Utilitarianism

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[edit] Definition

Like all consequentialist ethical theories, Utilitarianism tells us to do whatever has the best consequences. In terms of utilitarianism, the best consequences means achieving the greatest quantity of good over bad; of course, just as there are many versions of utilitarianism, there are many different interpretations to which particular properties are good or bad in themselves; these properties have traditionally included pleasure, happiness, and satisfaction, among others.

[edit] Origins

A brief history of Bentham, Mill, and Sidgwick should go here.

[edit] Quotations

"By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, (all this in the present case comes to the same thing) or (what comes again to the same thing) 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." — Jeremy Bentham, On the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Chapter I, sec. III)

[edit] Discussion

The appeal of Utilitarianism is can be regarded as follows:

Ethics is a theory of social relations. The injunctions of ethics are principally injunctions to do good for people, and for sentient beings more generally perhaps. Henry Sidgwick may have exaggerated when asking rhetorically in his Methods of Ethics whether anything can really be good if it has no effect - direct or indirect, actual or potential - on any being's state of consciousness. Perhaps we can contrive contorted examples to show some such things to be good, in that more abstract sense. But our duty to promote that good would be severely attenuated by such contortions and contrivances. Forced to choose between a good that is good someone and a good that is good for no-one [sic], morality would almost invariably lead us to prefer the form to the latter.
Therein lies the great appeal of utilitarianism, as the theory of the good most standardly used to fill out the larger consequentialist framework. ... utilitarianism [insists] that to be good something must be good, somehow, for someone. 'Utility', in its most general sense, means merely 'useful'. Why, it quite reasonably asks, should we ever require gestures that are of no earthly use to anyone, anyway? ... It is no accident that precisely that attack on 'principles adverse to that of utility' comes right up front in Jeremy Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, following hard on the heels of the introduction of the 'principle of utility' itself (Bentham 1823). It was in Bentham's day, and remains in our own, the very best argument for a utility-based moral theory. (p. 241-242) [1]

As utilitarianism implies that things ought to be good for someone, it should be asked "What is good?". Different versions of utilitarianism have come up with different answers:

  • Classical (or Hedonistic) Utilitarians have argued that good consists of the promoting pleasure and avoiding pain.
  • Ideal Utilitarianism is the first non-hedonistic version of utilitarianism, which argues that "it is aesthetic experiences and relations of friendship that have intrinsic value, and therefore ought to be sought and promoted, while consciousness of pain, hatred or contempt of what is good or beautiful, and the love admiration or enjoyment of what is evil or ugly are the three things that have intrinsic disvalue and should therefore be shunned and prevented" [1].
  • Preference Utilitarians argue that the satisfaction or frustration of preferences is morally relevant, and therefore the maximization of the satisfaction of preferences is an intrinsic good.

[edit] Classical Utilitarianism

[edit] Utilitarianism and Racial Equality

[edit] Utilitarianism and Women's Rights

"When we consider the positive evil caused to the disqualified half of the human race by their disqualification---first in the loss of the most inspiriting and elevating kind of personal enjoyment, and next in the weariness, disappointment, and profound dissatisfaction with life, which are so often the substitute for it; one feels that among all the lessons which men require for carrying on the struggle against the inevitable imperfections of their lot on earth, there is no lesson which they more need, than not to add to the evils which nature inflicts, by their jealous and prejudiced restrictions on one another. Their vain fears only substitute other and worse evils for those which they are idly apprehensive of: while every restraint on the freedom of conduct of any of their human fellow-creatures (otherwise than by making them responsible for any evil actually caused by it), dries up pro tanto the principal fountain of human happiness, and leaves the species less rich, to an inappreciable degree, in all that makes life valuable to the individual human being." — John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (Chapter 4)

[edit] Modern Utilitarianism

[edit] Utilitarianism and the Animal Rights Movement

"The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor (see Lewis XIV's Code Noir). It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" — Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Chapter 17, Section 1, Note 2
Further reading: Animal Rights Library

[edit] Criticisms of Utilitarianism

[edit] Related Topics

[edit] Resources

[edit] Utilitarian Writings

[edit] References

  1. Goodin, Robert E. (1993). Utility and the Good. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0631187855
  2. Harrison, Ross. (1996). Bentham, Mill, and Sidgwick. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0631187898

[edit] Comments

For all contributors:

  • Try to keep the "Definition" as straight and encyclopaedic in style as possible. Use the "Discussion" section for editorialising
  • Use the references section for footnotes to books and other sources
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