UTILITARIANISM

Chapter Content

• The Principle of Utility

• Principle of the Greatest Number
• Justice and Moral Rights
 Objectives
1. Discuss the basic principles of utilitarian ethics;
2. Distinguish between two utilitarian models: the Quantitative model
of Jeremy Bentham and the Qualitative model of John Stuart Mill;
and
3. Apply utilitarianism in understanding and evaluating local and
international scenarios.
 Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
on the Principle of Utility
• the principle of utility is about our subjection to two sovereign
masters: pleasure and pain.
• refers to the motivation of our actions as guided by our
avoidance of pain and our desire for pleasure.
• refers to pleasure as good if, and only if, they produce more
happiness than unhappiness.
 John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
on the Happiness Principle
• He reiterates moral good as happiness and, consequently,
happiness as pleasure.
• What makes people happy is intended pleasure and what makes
us unhappy is the privation of pleasure.
• Things that produce happiness and pleasure are good; whereas,
those that produce unhappiness and pain are bad.
• For Bentham and Mill, the pursuit for pleasure and the avoidance of
pain are not only important principles— they are in fact the only
principle in assessing an action’s morality, e.g., Why is it preferable to
eliminate criminality (or criminals)?
 Felicific Calculus
• a common currency framework that calculates the pleasure that
some actions can produce.
 Felicific Calculus
• Intensity: How strong is the pleasure?
• Duration: How long will the pleasure last?
• Certainty or Uncertainty: How likely or unlikely is it that the pleasure will occur?
• Propinquity or remoteness: How soon will the pleasure occur?
• Fecundity: The probability that the action will be followed by sensations of the same
kind.
• Purity: The probability that it will not be followed by sensations of the opposite kind.
• Extent: How many people will be affected?
 PLEASURE PAIN

Intensity

Duration

Certainty or Uncertainty

Propinquity or remoteness

Fecundity

Purity

Extent

TOTAL
• Contrary to Bentham, Mill argues that quality is more
preferable than quantity.
• An excessive quantity of what is otherwise pleasurable might
result in pain. Whereas eating the right amount of food can be
pleasurable, excessive eating may not be.
• For Mill, there are higher intellectual and lower base desires.
• We as moral agents, are capable of searching and desiring higher
intellectual pleasures more than animals.
• We undermine ourselves if we only and primarily desire sensuality
because we are capable of higher intellectual pleasurable goods.
• In deciding over two comparable pleasures, it is important to
experience and to discover which one is actually more preferred
than the other.
• What Mill discovers anthropologically is that actual choices of
knowledgeable persons point that higher intellectual pleasures are
preferable than purely sensual appetites.