirmed or denied that, and that says a lot."

But was Sir Winston really such a utilitarian - the philosophical term given to those who strive to
bring about the greatest gain for the greatest number, even though that means making painful
sacrifices?

Or is the explanation far more mundane than the conspiracy theorists believe - that Mr Churchill
and his advisors were just as much in the dark about the Germans' Operation Moonlight Sonata
as the people who spent the night cowering in their shelters?

The conspiracy theorists argue that Sir Winston chose to sacrifice the city to keep secret Britain's
decoding of the Germans' Enigma machine.

Their position initially gained credence during the 1970s with the publishing of several books
about the cracking of Enigma.

In his book The Ultra Secret, the former World War II intelligence officer FW Winterbotham
recalled how he passed intelligence on to Churchill that Coventry would be the target of the
bombing raid a few hours before it took place.

His account has been questioned since by several historians.

But Coventry-born writer Alan Pollock explores the theory in his play One Night In November,
currently performing at the city's Belgrade Theatre.

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He says an RAF report reveals that by 1500 on the day of the raid - several hours before the
bombing began - enemy navigation signals were intersecting over Coventry, indicating an
imminent raid.

"By this time, every non-Enigma source of intelligence was also pointing toward the Midlands,
and increasingly toward Coventry," he adds.

Pollock also notes that Sir Winston's private secretary, John Martin, subsequently recorded that
Churchill received a red box containing details of the raid shortly after 1500. Churchill
apparently told Martin a heavy raid on London was predicted, and headed for the capital.

BENTHAM’S UTILITARIAN THEORY Page 23

 EUTHANSIA AND THE PAIN AND
PLEASURE THEORY

Utilitarianism is an ethical approach that attempts to maximize happiness for society or

humanity. Its founder, Jeremy Bentham, claimed that “nature has placed mankind under the of
two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do,
as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on
the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we
do, in all we say, in all we think.” (1) He deveolped the proposition thus: “it is the greatest
happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.” However, his
subsequent reflection that “it is vain to talk of the interest of the community without
understanding what is the interest of the individual” supposedly threw his model into confusion.
Which had become more important to him: the individual or the greatest number?
I believe he still favoured community happiness over individual happiness. After all, he believed
that the role of law was to delimit autonomy, and that the creation of rights destroyed all notion
of liberty. For example, in Anarchial Fallacies (2) he wrote: “The great enemies of public peace
are the selfish and dissocial passions, necessary as they are, the one to the very existence of each
individual, the other to his security. On the part of these affections, a deficiency in point of
strength is never to be apprehended: all that is to be apprehended in respect of them, is to be
apprehended on the side of their excess. Society is held together only by the sacrifices that men
can be induced to make of the gratifications they demand: to obtain these sacrifices is the great
difficulty, the great task of government. What has been the object, the perpetual and palpable
object, of this declaration of pretended rights? To add as much force as possible to these
passions, already but too strong, -- to burst the cords that hold them in, -- to say to the selfish
passions, there - everywhere -- is your prey! -- to the angry passions, there - everywhere -- is
your enemy.”

How might Bentham have applied these ideas to the legalisation of euthanasia? Firstly,
euthanasia might eliminate physical and existential pain in the person wishing to be euthanased.
It might also provide some comfort to anyone who believed that the person would be better off
dead, although this sense of comfort would presumably be counterbalanced by the grief of
bereavement. It would actually create emotional pain in those opposed to euthanasia, either

BENTHAM’S UTILITARIAN THEORY Page 24

through intimate involvement with a particular case or through a general objection to the whole
principle.

Secondly, a euthanased person cannot be confidently described as being in a state of pleasure.

Even third parties who thought that death was the best option could hardly be described as
pleased after the death: unless malicious, they would probably express regret that euthanasia
seemed the most appropriate choice. Those opposed to the act from the outset would definitely
be displeased. Therefore, I suggest that a chain of causes and effect that both eliminates and
creates pain whilst pleasing nobody is unlikely to measure up favourably to the utilitarian
standard of right and wrong as understood by Bentham. Euthanasia would not have featured as
part of his delimited autonomy, and he rejected the notion of rights.

Philosophy often has a superficial softness to it, but I often find it very harsh for the simple
reason that its objectivity can trivialize something very important: human feeling. For example,
Bentham once said: “The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather
"Can they suffer?"” I suspect that he was not afraid of answering in the affirmative, particularly
when rights, which in his eyes were misconceived notions, potentially threatened the greatest
happiness of the greatest number. Whatever the outcome of the parliamentary debate on assisted
dying, there will still be pain and there will still be pleasure. We must only hope that the whole
process will help generate the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

BENTHAM’S UTILITARIAN THEORY Page 25

 CONCLUSION

The theory of utilitarianism by Bentham has been bitterly criticised and many difficulties will
crop up, if it is given a practical shape. However, the main advantage of this theory was that
many speculative theories regarding the state received a severe set-back. The utility became the
criterion for the test of the values of state and institutions.
The aim of state was settled as maximum welfare of maximum number of people. Therefore, the
function of the state was limited only to the maintenance of law and order. But it was also
expected to work for the public welfare.
All the reforms of the nineteenth century are attributed to the demands of utilitarians. Thus the
utilitarianism, for the reforms of its own time and for its being connected with public welfare,
proved to be a progressive theory.

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