Jeremy Bentham's theory of utilitarianism states that when you make a decision, you should make this decision on how many people will receive pleasure or happiness from this decision. Bentham said that good was happiness. He believed that motives are unimportant and that only consequences count.
He argued that motives can not be measured but consequences can. Utilitarianism is not based on religion but on consequences of an action, or thought and reason. Therefore a person can ignore rules and tradition when making a decision.Bentham states, "Morality is not a matter of pleasing God, nor is it a matter of faithfulness to abstract rules. Morality is nothing more then an attempt to bring about as much happiness as possible to the world.
" Utilitarianism is based on teleology which identifies a theory which is not based on rules. Utilitarianism in it's simplest form can be summed up by the phrase, "the greatest happiness for the greatest number." E.g. most people like eating crisps and a minority likes eating oranges based Benthams theory everybody would have to eat crisps as the majority prefer crisps. Bentham believed that it is simply the quantity of pleasures that counts and that all pleasures had equal value and that one pleasure is no better then another.
E.g. Playing chess has the same pleasure value as eating crisps.The hedonic calculus was developed as a way of measuring the amounts of pleasure and pain according to seven criteria:1. It's intensity2. It's duration3.
It's certainty or uncertainty4. It's propinquity or remoteness5. It's fecundity or the chance of it has of being followed by sensations of the same kind.6.
It's purity or the chance it has of being followed by sensations of the opposite kind.7. It's extent, the number of people it will extend to.You could apply the hedonic calculus to a moral dilemma e.g.
there was a bus that crashed with a pregnant woman inside, an elderly man and a famous poet. There is only time to save one person before they are all killed. To find out the answer you have to consider for each of the three people (or more because of the baby (babies) the amounts of pleasure and pain will be received according to the seven criteria.John Stuart Mill found a problem with Bentham's version of utilitarianism and said that his version could lead to what he called a swine ethic. This means that a person could justify cruelty e.g.
genocide, sadism and gang rape using Benthams 'greatest happiness for the great number' principle it these were pleasurable to the majority of people. Indeed the calculus may be used to support any number of morally repugnant acts.Based of Bentham's version of utilitarianism the gang rape of a girl is justified. The gang are carrying out this act because they are receiving pleasure from it.
The people who are carrying out the rape are in the majority and the person who is being raped is in the minority. Therefore based on the principle of 'the greatest pleasure for the greatest number' justifies the gang rape because the majority of people are receiving pleasure and there is only a minority who are receiving pain. Mill developed utilitarian theory to overcome this problem.Mill rejected Bentham's idea that all pleasures are equal. He said that some pleasures are better then others and that it is the quality of the pleasure that counts and not the quantity.
For instance, poetry is better then playing marbles. Mill created a hierarchy of pleasures and pleasures such as gang rape are of so low moral value that they do not justify the pain of their victims. Mill states, "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied then a pig satisfied." In Bentham's version there can be no moral rules other then those ordained by the principle of utility, Bentham's version is act utilitarianism. Mill has introduced moral rules to utilitarianism to overcome the swine ethic, this is called rule utilitarianism.Mill believes that some pleasures are better then others and therefore creates a hierarchy of different pleasures.
However different problems arise when we take Mill's view that we should see pleasures in terms of quality. Different people disagree about what counts as high quality pleasure (e.g. rock climbing or rock music) so who is to say who is right. Mill believed that only certain people - 'competent judges' were qualified to say what the higher pleasures are. These are people of wide experience who, having experienced many pleasures, can decide between them.
This is a rather elitist, snobbish view of morality that says we should follow the examples of so called 'moral experts' who know more about what is right then we do. What if these moral experts disagree amongst themselves what the higher pleasures are? Therefore there are problems with measuring pleasure whether we do so by quality or quantity.Is pleasure really the sole good that we should pursue in life? Some people could say there are more important things in life then the sole pursuit of pleasure e.g. looking after a handicapped person in a wheel chair who is in a vegetable state and is not aware of their own being.
Bernard Williams invented a fictional machine called the Hendon machine. A human can be hooked up to this machine as receive continuous unadulterated happiness. A person could spend their whole life on this machine. Is it right or could to use the machine? If a person stayed connected to the Hendon machine for the majority of their life this would not be considered a good meaningful life because they have contributed nothing to society and have been selfish. This is morally wrong.
Also this person would be come numb to the pleasure and how can pleasure exist without pain?In conclusion, after Mill has developed utilitarianism it appears that rule utilitarianism overcomes some of the problems encountered in act utilitarianism. However there are weaknesses in rule utilitarianism. E.g.
suppose that a maniac is chasing someone who then hides in a shop, the maniac then walks into the shop and asks the shop keeper where the person is. Our gut feeling would be to lie.A rule utilitarian would state that the shop keeper has to be honest, because I'm not allowed to break a rule even though for instance, the result is not the greatest good. Therefore rule utilitarianism could permit certain practices such as slavery that appear to be morally unacceptable. There is no guarantee that minority interests will be protected.
As long as the slaves are in a smaller proportion of the people, the greatest good might be to keep them enslaved, because of the benefits that this would give to the majority.Utilitarianism can only stand up as a good theory of ethics so long as the preferences of the individuals involved are taken into account when assessing a situation of moral dilemma. The satisfaction of the preferences of all the individuals involved in any situation must be maximised as much as possible. This gets round the problem of using utilitarianism to impose one idea of happiness on someone who might have a very different one.
