ACT AND RULE UTILITARAINISM

ACT AND RULE UTILITARAINISM
INTRODUCTION

Utilitarianism is a teleological theory of ethics which revolved around the idea of ‘the end justifies the means’. It was first defined in around 1779 by philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who claimed that an action was deemed ‘good’ if it is intended to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people. As an ethical theory, Hedonistic Utilitarianism is divided into several subcategories.
Act Utilitarianism, which is thought of as Utilitarianism in its ‘pure form’, involves the study of a specific situation and the immediate consequences. The correct action is therefore determined according to each individual circumstance in order achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.
The second subcategory, Rule Utilitarianism, is a more dogmatic form of the philosophy. According to Rule Utilitarianism, to act morally one is expected to abide by rules which generally promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people. It is universal and absolutist. There are in fact other subcategories including Negative Utilitarianism (which aims to alleviate suffering rather than create happiness); Positive Utilitarianism (which aims to attain maximum pleasure with no consideration of pain and considers long term consequences); Preference Utilitarianism (which judges an action by its ability to fulfil personal priorities); and Ideal Utilitarianism (which revolved not just around happiness, but other things of value suck as personal liberty, love and knowledge). However, it is the first two, Act and Rule
The first is called act utilitarianism and the second is called rule utilitarianism. These two forms of utilitarianism oppose each other. The former leans more on consequentialism. What is believed to be right or wrong is based on the effect or consequence. The greatest good is depending on whomever or whatever will be benefited the most from the act. It is a more results-oriented theory.
Conversely, the other type of utilitarianism is based on rules. These rules can include rules of conduct and similar principles. It is a more idealistic and rigid theory wherein an act is interpreted to be either right or wrong depending on the result of the agreed rule. Believers of this form of utilitarianism don’t want to break the rules that are agreed upon by the majority.
Think about this situation – you are a doctor who have seen and examined a patient who did not know yet that he is having an incurable terminal illness. The dilemma you’ll face is if you’re going to inform this person that he is dying or not. If you observe the principles of the act utilitarian theory, you are going to lie and not tell your patient about his sickness. This is the right thing to do because telling the truth will immediately cause more pain and depression, not only to the patient but also to his family. Lying will give him more time to enjoy life until the symptoms become more and more noticeable.
However, if you are a believer of rule utilitarianism then you will not have any reservations in telling the patient immediately about his sickness. Rule utilitarianism thinks more of the long term and that it is your obligation to tell the truth to your patient no matter what the circumstance because it is your duty and it is a rule for you to be honest at all times.
Act utilitarianism sees the consequence of an action in itself (as one act) whereas rule utilitarianism sees the consequences as if it will be repeated all over again for the long term).Act utilitarianism first looks into the consequences of an act. The one with the better consequence is most likely the good choice. Rule utilitarianism looks first into the consequences of choosing what rule to follow. Following a rule that generates the greatest utility or happiness is the more correct choice.

ACT UTILITARIANISM

Act utilitarianism is one of the versions of utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism’s goal is to maximize the overall happiness of the universe. Act utilitarianism uses the Greatest Happiness Principle which says in every situation; choose the option that you believe to be most likely to produce the greatest possible happiness or least possible unhappiness for the all people who will be affected. An act utilitarian would determine if robbing a bank is a right action or not by determining how much happiness the robbery would create. To do this he would have to use the hedonistic calculus, which is a way of adding up all the happiness that everyone affected by an action would receive.
If the results of this calculation show that the bank managers, the hundreds of investors, and the police would all be unhappy with this action and only the robber and maybe his family would be happy, then robbing the bank is a wrong action. If the bank managers did not care about the customer’s money, the FDIC insured all the stolen money, the police were not unhappy because of the robbery, and the robber was extremely happy because he could move to the Caribbean and never work again, then robbing the bank would be a right action.
There are many good points to act utilitarianism. It is very appealing because most people want to increase their happiness and reduce their pain. Act utilitarianism says that people could do that and they would not only make everyone happier but they would also be doing what is morally right. Act utilitarian does will not have conflicts over any action being right or wrong because the hedonistic calculus is an objective test that proves the amount of please or pain that will result. It is a standard that all actions can be evaluated by. Another point or act utilitarianism that can be seen as an advantage over rule utilitarianism is that each individual situation can have a different action be right. This means that in every situation the right action will provide more happiness or less pain as opposed to rule utilitarianism where the individual situations do not matter.

Act utilitarianism also has some disadvantages. One major fault of act utilitarianism is that some actions would produce a greater amount of happiness if they were done in secret. The same action, however, would produce less happiness if it were done in public. That means that the exact same action and situation would be right if no one knew about it but wrong if enough people were aware of it. If people know about an action and believe it is wrong, then wouldn’t it be just as wrong if no one knew about it? The action would still have the same affect on the same amount of people, they just would not know about, so they could not be unhappy about it.
Act utilitarianism can also seem unjust because the hedonistic calculus may say that it is right to take away the rights of a person because it will contribute to the overall happiness in the universe. Act utilitarianism would say an action producing pain for a small number of innocent people is right as long as the rest of the world is happy about it. Another problem is the feelings of a person are disregarded; only the consequences are important. Some other problems with act utilitarianism are if a person has never experienced a similar situation, then they will be unable to perform the hedonistic calculus because they will not know if people will be happy or not. It also may not be possible to compare the different people’s happiness.
Act Utilitarianism has many problems. If everyone acted according to act utilitarianism, then the majority or people would probably be happier. But morally correct actions do not necessarily have to make people happy, so act utilitarianism might not be a good way to determine if an action is really right or wrong.

RULE UTILITARIANISM

According to rule utilitarianism our action should follow appropriate moral rules which generally promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Rule utilitarianism maintains that the utilitarian standard should not be applied to individual actions, but should instead be used to determine the appropriate moral rules to follow.
Those guiding thought behind rule utilitarianism is the now familiar one that overall utility will be greater if people follow rules instead of attempting directly to maximize utility through their actions.
Rule utilitarianism is, essentially, the view that an action is morally right if and only if it accords with that set of rules, the general acceptance of which would result in more happiness than any alternative set of rules.
In rule utilitarianism involves two steps. We assess moral rules in terms of utility, selecting those rules, the acceptance of which would maximize utility; we then judge individual actions in terms of those rules. If an action complies with the rules, it is right, and if it conflicts with them, it is wrong. The rules are not secondary rules but, rather, define what is right and wrong. There is no direct appeal to utility.
The rules in question cannot be too detailed or complex. If the rules were detailed and specific enough to anticipate every possible exception, so that in every situation any action that accorded with the rules would maximize utility, then in practice there would be no difference between the rule utilitarian approach and using the act utilitarian standard as one’s direct guide to action.
More important in rule utilitarianism is that the rules need to be simple enough that people can learn them and guide their conduct by them for otherwise the rules will not maximize happiness. It is also important that the rules be appraised in context and as a set, not one by one. For example, one cannot assess the benefits of a rule assigning adult children responsibility for the care of their elderly parents without knowing what other norms, rules, and institutions provide its backdrop.

CONCLUSION
The act and rule utilitarianism is a important version of utilitarianism. In act utilitarianism if the consequence of our action will give more happiness to greatest number of people, it is right and it will give pain turn to be wrong. And we should maximize happiness as much you can, and avoid pain. According to rule utilitarianism our action should follow appropriate moral rules which generally promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people. These two types of utilitarianism say one and the same things that we should maximize the happiness and avoid pain.

BIBILIOGRAPHY
Shaw, William H. Contemporary Ethics; Taking Account of Utilitarianism. USA; Black
Well Publishers, 1999.


JINTO ERINJERY
0924604

Bentham’s Theory of Utilitarianism

It is a presentation of an ethical theory that actions are right as long as they produce pleasure or prevent pain. He argues that if utility is defined as the ability to produce happiness, then the rightness of an action is determined by its utility. He also argues that if happiness is viewed as the only thing which is intrinsically good, then the principle of utility is the only right principle of human action.

The principle of utility is a morally right principle of action for every situation. It is also may be described as the greatest happiness principle and it asserts that the only morally right and proper goal of action is to achieve the greatest happiness of all individuals whose interest is affected by the action.

Here Bentham is proclaiming two theses, which have been labeled ‘ethical hedonism’ and ‘psychological hedonism’. Ethical hedonism is the view that pleasure and pain are the criteria the production of which makes acts right or wrong. Psychological hedonism is the theory that pleasure and pain are the ultimate motivational forces determining actions.

If pleasure and pain determine what we shall do, it seems unnecessary to point out what we ought to do. The relationship is not so simple. It is possible for an agent to choose an immediate pleasure that results in a loss of greater pleasure in the future or that results in greater pain in the future. A prudent person will forego an immediate pleasure for greater pleasure later on or to avoid greater pain in the future. Likewise, a prudent person may undergo an immediate pain to avoid greater pains or to achieve greater pleasures in the future. Pleasures and pains may be caused by various kinds of sensations, thoughts, emotions, memories, expectations, and associations. The sensitivity to pleasure or pain may vary among individuals, and that each individual may respond differently to the same pleasure or pain.

Bentham developed a ‘hedonic’ or ‘felicific’ calculus to enable a person rationally to apply his doctrine. In his analysis, a pleasure or pain has a certain intensity at any point in time, and it has a duration through time. These two dimensions constitute the quantity of a particular pleasure or pain and thus constitute its intrinsic value. He did not draw graphs, but if he had done so, his graph of an experience would have had two dimensions. The horizontal dimension would represent the duration of the experience; the vertical dimension would represent the intensity of pleasure and pain.

Actions have pleasurable and painful consequences beyond their immediate pleasurable or painful feeling. These future consequences cannot be known with certainty, but their probability can be estimated. An action or experience may also have some probability of producing pains. So the expected disvalue of pains must be subtracted from the expected value of pleasures to give a total net expected value.

According to Bentham, pleasure is intrinsically good, and pain is intrinsically evil. The motives which individuals may have for their actions are only good or evil if they have good or evil consequences. Motives may not be intrinsically good or evil and their consequences may vary according to each situation and according to pleasure or pain. He tries to justify the oppression of women by men by arguing that women may be more sensitive to smaller pleasures and pains that women may thus have less “firmness of mind”

Bentham, in his analysis of pleasures and pains, does not restrict himself to the pleasures and pains of the senses. He gives an extended list of pleasures: of sense, of wealth, of skill, of a good name, of power, or piety, of benevolence and so on- a list of fourteen categories, and for most of these there are corresponding pains. What Bentham does assume is that all these kinds of pleasures and pains are commensurable. They can each be ascribed some intensity and duration as quantitative measures and summed up to give a total amount of pleasure or pain.

Because Bentham holds a theory of psychological hedonism that pleasure and pain are the motives of all behavior – pleasure and pain are the ‘sanctions’ that modify behavior. Bentham enumerates four: the physical, the political, the moral and the religious. The first of these is simply causal relations in nature by which people learn that certain things cause pleasure and pain. The political sanction consists of pleasures and pains meted out by judges and other state officials. The moral or ‘popular’ sanction consists of pleasures and pains that arise from dealing with unofficial persons in the community. The religious consist of pleasures and pains expected to be experienced in this life or a future one imposed by a superior visible being.

Bentham’s theory of utilitarianism asserts that action and institutions should be judged by their contribution of utility, which is measured by calculating the relative contribution to happiness or pleasure, as opposed to pain. The aim of government should be thus ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’.



Bibliography
Bentham, Jeremy. The Principles and Morals and Legislation. New York: Prometheus,
1988.

MILL: HIGHER AND LOWER PLEASURES

UTILITARIANISM: MILL’S VIEW OF HIGHER AND LOWER PLEASURES


Utilitarianism gets its name from the word ‘utility’, which means happiness rather tahtn usefulness. Broadly speaking utilitrianism has three basic featues.
1. It is Consequentialist: this means that it’s the results or consequences of the action that count in deciding whether it’s right.
2. It holds that happiness/utility is good in itself: this means that happiness is worth pursuing and increasing for its own sake. Antother way of putting this is to say that happiness is intrinsically, or inherently, good. Everything else is good merely insofat as it is a means to the production of happiness, which is the ultimate goal. So things such as money, power, friendship, and so on are only instrumental goods because they are ways and means, i.e. instruments, for achieving happiness.
3. The principle of utility (greatest happiness principle) is the most fundamental moral principle according to utilitarianism, and by applying it ti your actions you can find out whether they are right or wrong.
Because of the heavy criticism directed at Bentham’s utilitarianism, Mill wanted to improve on it by making a number of modifications which would side-step those problems. He made some major changes:
1. He added quality to quantity of pleasure by distinquishing between higher and lower pleasures. He did this to combat the ‘pig philosophy’ critcism levelled at Bentham.
2. He dropped the hedonic calculus. This was to avoid criticisms that is was unworkable.
3. He switched from Bentham’s act utilitarianism, according to which each act is tested separately against the principle of utility, to rule utilitarianism, wehreby it’s te rules or policies that govern types of action, which the principle of utility tests. This was to cmbat accusations that utilitarianism condoned injustice.(Now and then Mill talks like an act utilitarian, causing some debate as to his real position).
The canonical statement of Mill's utilitarianism can be found in Utilitarianism. This philosophy has a long tradition, although Mill's account is primarily influenced by Jeremy Bentham and Mill's father James Mill. Mill's famous formulation of utilitarianism is known as the "greatest-happiness principle". It holds that one must always act so as to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, within reason. Mill's major contribution to utilitarianism is his argument for the qualitative separation of pleasures. Bentham treats all forms of happiness as equal, whereas Mill argues that intellectual and moral pleasures are superior to more physical forms of pleasure. Mill distinguishes between happiness and contentment, claiming that the former is of higher value than the latter, a belief wittily encapsulated in the statement that " 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 of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question."
Mill defines the difference between higher and lower forms of happiness with the principle that those who have experienced both tend to prefer one over the other. This is, perhaps, in direct contrast with Bentham's statement that "Pushpin is as good as Poetry", that, if a simple child's game like hopscotch causes more pleasure to more people than a night at the opera house, it is more imperative upon a society to devote more resources to propagating hopscotch than running opera houses. Mill's argument is that the "simple pleasures" tend to be preferred by people who have no experience with high art, and are therefore not in a proper position to judge. Mill supported legislation that would have granted extra voting power to university graduates on the grounds that they were in a better position to judge what would be best for society. It should be noted that, in this example, Mill did not intend to devalue uneducated people and would certainly have advocated sending the poor but talented to universities: he believed that education, and not the intrinsic nature of the educated, qualified them to have more influence in government.
CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
Mill faces three major problems regarding his distinction between higher and lower pleasures.
A. It abandons hedonism: This is a problem for Mill because he wants to maintain Bentam’s hedonistic view of happiness, nmnamely that happiness and pleasure are the same thing, and that this is the only thing good in itself. But if only pleasure counts, how is it possible to prefer something which gives you less pleasure over something which gives you more? Higher pleasures give you less, so it seems the only way you can justify these is to invoke values other than pleausre that compensate for the lesser pleasure –for example, values such as the greater artistry and profoundity to be found in Shakespearean tragedy. But if hedonism say spleaure is the only standard for judging actions, then Mill is inconsistent in trying to stick to hedonism while at the same time using standards other than pleasure to justify the higher pleausures.
B. It makes pleasure even harder to calculate: It was hard enough, if not impossible, to calculate pleasures quantitatively when we had only one scale, i.e. the hedoinc calculus, but is becomes out of the question when we try to use two or morescales to compare qualitative with quantitative pleasures. This would be like suing a weather vane to weigh out ingredients for a cake, or a tailor using a barometer to fit a customer for a suit. These things are incommensurable, i.e. they cannot be compared because they don’t talk the same language. The aesthetic beauty of a flame cannot be costed aainst the amount of heat, and the profundity of a Shakespearean tragedy cannot be costed against the amount of pleasure you get fomr earting a pizza instead.
C. It makes it impossible to decide between higher and lower pleasures: it’s useless to distinquish between higer and lower pleasures if we can’t tell, or can’t agree, which is which. Chaos would soon ensue, so we need a decision procedure for judging this.

REFERENCES
Stewart, Noel. Ethics: An Introductions to Moral Philosophy. USA: Polity Press, 2009.