Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Teleological – Morality is dependent on outcomes and not concerned with action motives or
intentions. End justifies the means.
Jeremy Bentham’s ethical theory of utilitarianism The Principles of Morals and Legislation
Hedonic calculus
A tool for weighing up consequential pleasure and pain from an action to work out if it’s good
or not.
+ve – Flexible, you can take into account individual situations at any given moment.
-ve – Can justify virtually any act if it results in the most happiness. E.g. gang rape.
-ve – Impractical to measure every moral choice every time, might not have all info needed for
hedonic calculus.
-ve – Can have extreme results. E.g. someone is on the way to the cinema, sees someone
collecting for charity on the way and gives over all their money so has to go home. Same thing
happens next week, and the next. Greatest good for greatest number but all leisure activity
would end.
Higher pleasures = Mind stimulating pleasures, e.g. enjoying poetry, making music, learning
Latin.
Lower pleasures = Bodily pleasures e.g. food, drink, drugs and sex.
In Mill’s view, the greatest happiness is a life as far away from pain as possible and as rich as
possible in enjoyments both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Rule utilitarianism
Actions are right/wrong depending on whether they conform to a happiness-making rule, not
because of individual effects.
General rules everyone should follow to bring about greatest good for the community. Must
obey even if it doesn’t lead to greatest pleasure for individual in that situation.
E.g. A person should never lie because it brings about greatest good for the community.
+ve – Overcomes difficulties in act utilitarianism. E.g. not giving all your money to charity
because some leisure time is allowed.
-ve – Sometimes rules should be broken. E.g. maniac chases someone into a shop, and the
person is hiding. The shopkeeper has to be honest and tell the maniac where they are but it
would be better to lie.