The Prinicple of Utility

The Principle of Utility A.

Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832)

There are two main people that talked about the principles of utility and they were Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. First off I'll talk to you about Mr. Bentham. It is helpful to see Bentham's moral philosophy in the context of his political philosophy, his attempt to find a rational approach to law and legislative action. He argued against "natural law" theory and thought that the classical theories of Plato and Aristotle as well as notions such as Kant's Categorical Imperative were too outdated, confusing and/or controversial to be of much help with society's ills and a program of social reform. He adopted what he took to be a simple and ‘scientific' approach to the problems of law and morality and grounded his approach in the "Principle of Utility."

The Principle of Utility

1. Recognizes the fundamental role of Pain

and Pleasure in human life.

2. Approves or disapproves of an action on the

basis of the amount of pain or pleasure brought

about ("consequences").

3.Equates the good with the pleasurable

and evil with pain.

4.Asserts that pleasure and pain are capable

of "quantification"-and hence of measure.

As with the emerging theory of capitalism in the 18th and 19th Century England, we could speak of "pleasure" as "pluses" and "pains" as "minuses." Thus the utilitarian would calculate which actions bring about more pluses over minuses.

In measuring pleasure and pain, Bentham introduces the following criteria:

It's intensity, duration, certainty (or uncertainty), and its nearness (or fairness). He also includes its "fecundity" (more or less of the same will follow) and its "purity" (its pleasure won't be followed by pain & vice versa). In considering actions that affect numbers of people, we must also account for their extent.

As a social reformer, Bentham applied this principle to the laws of England-- for example, those areas of the law concerning crime and punishment. An analysis of theft reveals that it not only causes harm to the victim, but also, if left unpunished, it endangers the very status of private property and the stability of society. In seeing this, the legislator should devise a punishment that is useful in deterring theft. But in matters of "private morality" such as sexual preference and private behavior, Bentham felt that it was not at all useful to involve the legislature.

Bentham also thought that the principle of utility could apply to our treatment of animals. The question is not whether they can talk or reason, but whether they can suffer. As such, that suffering should be taken into account in our treatment of them. Here we can see a moral ground for laws that aim at the "prevention of cruelty to animals" (and such cruelty was often witnessed in Bentham's day.) (Cavalier)

John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873)

"It is better to be a human being dissatisfied that a pig satisfied;

better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."

For Mill, it is not the quantity of pleasure, but the quality of happiness. Bentham's calculus is unreasonable – qualities cannot be quantified (there is a distinction between ‘higher' and ‘lower' pleasures). Mill's utilitarianism culminates in "The Greatest Happiness Principle."(Cavalier)

If I am asked what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. 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. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for