MILL AND BENTHAM

1748 – 1832Legal and social

reformer, advocate for progressive social policies: woman’s rights, abolition of slavery, end of physical punishment, animal rights

JEREMY BENTHAM

What is the aim of social policy and the law – what ends or goals should they aim to bring about?

BENTHAM AND WELFARISM

Notions of utility were popular in Bentham’s day (and before).

Bentham’s aim was to reduce utility to a single measure and develop a method for measuring it.

Moral science to be based on a felicific or hedonic calculus.

BENTHAM’S CENTRAL AIM

WHAT IS UTILITY?

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do…

By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever. according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question

1 The intensity of pleasure or pain2 Its duration3 Its certainty or uncertainty4 Its propinquity or remoteness5 Its fecundity, or the chance it has of being followed

by sensations of the same kind (i.e., pleasure followed by more pleasure, or pain followed by more pain)

6 Its purity, or the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind

For n>1, Its extent; that is, the number of persons to whom it extends; or (in other words) who are aff ected by it.

DIMENSIONS OF UTILITY

Begin with any one person of those whose interests seem most immediately to be aff ected by i t : and take an account,

1. Of the value of each dist inguishable pleasure which appears to be produced by i t in the fi rst instance.

2. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by i t in the fi rst instance.

3. Of the value of each pleasure which appears to be produced by i t after the fi rst. This constitutes the fecundity of the fi rst pleasure and the impurity of the fi rst pain.

4. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by i t after the fi rst. This constitutes the fecundity of the fi rst pain, and the impurity of the fi rst pleasure.

5. Sum up al l the values of al l the pleasures on the one side, and those of al l the pains on the other…

6. Take an account of the number of persons whose interests appear to be concerned; and repeat the above process with respect to each. Sum up the numbers expressive of the degrees of good tendency, which the act has, with respect to each individual , in regard to whom the tendency of i t is good upon the whole: do this again with respect to each individual , in regard to whom the tendency of i t is good upon the whole: do this again with respect to each individual , in regard to whom the tendency of i t is bad upon the whole.

BENTHAM’S PROCEDURE

Welfarism: the judgment of the relative goodness of alternative states of aff airs must be based exclusively on, and taken as an increasing function of, the respective collections of individual utilities in these states.

Sum-ranking: one collection of individual utilities is at least as good as another if and only if it has at least as large a sum total Amartya Sen, Utilitarianism and Welfarism

BENTHAM’S LEGACY

Psychological hedonism: only pleasure or pain motivates usnormative hedonism: only pleasure has worth or value,

only pain has disvalueQuantitative hedonism: pain and pleasure are measured

along a single-dimension scale.Bentham notoriously claimed that “the game of push-pin is

of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry” provided the quantities of pleasure yielded were equal.

Bentham thought a benefi t of his system was that it could easily be applied to nonhuman animals, since they can also experience pleasure and pain. However, Bentham’s view was criticized on these grounds. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) called it a “pig philosophy”, based on the “swinish pleasures” of the multitude’

CRITICISM OF BENTHAM

1806-1873Father James Mill

and Bentham educated J.S. Mill

JOHN STUART MILL

To defend principle of utility from Bentham’s critics and to expand the theory Introduce not only quantitative but also qualitative

differences to pleasure

AIMS

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that 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

pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.

GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE

Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds, and among them in some of the most estimable in feeling and purpose, inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than pleasure- no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit- they designate as utterly mean and grovelling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine

It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.

QUALITATIVE DIFFERENCES

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, that is the more desirable pleasure

Higher pleasures: pleasures of the intellect, e.g. poetry, debate Non-human animals incapable of these pleasures

Lower pleasures: pleasures of the body, e.g. consumption, sex Can be shared by humans and non-humans

THE COMPETENT JUDGE

Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs

THE COMPETENT JUDGE

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, are a diff erent opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.

PIGS AND PHILOSOPHERS

As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator.

SELF-REGARDING VS OTHER-REGARDING UTILITY

Some Attractions of UtilitarianismSimpleA decision procedure which is easy to followA criterion of right action which is easy to apply Intuitively appealing (at least initially)Deterministic: delivers a verdict in (almost) every

caseApplies to both acts and omissions Impartial: individual prejudices and preferences are

irrelevantCan be extended to animals (though Mill won’t count

them equally)

SUMMARY

ImprecisionHaving abandoned Bentham’s calculus, how are we to

assign precise quantitiesto pleasure and pains, especially when they are other

people’s?The timescale of consequences is also not defi ned. Many

actions have both short-term and long-term consequences. Which should we consider? When utilitarianism is used as a decision procedure, this is an urgent question which could make all the diff erence to what we do.

2. Pleasure is not always goodConsider some apparently bad pleasures:

Pleasure in others’ suffering (sadism) Pleasure in overeating/drinking

PROBLEMS FOR MILL

What we take pleasure in is important to us too. Consider the experience machine again. Just experiencing a supremely satisfying life would not be enough.

value pluralism?

IS PLEASURE THE ONLY GOOD

Since overall pleasure is to be maximized, and everyone’s pleasure is equally important, the Utilitarian is committed to saying that whenever it’s possible to do so, one should do so. Given the current state of the world, and that a small

sacrifice could relieve a huge amount of suffering in distant countries, Utilitarianism commits us to saying that we should forego our luxuries (which would only increase overall pleasure by a very small amount) until this suffering has been relieved.

Intuitively we think that charity, while perhaps morally desirable, is not actually obligatory.

TOO DEMANDING?

Since the end (of overall maximized pleasure) always justifi es the means (whatever that is), no action is ruled out however appalling it may seem.

Consider the transplants example:

5 people are dying in intensive care. All of them are young and have promising careers ahead of them, as medical doctors, entertainers, Nobel peace prize winners, etc.. Each of them would make a full recovery were they to receive a healthy organ (heart, kidney, liver, etc.).

Bill is single, middle-aged and has no family. He will not contribute much to the world in the remainder of his lifetime. But he is perfectly healthy, and as luck would have it, has a set of organs which are a perfect match for the fi ve people in intensive care.

What should we do?

PERMITS INTUITIVELY IMMORAL ACTIONS?

Joe and the IndiansThe biological warfare job

IS UTILITARIANISM SELF-ALIENATING