Consequentialism

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Consequentialism

• Utilitarianism

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John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

• Principle of Utility actions are right in
  proportion as they tend to promote happiness,
  wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
  happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure,
  and the absence of pain by unhappiness, pain,
  and the privation of pleasure. (Utilitarianism,
  Chapter II)
• Mills utilitarianism is a modification of the
  hedonism expounded upon by Jeremy Bentham.
• Bentham advocated a form of utilitarianism known
  as hedonism, where pleasure (regardless of the
  type of pleasure) was to be maximized and pain
  minimized.
• Benthams hedonic calculus Value intensity,
  duration, certainty/uncertainty,
  closeness/remoteness in time, fecundity, purity.
• 2. One of the classic criticisms of
  utilitarianism is that it is the ethics of swine.
• 3. One of the modifications Mill makes to
  utilitarianism is to include a notion of
  qualitative vs. quantitative pleasures.

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Mills Defense of Utilitarianism

• If human beings were only capable of experiencing
  the things that swine can, then the criticism
  would perhaps be telling.
• Human beings have faculties much more elevated
  than swine, and require different types of
  gratification of the higher faculties in order to
  be happy.
• It is better to be a human being dissatisfied
  than a pig satisfied better to be Socrates
  dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the
  fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it
  is because they only know their own side of the
  question. The other party to the comparison knows
  both sides.

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Quantitative vs. Qualitative pleasures.

• Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all
  or almost all who have experience of both give a
  decided preference, irrespective of any feeling
  of moral obligation to prefer it, even though
  knowing it to be attended with a greater amount
  of discontent, and would not resign it for any
  quantity of the other pleasure which their nature
  is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to
  the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality,
  so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in
  comparison, of small account.
• We dont always follow the calling of our higher
  faculties, but few if any people would consent to
  having their faculties lowered to that of a mere
  brute.
• For Mill, it is the competent judge, i.e., those
  who have experience of both pleasures who are the
  authority on quantitative vs. qualitative
  pleasures.

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Proof for the Principle of Utility

• The only evidence we have that something is
  visible is that people actually see it, the only
  evidence that something is audible is that people
  hear it. Similarly the only way we know something
  is desirable is that people actually desire it.

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Why then is the general happiness desirable?

• 1) Each person desires his own happiness
• 2) Happiness is a good.
• 3) Each persons happiness is a good to that
  person.
• 4)Therefore, the general happiness is a good to
  the aggregate of all persons.
• Fallacy of Composition

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Rule Utilitarianism

• Although Mill advocates acceptance of the
  Greatest Happiness Principle some have argued
  that Mill did not believe it should be used to
  guide individual actions

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When to Use the Principle of Utility

• Principle of utility was to be used to derive and
  adjudicate between other moral rules.
• We appeal to the principle of utility only when
  two moral rules or principles conflict.
• Some philosophers have argued that this is how
  the Principle of Utility should be understood,
  i.e., that it applies to types of actions and not
  token actions.

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Debate Over Utilitarianism

• Happiness is not the only thing that matters
• Consequences are not the only things that matter
• Utilitarianism is too demanding of a moral theory

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Defense of Utilitarianism

• Fanciful examples dont count against a theory
• Principle of utility is a guide to choosing rules
  not judging individual acts
• Common sense cant be trusted