UTILITARIANISM – DIFFERENT FORMS

UTILITARIANISM – DIFFERENT FORMS

Introduction

It is a concept in which the happiness of the greatest number of people in the society is considered the greatest good. According to this philosophy, an action is morally right if its consequences lead to happiness (absence of pain), and wrong if it ends in unhappiness (pain). And since the link between actions and their happy or unhappy outcomes depends on the circumstances, no moral principle is absolute or necessary in itself. Proposed by the English philosopher-reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) in his 1789 book Principals of Morals and Legislation it was developed by the English philosopher-economist John Stuart Mill (1806-73) in his 1863 book Utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism was described by Bentham as "the greatest happiness or greatest felicity principle." Utility, the good to be maximized, has been defined by various thinkers as happiness or pleasure (versus suffering or pain), although preference utilitarians define it as the satisfaction of preferences. It may be described as a life stance, with happiness or pleasure being of ultimate importance.

Utilitarianism can be characterized as a quantitative and reductionist approach to ethics. It can be contrasted with deontological ethics (which do not regard the consequences of an act as being a determinant of its moral worth) and virtue ethics (which focuses on character), as well as with other varieties of consequentialism.

In general usage, the term utilitarian refers to a somewhat narrow economic or pragmatic viewpoint. Philosophical utilitarianism, however, is a much broader view that encompasses all aspects of people's lives.

Origin

The origins of utilitarianism are often traced as far back as the Greek philosopher Epicurus, but, as a specific school of thought, it is generally credited to Jeremy Bentham. Bentham found pain and pleasure to be the only intrinsic values in the world: "nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure." From this, he derived the rule of utility: the good is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people.

Bentham's foremost proponent was James Mill, a significant philosopher in his day and the father of John Stuart Mill. Mill was educated according to Bentham's principles, including transcribing and summarizing much of his father's work while still in his teens.

In his famous work, Utilitarianism, Mill argues that cultural, intellectual and spiritual pleasures are of greater value than mere physical pleasure because the former would be valued higher than the latter by competent judges. A competent judge, according to Mill, is anyone who has experienced both the lower pleasures and the higher. His famous quote found in Utilitarianism was, "it is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied “demonstrating Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures. He justified this distinction by the thought that "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."

Like Bentham's formulation, Mill's utilitarianism deals with pleasure and happiness. However John Stuart Mill made a clear distinction between happiness and pleasure; and made it evident that Weak Rule Utilitarianism was focused on maximizing happiness rather than pleasure; for the naturalistic fallacy made it clear that what one desires and what is good are not always the same thing. For example a pleasure or desire may be to bully a lonely child, which may produce pleasure; however happiness comes from following virtues rather than desires.

The classic utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill influenced many other philosophers as well as the development of the broader concept of consequentialism. As a result, now there exist many different accounts of the good, and, therefore, many different types of consequentialism besides utilitarianism.

Types of Utilitarianism

1. Act vs Rule

Act utilitarianism states that, when faced with a choice, we must first consider the likely consequences of potential actions and, from that, choose to do what we believe will generate most pleasure. The rule utilitarian, on the other hand, begins by looking at potential rules of action. To determine whether a rule should be followed, he looks at what would happen if it were constantly followed. If adherence to the rule produces more happiness than otherwise, it is a rule that morally must be followed at all times. The distinction between act and rule utilitarianism is therefore based on a difference about the proper object of consequentialists calculation — specific to a case or generalized to rules.

Criticisms

Rule utilitarianism has been criticized for advocating general rules that will in some specific circumstances clearly decrease happiness if followed. Never to kill another human being may seem to be a good rule, but it could make self-defense against malevolent aggressors very difficult. Rule utilitarians add, however, that there are general exception rules that allow the breaking of other rules if such rule-breaking increases happiness, one example being self-defense. Critics argue that this reduces rule utilitarianism to act utilitarianism and makes rules meaningless. Rule utilitarians retort that rules in the legal system (i.e., laws) that regulate such situations are not meaningless. Self-defense is legally justified, while murder is not.

2. Strong and Weak Utilitarianism

Within rule utilitarianism there is a distinction between the strictness and absolutism of this particular branch of utilitarianism. Strong Rule Utilitarianism is an absolutist theory, which frames strict rules that apply for all people and all time and may never be broken. John Stuart Mill proposed Weak Rule utilitarianism, which posits that, although rules should be framed on previous examples that benefit society, it is possible, under specific circumstances, to do what produces the greatest happiness and break that rule.

Rule utilitarianism should not be confused with heuristics (rules of thumb), but many act utilitarian’s agree that it makes sense to formulate certain rules of thumb to follow if they find themselves in a situation whose consequences are difficult, costly or time-consuming to calculate exactly. If the consequences can be calculated relatively clearly and without much doubt, however, the rules of thumb can be ignored.

3. Collapse of Rule Utilitarianism into Act Utilitarianism

It has been argued that rule utilitarianism collapses into act utilitarianism, because for any given rule, in the case where breaking the rule produces more utility, the rule can be sophisticated by the addition of a sub-rule that handles cases like the exception. This process holds for all cases of exceptions, and so the 'rules' will have as many 'sub-rules' as there are exceptional cases, which, in the end, makes an agent seek out whatever outcome produces the maximum utility.

4. Two-level Utilitarianism

Two-level utilitarianism states that one should normally use 'intuitive' moral thinking, in the form of rule utilitarianism, because it usually maximizes happiness. However there are some times when we must ascend to a higher 'critical' level of reflection in order to decide what to do, and must think as an act utilitarian would. Richard Hare supported this theory with his concept of the Archangel, which holds that if we were all 'archangels' we could be act utilitarians all the time as we would be able to perfectly predict consequences. However we are closer to 'proles' in that we are frequently biased and unable to foresee all possible consequence of our actions, and thus we require moral guidelines. When these principles clash we must attempt to think like an archangel to choose the right course of action.

5. Motive Utilitarianism

Motive utilitarianism, first developed by Robert Adams can be viewed either as a hybrid between act and rule or as a unique approach on its own terms. The motive approach attempts to deal realistically with how human beings actually function psychologically. We are indeed passionate, emotional creatures; we do much better with positive goals than with negative prohibitions, we long to be taken seriously, and so on and so forth. Motive utilitarianism proposes that our initial moral task is to inculcate within ourselves and others skills, inclinations, and mental focuses that are likely to be highly useful across the spectrum of real-world situations we are likely to face, rather than the hypothetical situations seemingly so common in philosophical publications (almost as if there were an unofficial rule against real-world examples; and motive utilitarianism is somewhat of a response to this).

6. Preference Utilitarianism

Preference utilitarianism is one of the most popular forms of utilitarianism in contemporary philosophy. In the same way as other utilitarian theorists, preference utilitarians define a morally right action as that which produces the most favorable consequences for the people involved. However, preference utilitarians interpret the best consequences in terms of 'preference satisfaction'. This means that 'good' is described as the satisfaction of each person's individual preferences or desires, and a right action is that which leads to this satisfaction. Since what is good depends solely on individual preferences, there can be nothing that is in itself good or bad except for the resulting state of mind. Preference utilitarianism therefore can be distinguished by its acknowledgment that every person's experience of satisfaction will be unique. Peter Singer is generally regarded as the leading contemporary advocate of preference utilitarianism. He was greatly influenced on this by R. M. Hare.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Utilitarianism.” August 30, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

“Utilitarianism.” August 30, 2010. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15241c.htm

 “Utilitarianism definition.” August 30, 2010. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/utilitarianism.html

“Preference Utilitarianism.” August 30, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_utilitarianism