UTILITARIANISM

by Jon Raymer P. Oclarit

INTRODUCTION

In this lesson, we will learn from Bentham and Mill that moral goodness involves achieving the
greatest amount of pleasure—and minimizing the greatest amount of pain—for the greatest number of
people. Here are the following intended learning outcomes for this lesson:
• Elaborate Utilitarianism as a Consequentialist Theory;
• Test Bentham’s Hedonic Calculus in measuring the degree of pleasure and pain; and
• Assess whether Qualitative Approach is superior than Quantitative Approach in relation to
pleasure and pain principle.

MOTIVATION

In Great Britain, two such leading figures were Jeremy

Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Their
most memorable contribution in the field of Ethics is the theory of
Utilitarianism. According to this theory, moral actions are those
which produce the greatest good for the number of people. The
moral and
political views of Bentham and Mill dramatically
influenced the direction of Western philosophy.
Rarely has a way of thinking captured the
imagination of generations of people so completely
as did their theory of utilitarianism. What attracts
people to it is its simplicity and its way of confirming
what most of us already believe—that everyone
desires pleasure and happiness.
 LESSON PROPER

Utilitarianism Explained

Utilitarianism is known as a
consequentialist theory, a subclass of
teleological moral theory. Derived from the
Greek term telos which means ‘purpose,’ a
teleological ethical system judges the
rightness of an act in terms of an external goal
or purpose.
Consequentialist ethics suggests that actions, rules, or policies should be ethically measured and
evaluated by their consequences, not by the intentions or motives of the agent. Utilitarianism is the most
influential consequentialist theory. Derived from
the Latin term utilis which means ‘useful,’
utilitarianism basically states that what is useful is
good, and that the moral value of actions is
determined by the utility of its consequences. This
opposes to ethical theories that consider God’s will
to be the final arbiter of morality.
Origins and Nature of the Theory

Bentham’s Utilitarianism. Bentham

begins his Introduction to the Principles of
Morals and Legislation with this classic
statement: “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.” To be subject to pleasure and
pain is a fact we all recognize, and it is also a fact that we desire pleasure and void pain. He then offers his
principle of utility, namely, “that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever,
according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish . . . happiness.” Just as pleasure
and pain give the real values to acts, so do they also constitute the causes of our behavior. Bentham
distinguishes four sources from which pleasures and pains can come, and he identifies these as causes of
our behavior, calling them sanctions. A sanction is what gives binding force to a rule of conduct or to a
law, and he terms these four sanctions the physical, the political, the moral, and the religious. The physical
source, for him, is the basis of all the others.
Each individual is concerned with avoiding
pain and achieving pleasure. But pleasures and
pains differ from each other and therefore have
different values. With an attempt at mathematical
precision, Bentham speaks of units—or what he
called lots—of pleasure or pain. He suggests that
before we act we should calculate the values of
these lots. Their value, taken by themselves, will be
greater or less depending, Bentham says, on a
pleasure’s intensity, duration, certainty, and propinquity or nearness. When we consider not only the
pleasure by itself but what consequences it can lead to, we must calculate other circumstances. These
include a pleasure’s fecundity, or its chances of being followed by more pleasure, and its purity, or the
chances that it will be followed by some pain. The seventh circumstance is a pleasure’s extent, that is, the
number of persons to whom it extends or who are affected by the action.
 According to Bentham, we “sum up all the values of all the pleasures on the one side, and those
of all the pains on the other. The balance, if it be on the side of pleasure, will give the good tendency of
the act . . . if on the side of pain, the bad tendency.” This calculus shows that Bentham was interested
chiefly in the quantitative aspects of pleasure. Whether we actually do engage in this kind of calculation
was a question Bentham anticipated, and he has a reply:

There are some, perhaps, who . . . may look upon the nicety employed in the adjustment of such
rules as so much labor lost: for gross ignorance, they will say, never troubles itself about laws, and
passion does not calculate. But the evil of ignorance admits of cure: and . . . when matters of such
importance as pain and pleasure are at stake, and these in the highest degree . . . who is there
that does not calculate? Men calculate, some with less exactness, indeed, and some with more:
but all men calculate.

Quantitative Approach. Bentham said that pleasures differ only in their amount—that is, that
different ways of behaving produce different quantities of pleasure. Bentham was so committed to the
simple quantitative measurement of pleasure as the chief test of the morality of an act that he even
suggested that “there ought to be a moral thermometer.” Just as a thermometer measures the different
degrees of heat, so also a “moral thermometer” could measure the degrees of happiness or unhappiness.
This analogy reveals Bentham’s exclusive emphasis on quantity in his treatment of goodness and pleasure.
For just as it is possible to achieve the same degree of heat whether one burns coal, wood, or oil, so also
is it possible to achieve equal quantities of pleasure through games, poetry, or other types of behavior.
Goodness, for Bentham, is not connected with any particular kind of behavior but only with the amounts
of pleasure as measure by his “calculus.” Inevitably, the utilitarians were accused of being moral relativists
who rejected all moral absolutes in favor of each person’s subjective opinion about what is good.
 Mill’s Utilitarianism. Mill’s purpose in writing his
famous essay on Utilitarianism was to defend the principle
of utility, which he learned from his father and Bentham. In
the course of his defense, however, he made such
important modifications to this theory that his version of
utilitarianism turned out to be different from Bentham’s in
several ways. His definition of utility was perfectly
consistent with what Bentham taught: Mill writes,
The creed which accepts as the foundation of
morals Utility, or the greatest Happiness Principle,
holds that action 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.

But, even though he started with the same general ideas as Bentham, especially relating
happiness with pleasure, Mill soon took a different approach.

Qualitative Approach. Mill sought to defend utilitarianism against the charges that utilitarians are
moral relativists favoring each person’s subjective opinion about what is good, but in the course of his
defense, he was drawn into the position of altering Bentham’s quantitative approach to pleasure by
substituting a qualitative approach.
Mill says he would “rather be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied,” or that “it is better to be
a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” Pleasures, Mill notes, differ from each other in kind and
quality, not only in quantity. He says “human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal
appetites, and when once conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include
their gratification.”
Pleasures of the intellect and imagination have a higher value than the pleasures of mere
sensation. Though Mill initially developed the notion of higher pleasures as an answer to the critics of
utilitarianism, his concern over higher pleasures led to a criticism of the very foundation of Bentham’s
view of utility. He says that “it would be absurd that . . . the estimation of pleasures should be supposed
to depend on quantity alone.” For Mill the mere quantity of pleasure produced by an act was of secondary
importance when we have to make a choice between pleasures.
 The qualitative aspect of pleasure, Mill thought, was as much an empirical fact as was the
quantitative element on which Bentham placed his entire emphasis. Mill departed even further from
Bentham by grounding the qualitative difference between pleasures in the structure of human nature,
thereby focusing on certain human faculties whose full use were to be the criterion of true happiness and
therefore, of goodness. In this regard Mill says,

Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise
of the fullest allowance of a best’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.

Pleasures, according to Mill, have to be assessed not for their quantity but for their quality. He
attempted to go beyond mere quantitative hedonism to a qualitative hedonism, wherein the moral value
of life is grounded in the higher pleasures of our higher faculties. Thus if it is better to be Socrates
dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, morality is proportionate to the happiness we find in being truly human
and not in the amount of pleasure we experience. Higher happiness, then, is the aim of all human life, a
life “exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments.”
 APPLICATION

Answer the following:

On Bioethics. If a doctor can save five people from death by killing one healthy person and using that
person’s organs for life-saving transplants, what should the doctor do?

On Social Ethics. In the time of this pandemic, should the government restrict the people to go outside
their homes to avoid the spread of COVID-19 virus? Will it not curtail the freedom to travel?
 GENERALIZATION

The following are the important key points discussed in this module:

Consequentialism – suggests that actions, rules, or policies should be ethically measured and evaluated
by their consequences, not by the intentions or motives of the agent.

Hedonic Calculus – suggests that before we act, we should calculate the values of pleasure’s intensity,
duration, certainty, and propinquity or nearness

Pain – unhappiness and the absence of pleasure.

Pleasure – happiness where pain is absent or minimal.

Qualitative Approach – says that pleasures of the intellect and imagination have a higher value than the
pleasures of mere sensation.

Quantitative Approach – says that pleasures differ only in their amount—that is, that different ways of
behaving produce different quantities of pleasure.

Utilis – means ‘useful,’ utilitarianism basically states that what is useful is good, and that the moral value
of actions is determined by the utility of its consequences

Sanction – is that which gives binding force to a rule of conduct or to a law.

Teleology – is the belief that an action is right or wrong based on its outcomes or consequences.

Utilitarianism – provides that moral actions are those which produce the greatest good for the number
of people.
 EVALUATION

TWO MILLION DOLLARS FOR CHARITY

Suppose you are on a beautiful island with a dying millionaire who has been your benefactor and
has invited you to this island for a vacation. As he lies dying, he entreats you for one final favor:

I’ve dedicated my whole life to baseball and for 50 years have gotten endless
pleasure, and some pain, rooting for the New York Yankees. Now that I am dying,
I want to give all my assets, $2 million, to the Yankees. Would you take this money
 [he indicates a box containing the money in large bills] back to New York and give
it to the Yankees’ owner, George Steinbrenner, so that he can buy better players?

You agree to carry out his wish, at which point a huge smile of relief and gratitude breaks out on
his face as he expires in your arms. After traveling to New York, you see a newspaper
advertisement placed by your favorite charity, World Hunger Relief Organization (whose integrity
you do not doubt), pleading for $2 million to be used to save 100,000 people dying of starvation
in East Africa. Not only will the $2 million save their lives, but it will also purchase equipment and
the kinds of fertilizers necessary to build a sustainable economy. You decide to reconsider your
promise to the dying Yankee fan, in light of this advertisement.

Question: What should you do with the money? Explain. (15 points)
 THE TROLLEY PROBLEM

A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward FIVE people who will all be killed if the
trolley proceeds on its present course. You are standing next to a large switch that can divert the
trolley onto a different track. The ONLY WAY to save the lives of the FIVE people is to divert the
trolley onto another track that only has ONE person on it. If you divert the trolley onto the other
track, this ONE person will die, but the other FIVE people will be saved.

QUESTIONS:

1. How does Utilitarianism apply in this situation? Explain and apply Bentham’s Hedonic
Calculus in this situation. (20pts)
2. Will you divert the trolly onto another track in order to save the FIVE people? Explain
thoroughly your answer. (10pts)

3. Will your answer be the same if the ONE person at the other track is your loved one? Why
yes or why not? (Example of loved one: your parent, your grandparent, your only child,
your husband/wife, your only best friend). (10pts)
 BABY THERESA
(True Story)

Theresa Ann Campo Pearson, an infant known to the public

as “Baby Theresa,” was born in Florida in 1992. Baby Theresa
had anencephaly, one of the worst genetic disorders.
Anencephalic infants are sometimes referred to as “babies
without brains,” but that is not quite accurate. Important
parts of the brain—the cerebrum and cerebellum—are
missing, as is the top of the skull. The brain stem, however,
is still there, and so the baby can still breathe and possess a
heartbeat. In the United States, most cases of anencephaly are detected during pregnancy, and
the fetuses are usually aborted. Of those not aborted, half are stillborn. About 350 are born alive
each year, and they usually die within days.

Baby Theresa’s story is remarkable only because her parents made an unusual request. Knowing
that their baby would die soon and could never be conscious, Theresa’s parents volunteered her
organs for immediate transplant. They thought her kidneys, liver, hear, lungs, and eyes should
go to other children who could benefit from them. Her physicians agreed. Thousands of infants
need transplants each year, and there are never enough organs available. BUT Theresa’s organs
were not taken, because the State of Florida law forbids the removal of organs until the donor is
dead. By the time Baby Theresa died, nine days later, it was too late—her organs had
deteriorated too much to be harvested and transplanted. Baby Theresa’s case was widely
debated.

QUESTIONS:

1. Should Baby Theresa have been killed so that her organs could have been used to save
other children? Explain thoroughly your answer. (15pts)
2. Will your answer be the same if you are the parent? Why yes or why not? (10pts)

3. Can Utilitarianism still be applied given the fact that Baby Theresa has the right to live and
not to be killed? Why yes or why not? (20pts)
REFERENCES:

• Bentham, Jeremy, and Mill, John Stuart, The Utilitarians: Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill
(Garden City, NY: Dolphin Books, 1961).
• Crisp, R., Mill on Utilitarianism (London: Routledge, 1997).
• Harrison, R., Bentham (London: Routledge, 1996).