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Then Utilitarian Ethics

Utilitarianism is a school of thought,which set the general thesis that pleasure and
happiness are what everyone desires. Although the previous philosophers like Aristotle,
Epicurus and St. Thomas Aquinas had already shown an advocacy and the pursuit of happiness
as the goal of the human person, these philosophers focus on one on followings one’s own
happiness. Utilitarianism, on the other hand, upheld the idea that the morally best act is the
one that produces the greatest amount of happiness with everyone considered. According to
the utilitarian philosophers, good consists in the achievement of the principle of happiness,
which is understood as “the greatest good of the greatest number.”
The utilitarians were a group of writers, politicians, and administrators of whom Jeremy
Bentham and John Stuart Mill are the leading figures. Both Bentham and Mill held the idea that
the human person should perform an action that will bring happiness to the greatest number of
people. Their ethical doctrine states that the rightness and wrongness of an action are
determined by the goodness and badness of their consequence (Timbreza 1997, 28).
The previous ethical doctrines upheld the idea that good comes from the dictates of
reason, or from following the human nature, or from the duty to obey the categorical
imperative. As a reaction to these previous ethical beliefs come on utilitarianism instead
focused its ethical doctrine on the measurement of the principle of utility by considering the
amount of pleasure and the amount of pain in a particular action.
Utilitarianism was actually merely following the beliefs of the British empiricist. They
follow the principle of Thomas Hobbes, who put an emphasis on the people’s selfish concern
for their own pleasure. The utilitarians were also aware of the idea of David Hume, who
believed that people would never be able to know the universal moral law. This is the reason
why Hume gave the idea that the whole of the morality is focused on the people’s capacity for
sympathy, the tendency to consider the pleasures of others. This tendency to consider the
pleasures of others are what all people share and this is definitely what brings happiness to
people. On the other hand, John Locke said that the aptness in us to produce pleasure is what
we should consider as good; and consequently, the desire to produce pain is to be considered
evil. From these ideas of Hobbes, Hume, and Locke, the utilitarians develop a system of
thought that would focus on the happiness of others as the basis of human goodness. This
idea was developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
Jeremy Bentham (died at the age of 85) wrote a book entitled Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation published in 1789. This book began with a classic sentence:
“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two soverign masters, pain and
pleasure.” It was his idea that what provides for the morality of an action is the consequence of
such act, i.e., if the action is pleasurable, then it can be considered good and if it will bring pain,
then it is considered to be morally unacceptable.
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John Stuart Mill (died in 1873 at the age of 67) had a father who pushed him into early
intellectual development when he was 3 years old. The intellectual development set to John by
his father had a great effect on the emotional development of John as a child.
At the age of 20, John experienced an emotional burnout, which he attributed to the
overemphasis upon analysis without a parallel development of the emotional qualities, I.e.,
feelings. In order to overcome the said emotional burnout, John turned himself to the literary
works of Samuel Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, and William Wordsworth, who affected who
affected his thought so deeply that he could later say that “ the cultivation of the feelings
became one of the cardinal points in my ethical and philosophical creed” (Hakim, 496).
The Principle of Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism claims that there is one and only one moral principle - the principle of
utility. This principle states that actions are good insofar as they tend to promote happiness,
bad as they tend to produce unhappiness (Timbreza, 28). Utilitarianism is basically an
approach to morality that treats pleasure as a sole element in human good and which regards
the morality of actions as entirely dependent on consequences or results for human well-being.
The concern of utilitarianism is the well-being of the others and, consequently, the well-being
of the whole society. Although it considers pleasure as the basis of goodness, it does not follow
however the Epicurean concept of pleasure inasmuch as epicureans disregard the society as the
basis of doing good deeds.
The main concern of utilitarianism is the consequences, the effects, the results, and the
outcomes of an action. It is for this reason that utilitarianism may be right called teleological.
The word teleological comes from the Greek word “telos”, which means “end” or “purpose.”
Utilitarianism considers the consequences of an act as the basis for determining the goodness
of such act. This is the reason why Bentham and the other subsequent followers of
utilitarianism discarded religious traditions and social conventions in favor of treating human-
well being or happiness as the touchstone for all moral evaluations.
Bearing the principle of utility in mind, do utilitarians believe that we should consider
the possible effects of each action or moral decision. Every human person ought to choose
the action, among the many other possible ones, that produces the most benefit, i.e., comfort
or happiness, at the least cost of pain or unhappiness. Indeed, some pains may result from the
action that human beings take. However, what is important is that each person should do the
action that has the greatest possible balance of happiness over unhappiness for all individuals
affected.
What Benjamin and Mill were desirous of getting rid of any strain or individualism and
subjectivism. For this reason, we gave an alternative formulation of the principle of utility - and
the principle of the greatest number. According to these principle, an action is good if it
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produces greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, and bad if it produces more
harm than benefit for the greatest number of the individual. The primary consideration was
the happiness that of one person but of the greatest number of people. Hence, the principle of
equiti is implied in the alternative formulation. This principle states that an action is good if it
provides equal benefits or happiness for the greatest number of individuals concerned
(Timbreza, 29).
Act Utilitarianism versus Rule Utilitarianism
Both Bentham and Mill argued that the principle of utility should always be considered
in terms of one’s own moral decisions.
However, how can a person apply this principle in his own moral actions questions?
Bentham and Mill had different answers to the given questions. Bentham’s utilitarianism
is known today as the act utilitarianism, which held that the rightness of an act is determined
by its effect on the general happiness (Moore & Bruder 2005,285). Acts utilitarianism holds that
the utilitarian principle should be applied to particular acts in particular situations or
circumstances and case by case basis. The issue here would be the possible results of each
particular act and those results will be the means in order to determine the morality of an
action. If the consequences led to the attainment of happiness of the greatest number of
people, then the action is considered to be morally acceptable.
In some of Mill’s writings, he seemed to subscribe also to act utilitarianism. However, in
the other passages, he seemed to have advocated what is called the rule utilitarianism.
According to this version of utilitarianism, people must evaluate the moral correctness of an
action not with reference to its impact on the general happiness but, rather, with respect to the
impacts on the general happiness of the rule that the action embodies (Moore and Bruder).
Rule utilitarianism maintains that the principle at issue should be used to test moral rules, and
then the rules can be utilized in order to decide on which moral judgment is right or wrong
under the circumstances. Therefore, rule utilitarianism considers the possible results in the light
of a rule (Timbreza 1993, 31).
In order to clearly illustrate between between rule utilitarianism and act utilitarianism,
we can take this case: Supposing that by murdering a thief, the killer would increase the general
happiness. In this regard, act utilitarianism would say that it is morally acceptable to murder
the thief. However, a rule utilitarian, as supported by Mill in some of his writings, would say
that if the society considered murder as unlawful, then the general happiness would be
diminished in view on the rule of conduct. In this case, rule utilitarianism seems to be much
more Kantian than the act utilitarianism.
To God be the Glory!