Revision Notes

1. Revision Notes • Utilitarianism

2. General • Long history - Epicurus, Caiaphas, Hume, Adam Smith • Characterised by Pojman as teleological aspect and utility aspect • e.g. of punishment

3. Bentham’s Utilitarianism • Pleasure and pain 'sovereign masters' • Pleasure the only intrinsic good • Right actions increase total pleasure

4. Principles • Greatest Happiness Principle or Principle of Utility • Teleological/consequentialist

5. Application • Empirical (Hume) and response to rationalists (Descartes) • Hedonistic Calculus: Extent, certainty, duration, nearness, fruitfulness, purity, intensity • Applies to Individuals and groups

6. Strengths • Simple, • commonsensical, • scientific, • impartial

7. Weaknesses • Justice, • consequences, • comparable pleasures, • 'pig philosophy'

8. Mill’s Utilitarianism • We seek happiness • So we seek the happiness of others • So happiness is something we ought to seek for ourselves and others

9. Quality not quantity • Competent judges • Experience of both • 'better to be Socrates dissatisfied'

10. Acts as one of group of acts • tendencies known • 'some consequences accidental; others are its natural result'

11. Justice • everyone counts as one • all equal worth

12. Strengths • distributive justice, • consequences, • Socrates satisfied

13. Weaknesses • punitive justice, • other intrinsic goods, • complexity

14. Philosophical problems • Naturalistic fallacy (GEMoore); • Jump from egoism to altruism (Mackie) but rational benevolence (Sidgwick) and education (Warnock/Mill)

15. Act • GHP applied to acts • “An act is right and only if it results in as much good as any available alternative” • From acts general rules deduced • Bentham and Mill?

16. Response • But special responsibilities (Brandt)

17. Rule • GHP applied to rules • “An act is right if and only if it is required by a rule that is itself a member of a set of rules whose acceptance would lead to greater utility for society than any available alternative” • From rules acts deduced as wrong • Brandt, Smart, Nielsen • Mill and 'tendencies'

18. Preference • Individuals decide what is pain/pleasure for them • Preferences unless outweighed by others • e.g. Peter Singer and abortion.

19. General Strengths • Simplicity but Mill/Hedonic Calculus • Social change and Bentham • Purpose of morality (Aristotle/Epicurus/Pojman)

20. General Weaknesses • Incommensurate values (number/happiness) but internal debate • Immeasurable consequences but Mill and CILewis (actual/expected/intended consequences) • No rest; no personal integrity; not for all as difficult to follow (Pojman) • Justice but Mill (punitive/distributive) • Intuition and intrinsic/instrumental values and absurd implications (WDRoss) • Ends and Means (Kant)

21. General responses • Split level utilitarianism (general/lower: rule, rare but difficult/higher: act)

22. Overall response • Kant and categorical imperative • So right on purpose of morality wrong on need for rules and justice • Frankena and principles of beneficence and justice • Or Ross, objectivism and actual vs.. prima facie duties