Lesson No.

12

Consequentialism: Utilitarianism
 Consequentialism argues that morality is all about producing the
right kinds of overall consequences.
 It judges whether or not something is right by what its consequences
are.
 As a normative ethics,
E consequentialism has a lot of variants.
Arguably the most popular and perhaps the most important is
Utilitarianism.
 The general stand of utilitarianism holds that an act is moral if and
only if the action produces the highest possible utility.
o This is to say that the morally right action is the action that produces
the most good.
o Thus, one ought to maximize the overall good, that is, consider the
good of others as well as one's own good.
 The natural foundation of utilitarianism is not based on a human
being's interpretation of any Divine Will or Eternal Law, but rather on
what is generally experienced by man in the world, his experience
with nature.
 There are two classical approaches:
Jeremy Bentham John Stuart Mill
(1748–1832) (1806–1873)
 Jeremy Bentham

Io
 He famously contended that nature has placed humans under the
governance by two sovereign masters – pain and pleasure – and “it
is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to
determine what we shall do.”
 He argued that “our actions, our ethics, must be founded on this
natural inclination to pursue pleasure and avoid pain.”
 He thus promulgated the “principle of utility” as the standard of right
action.
 He wrote, "By the principle of utility is meant that principle which
approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to
the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the
happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the
same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness.“
 Utility is construed here as the “property in any object, whereby it
tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness
to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to
the party whose interest is considered: if that party be the
community in general, then the happiness of the community: if a
particular individual, then the happiness of that individual.”
 Thus, this normative ethics presents an ethical judgment of an action
based on the amount of pleasure and pain that an act produces.
 Moreover, any act that produces pleasure or happiness and/or
prevents pain or unhappiness is deemed as moral or ethical.

o However, there are instances where actions do not only

produce pleasure. There are some actions that could give some
amount of pain that accompanies the pleasure they produce.
o How can the agent justify his act as moral or utilitarian if that act
also produces some amount of pain?
 When an agent faces this situation and is called up to make a moral
decision, Bentham’s calculus is the basis.
 His decision will be based on the following:
a. intensity (how strong the pleasure or pain is)
b. duration (how long it lasts)
c. certainty (how likely the pleasure or pain is to be the result of the action)
E
d. proximity (how close the sensation will be to performance of the action)
e. fecundity (how likely it is to lead to further pleasures or pains)
f. purity (how much intermixture there is with the other sensation)
g. extent (the number of people affected by the action)
 John Stuart Mill

 In his classical text Utilitarianism (1861), he justified the utilitarian

principle (actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote
overall human happiness) as the foundation of morals.
 He defines utilitarianism as the creed that considers a particular
5
“theory of life” as the “foundation of morals”.
 His view on the ‘theory of life’ is that there is one thing, and one thing
only, that is intrinsically desirable, namely pleasure.
 In contrast to Bentham, he argued that some types of pleasure are
more valuable than others in virtue of their inherent qualities. This
view is often called as qualitative hedonism.
 Mill contended that the more valuable pleasures are those which
employ “higher faculties” such as “the pleasures of intellect, of the
feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments”.
 These enjoyments make use of highly developed capacities, like
judgment and empathy, thus, considered as possessing a higher
value than the sensual pleasures.
 His basis for such view is the empirical claim he made that all or
almost all people prefer a “manner of existence” that uses higher
faculties to a manner of existence which does not.
 Thus, for him, the best human life (“manner of existence”) is one in
which the higher faculties play an adequate part.
In Sum:

 Jeremy Bentham’s Principle of Utility

 He recognizes the fundamental role of pain and pleasure in human life.

 The approval or disapproval of an action is based on the amount of
pain and pleasure brought about.
 He equates good with pleasure and evil with pain.
 He asserts that pain and pleasure are capable of quantification,
hence, the parameters: intensity, duration, certainty or uncertainty,
propinquity or remoteness, fecundity, purity, and extent.
John Stuart Mill

 He emphasizes that what is central in utilitarianism is not the

quantity of pleasure but the quality of happiness.
 Qualities cannot be quantified but distinguished as ‘higher’ and
‘lower’ pleasures, thus, Bentham’s calculus is unreasonable.
 Utilitarianism refers to the “Greatest Happiness Principle”, which
promotes the capability of achieving happiness (higher
pleasures) for the most amount of people.