Bascuguin, John Jacob Jan.

12, 2020
IT22FB5

Utilitarianism according to Jeremy Bentham

According to Bentham, Utilitarianism 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

Principle of Utility
The principle of utility states that actions or behaviors are right in so far as they promote
happiness or pleasure, wrong as they tend to produce unhappiness or pain. Hence, utility is a
teleological principle. This once again raises some of the same basic issues of associated with
hedonism, as discussed in the earlier section on Teleological Theories. Recall that a hedonist
believes that the good life consists solely in the pursuit and experience of pleasure or
happiness. The feelings of pleasure and pain are biological events involving our central nervous
system, which are controlled by our cerebral cortex. We obviously experience pleasure when
we perform certain acts that fulfill biological functions such as eating, drinking, and having sex.
We also experience pleasure when we perform certain intellectual activities, such as reading a
philosophy textbook, playing guitar, or drawing a picture. We sometimes, but not always,
experience pleasure when we do the right thing. Conversely, we experience pain when these
functions are left unfulfilled.

Sources:
https://www.iep.utm.edu/bentham/#SH6a
https://faculty.msj.edu/whiter/utility.htm