CLASS

SHARING!
There is a runaway trolley barreling down
the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there
are five people tied up and unable to move. The
trolley is headed straight for them. You are
standing some distance off in the train yard,
next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley
will switch to a different set of tracks. However,
you notice that there is one person on the
sidetrack. You have two options:

1. Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the

five people on the main track.
2. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the
sidetrack where it will kill one person.
LESSON 3
UTILITARIANISM
 LESSON OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson, the learners will be able to:
1. Define Utilitarianism
2. Discuss and analyze Utilitarianism’s Ethical Theory
UTILITARIANISM
What is it?
Utilitarianism

• Also known as consequentialism

• Claims that the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior

depends on the result or consequence.

Reference: https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/
 Utilitarianism

If your action produced good results, then your action is good. If your action produced bad/evil
results, then your action is bad.
Reference: https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/
 Utilitarianism

In other words, morality has nothing to do with virtue or good character or intention, and the act
itself; morality is determined by the effect of action.
Reference: https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/
 UTILITARIANISM
How does it determine good results from bad results of actions?
 Utilitarianism
• All that bring about pain or anything unpleasant/unpleasurable
is bad, wrong, or evil.
• Anything pleasurable is good.

“The greater the pleasure, the better is the action.”

Reference: https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/
 The Greatest Happiness Principle
• Utilitarianism holds that the best moral choice is to act or choose that which give the
greatest pleasure, good, or happiness to the greatest number.
• If an action or decision can satisfy and make more people happy, then that is the best
choice and action.

Reference: https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/
UTILITARIANISM
Proponents
 Utilitarianism
(February 15, 1748-June 6, 1832)
English or British philosopher,
economist, and theoretical jurist
Earliest and chief proponent
of utilitarianism
(May 20, 1806-May 8, 1873)
English or British philosopher,
economist, and ethical theorist
Proponent of utilitarianism.

Jeremy Bentham John Stuart Mill

Reference: Encyclopedia Britannica

UTILITARIANISM
Bentham vs Mill
 Utilitarianism

• Pleasure is quantifiable or measurable

• Hence, the basis of moral choice or action is the amount or quantity
of pleasure brought about by the action or decision.
• The greater the amount of pleasure, the better is the action or decision

Jeremy Bentham
Reference: http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/cavalier/80130/part2/sect9.html
 Utilitarianism
• The goodness of an action is determined not by the quantity or amount
of pleasure but rather by the quality of pleasure or happiness
• Not all pleasures are the same. There are superior pleasures and inferior
pleasures.
• Example: The happiness or pleasure of finishing a degree through hard work is a
greater pleasure than doing nothing or not studying at all.

John Stuart Mill

Reference: http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/cavalier/80130/part2/sect9.html