On January 25, 2015, the 84th Special Action Force (SAF)

conducted a police operation at Tukanalipao, Mamasapano in

Maguindanao. Also known as “Oplan Exodus”, it was
intended to serve an arrest warrant for Malaysian terrorist and
bomb-maker Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, who had a $5-
million price on his head offered by the US Department of
Justice. Marwan was killed in the operation.
This mission eventually led to a clash between the
Philippine National Police’s (PNP) SAF versus the Bangsamoro
Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and the Moro Islamic
liberation Front (MILF). Although the police operation was
successful because of the death of Marwan, the firefight that
ensued claimed 67 lives including 44 Special Action Force
(SAF) commandos, 18 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
fighters and 5 civilians. However, the relatively high number
of SAF members killed in this operation caught the attention of
many including the Philippine media and the legislature.
 OPLAN EXODUS
 Conducted last January 25, 2015 by the 84th Special
Action Force (SAF) at Tukanalipao, Mamasapano
Maguindanao to carry out an arrest for Zulkifli bin
Hir or Marwan who is a Malaysian terrorist.
 Sixty-seven lives were claimed including 44 SAF
troopers, 18 MILF and 5 civilians.
 Senate president Franklin Drilon questioned the
evidences under the Anti-Wire Tapping Law while
Francis Escudero cited about the Free Legal
Assistance Group (FLAG).
84th Special Action Force (SAF)
 1987 Philippine Constitution
 Protect one’s right to private communication.
 Exemptions include:
 RA 4200 Anti-Wire Taping Law
 RA 9372 Human Security Act of 2007
 Utilitarianism
UTILITARIANISM
Is an ethical theory that argues for the
goodness of pleasure and the
determination of right behavior based
on the usefulness of the action’s
consequences.
The greatest happiness principle as the
prime determinant of what can be
considered as a good action.
• Utility refers to the usefulness of
the consequences of one’s action
and behavior.
• Utility itself is defined by Mill as
happiness with the absence of
pain.
• A person is considered moral
when their actions tend to
promote utility of the general
public in accordance with the
Greatest Happiness Principle.
• However, just an action
increasing utility does not
necessarily imply a moral
action.
 Utilitarianism, by John Stuart Mill,
[1806 – 1873], is considered by many
to be the most influential.
 His utilitarian theory of morality is a
development and classification of the
earlier form of the theory authored by
Jeremy Bentham [1748- 1832] and
espoused by his father, James Mill
[1773-1836]
 Born on February 15, 1748 in London, England
 He was the teacher of James Mill, father of John Stuart
Mill
 He first wrote the greatest happiness principle of ethics
and the PANOPTICON (system of penal management.)
 He was an advocate of economic freedom, women’s rights,
animal rights, the abolition of slavery, death penalty, corporal
punishment for children and the separation of church and
state.
 Denied the individual legal rights nor agreed with the
natural law.
 Died on June 6, 1832 and donated his corpse to the
University College London (auto-icon display)
 An introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation (1789), in this book he begins by arguing
that our actions are governed by two “sovereign
masters”--- the pleasure and pain.
 Principle of the utility is about our subjection to
these sovereign masters: pleasure and pain.
 Principle refers to the motivation of our actions
guided by our avoidance of pain and our desire for
pleasure.
 The principle also refers to pleasure as good if, and
only if, they produce more happiness than
unhappiness.
 Creed- foundation of morals, utility or the greatest
happiness principle, holds that actions are right in
proportion as they tend to promote happiness;
wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness.
 He proposed the Felicific calculus- a common
currency framework that calculates the pleasure
that some actions can produce.
 “Sovereign Masters”
 Pleasure and Pain. Jeremy Bentham argued these two
as the one governing our actions in his book entitled
“An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation”.
 Principle of Utility
 Subjection to these sovereign masters.
 Motivation of our actions as guided by our
avoidance of pain and our desire for pleasure.
 Moral good as happiness and happiness as pleasure.
 Felicific Calculus (Bentham)
 Calculates the pleasure that some actions produce in a
quantitative approach. Basis of evaluation includes:
 Intensity or the strength of pleasure.
 Duration or length of the experience of pleasure.
 Certainty or the likelihood that pleasure will occur.
 Propinquity, remoteness or how soon there will be pleasure.
 Fecundity or the chance it has of being followed by
sensations of the same kind.
 Purity or the chance it has of not being followed by
sensations of the same kind.
 Extent or the number of people being affected.
 FELICIFIC CALCULUS
 John Stuart Mill
 Son of James Mill, a friend and disciple of Jeremy
Bentham.
 At the age of:
 Three – he studied Greek.
 Eight – he studied Latin.
 Eleven – wrote a history of Roman Law.
 Twenty – suffered a nervous breakdown.
 He thinks that this principle must distinguish pleasures
qualitatively and not merely quantitatively to provide a
criterion for comparative pleasures
 Theory of Life – pursuit for happiness and avoidance of pain.
 Mill explains:
 Utilitarianism could only attain its end by the
general cultivation of nobleness of others, and his
own, so far as happiness is concerned, were a sheer
deduction from the benefit.
 Utilitarianism is concerned with everyone’s
happiness, in fact, the greatest happiness of the
greatest number.
 Moral values is based solely and exclusively on the
difference it makes on the world’s total amount of
pleasure and pain.
 Justice
 Mill understands this as a respect for rights directed
toward society’s pursuit for the greatest number.
o Rule of conduct
 Common to all mankind and intended for the good.
o Sentiment
 A desire that punishment maybe suffered by those who
infringe the rule.
 Consequentialism
 View that morality is all about producing the right
kinds of overall consequences.
 The right to due process, the right to free speech or
religion, and others are justified because they
contribute to the general good.
 APPLICATION OF CONSEQUENTIALISM
 Rights
 For Mill, a valid claim on society and are justified by
utility.
 It is also the socially protected interests of
individuals in a community.
 Legal rights – protected by law.
 Moral rights – take precedence over legal rights. Justice
can be more interpreted because it promotes the greater
social good.
Mill’s moral rights and considerations of justice are not
absolute, but are only justified by their consequences to
promote the greatest good of the greatest number.
 LEGAL RIGHTS vs MORAL RIGHTS
 LEGAL RIGHTS vs MORAL RIGHTS
 Utilitarianism, by John
Stuart Mill, is an essay
written to provide support
for the value of
utilitarianism as a moral
theory, and to respond to
misconceptions about it.
 Mill defines utilitarianism
as a theory based on the
principle that
"actions are right in
proportion as they tend to
promote happiness, wrong as
they tend to produce the
reverse of happiness.“
 Mill defines happiness as
pleasure and the absence
of pain.
 John Stuart Mill argues
that we act and do things
because we find them
pleasurable and we avoid
doing things because they
are painful (theory of life)
but for Bentham he
identified it as the natural
moral preferability of
pleasure.
• Mill said: The Greatest Happiness Principle
holds that actions are right in proportion as they
tent to promote happiness, wrong as they tent to
produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness
is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain;
by unhappiness, pain and the privation of
pleasure.
• Some kinds of pleasures are more desirable and
more valuable than others, it would be absurd
that while, in estimating all other things, quality
is not also considered as well as quantity.

• HAPPINESS” is defined in terms of pleasure and

reduction or absence of pain.
 Utilitarianism is consequentialist.
 For Bentham and Mill, utility refers to a way of
understanding the results of people’s actions.
 Bentham and Mill are the two foremost
utilitarian thinkers.
1. It is justifiable to build a basketball court
because there are basketball fans, than to
build a hospital because there are fewer sick
people.

2. It is justifiable to torture a suspected criminals?

Agree or disagree?

3. Death Penalty: Ethical or Unethical?