Chapter 5: Utilitarian

Ethics

Assoc. Prof. Gracia T. Jarabejo-Abin,

RGC
Faculty, PUP Ragay, Camarines Sur
Campus
 Chapter Objectives:
After the discussion, students should
be able to:
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
 Categories of Deontic Evaluation
■The Greek original of “Deontic” is “deon”,
which means “duty”.
■Three categories (Timmons 2002):
■Obligatory actions are actions that one ought
to do.
■Wrong actions are those that ought not to be
done.
■Optional actions are neither obligatory nor
wrong.
■Right actions in the narrow sense are
obligatory.
■Rights actions in the broad sense are
A finer categorization (Driver 2007):
(1)Obligatory actions - Morally obligatory
acts are morally right acts one ought to
do, one is morally prohibited from not
doing them, they are moral duties,
they are acts that are required. Such
acts might be keeping one's promises
and providing guidance and support for
one's children.
(2)Supererogatory actions - designates
any action which is deemed morally
good, but which carries or implies no
obligation to act. This is distinct from
other moral actions which are
(3) Permissible actions - act is one which
is justified by or consistent with a moral
framework, but which does not imply an
obligation to act.
There are two types of 'permissible' acts:
a. Neutral - any action that has no moral
consequences at all, and
b. Supererogatory - any action that is
morally praiseworthy, but entails no
obligation (altruistic actions)
(4) Suberogatory actions - are actions that
it is bad to do, but not wrong to do. They
are an inverse of the supererogatory, if
the supererogatory is what is good to do,
but not morally required.
(5) Forbidden action
 Categories of Values
■Intrinsic value: Something is
intrinsically good (or valuable) if it is
good (or has value) in and of itself.
■Extrinsic value: Something is
extrinsically good if it related to
something else that is good, so its
goodness is borrowed.
 Utilitarianism
■It is a consequence-based theory
(consequentialist theory).
■The deontic status of an action is
defined solely in terms of the utility
of the consequence produced by the
action.
■Utility is a nonmoral value and the
ultimate goal of morality is to
maximize the aggregate utility.
■Virtue-based consideration is out of
the picture.
■An action is obligatory if it has a
utility higher than any alternative
actions.
■An action is wrong if it has a utility
less than some other alternatives.
■An action is optional if it is tied with
some other alternative for first place.
■An action is right (in the broad
sense) if it has a utility no less than
any other alternative action.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
■Was born on
February 15, 1748
in London,
England.
■Teacher of James
Mill, the father of
John Stuart Mill
■First wrote about
the greatest
happiness principle
of ethics.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) cont’d..
■Was known for “PANOPTICON”, a system
of penal management.
■He was an advocate of economic freedom,
women’s rights and the separation of
Church and State; an advocate of animal
rights and the abolition of slavery, death
penalty and corporal punishment for
children.
■His corpse was donated to the University
College London where his auto-icon is in
public display up to this day to serve as his
The Principle of Utility:
■Bentham begins by arguing that our
actions are governed by two “sovereign
masters”- which he calls “pleasure and
pain”, which was given to us by nature
to help us determine what is good or
bad and what ought to be done and not;
they fasten our choices to their throne.
■This principle is about our subjection to
these sovereign masters and it refers to
the motivation of our actions as guided
by our avoidance of pain and our desire
The Principle of Utility:
■It also refers to the pleasure as good if,
and only if, they produce more
happiness than unhappiness.
■It is not enough to experience pleasure,
but to also inquire whether the things
we do make us happy.
■Having identified the tendency for
pleasure and the avoidance of pain as
the principle of utility, Bentham equates
happiness with pleasure.
 Classical Utilitarianism
■Classical utilitarianism is hedonistic.
■The utility of an action is defined as
the overall balance between
happiness and unhappiness
produced by the action.
■Bentham’s version
■Happiness is identified with the pleasure
(and the absence of pain).
■Unhappiness is identified with pain (and
the deprivation of pleasure).
Bentham’s Felicific Calculus:
■It is a common currency framework
that calculates the pleasure of a pros
and cons that some actions can
produce .
■A method/guide to balance the pros
and cons of a proposed course of
action in relation to the balance of
pleasure and pains it potentially
produces:
Bentham’s Felicific Calculus:
Guide questions to measure it:
■Intensity: How strong is the pleasure?
■Duration: How long does the pleasure last?
■Likelihood: How likely/unlikely that the pleasure
will occur? Certainty/Uncertainty
■Remoteness in time: How soon does the
pleasure occur? Propinquity/remoteness
■Fecundity: What is the probability that the action
is followed by sensations of the same kind?
■Purity: What is the probability that it is not
followed by sensations of the opposite kind?
■Extent: How many people are affected?
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
■He was born on
May 20, 1806 in
Pentonville,
London, United
Kingdom.
■He was the son
of James Mill, a
friend, student,
and disciple of
Jeremy
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) contd.
■He was home-schooled and studied Greek at
the age of three and Latin at the age of
eight.
■He wrote a history of Roman Law at age
eleven, and suffered a nervous breakdown at
the age of twenty.
■He was married to Harriet Taylor after
twenty-one years of friendship.
■His ethical theory and his defense of
utilitarian news are found in his long essay
entitled Utilitarianism (1861).
■He was died on May 8, 1873 in Avignon,
The Greatest Happiness Principle:
■It is the supreme measure of morality.
■Pleasure and the freedom from pain are the
only things desirable as ends and all desirable
things are desired either because they are
inherently pleasurable or because they
contribute to the prevention of pain.
■Bentham’s version of utilitarianism
focuses on the potential amount or
quantity of happiness that an action can
potentially produce for it to be considered
right, while Mill’s makes a sharp and nuanced
division of higher and lower forms of pleasure
 Comparison of Bentham’s and Mill’s
Conception of Utilitarianism:
Playing online games all Studying three hours a
day for a week day for a week
■ Immediately satisfies one’s ■ Tedious, yet allows one to
search for fun and develop his/her intellect and
excitement. virtue of perseverance in
learning important lessons for
■ Allows one to hang out
school.
with friends. ■ The discipline of focusing on
■ Let’s one enjoy oneself relevant tasks related to
while escaping the one’s education can go a long
everyday pressures of daily way in one’s future
tasks like household endeavors.
chores, etc. ■ Relatively solitary.
■ Essentially satisfies one ■ Has the potential to bring
and one’s gaming friends pleasure to one’s family by
 ■Greatest happiness principle: In our
actions, we should aim at producing the
greatest happiness of the greatest
number, or if impossible, then reducing
the unhappiness of the greatest number.
■Mill’s version
■Quality matters.
■The life of dissatisfied Socrates is
morally better than that of a happy fool.
 Mill’s Proof
■Part I:
■Everyone desires his/her happiness for
its own sake.
■Everything that is desired for its own
sake is desirable. (Every object that is
seen is visible).
■If something is desirable, it is
intrinsically valuable.
■One’s own happiness is therefore an
intrinsic good for oneself, which implies
that general happiness is intrinsically
good for the aggregate of persons.
■Part II:
■If some other things besides happiness
that are desired for themselves, they are
desired as part of the end of happiness.
■Thus, happiness is the only intrinsic
good.
■Criticism:
“Desirable” is ambiguous. It can
mean “able to be desired” or “worthy
of being desired”.
SUMMARY:
Bentham and Mill see moral good as
pleasure, not merely self-gratification, but
also the greatest happiness principle or
the greatest happiness for the greatest
number of people. We are compelled to
do whatever increases pleasure and
decreases pain to the most number of
persons, counting each as one and none
as more than one, in determining the
greatest happiness for the greatest
number of people, there is no distinction
between Bentham and Mill.
SUMMARY:
Bentham suggests his felicific
calculus, a framework for quantifying
moral valuation. Mill provides a
criterion for comparative pleasures. He
thinks that persons who experience
two different types of pleasures
generally prefer higher intellectual
pleasures to base sensual ones.
Mill provides an adequate
discourse on rights despite it being
SUMMARY:
He argues that rights are socially
protected interests that are justified by
their contribution to the greatest
happiness principle. However, he also
claims that in extreme circumstances,
respect for individual rights can be
overridden to promote the better
welfare especially in circumstances of
conflict valuation.
“In a world in which there is so much
to interest, so much to enjoy, and so
much also to correct and improve,
everyone who has this moderate
amount of moral and intellectual
requisites is capable of an existence
which may be called enviable; and
unless such a person, through bad
laws, or subjection to the will of
others, is denied the liberty to use the
sources of happiness within his reach,
he will not fail to find the enviable
 Thank you
and
God bless us all
again
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