the school of thought laid out by 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant – now known as

Kantianism – is pretty straightforward.

More precisely: It’s absolute.

Kantianism is all about sticking to the moral rulebook.

There are never any exceptions, or any excuses, for violating moral rules.

But there are other ways of looking at ethics.

Like, instead of focusing on the intent behind our behavior, what if we paid more attention to the
consequences?

One moral theory that does this is utilitarianism.

It focuses on the results, or consequences, of our actions, and treats intentions as irrelevant.

Good consequences equal good actions, in this view.

So, what’s a good consequence?

Modern utilitarianism was founded in the 18th century by British philosophers Jeremy Bentham and
John Stuart Mill.

But the theory has philosophical ancestors in ancient Greek thinkers such as Epicurus.
All of these guys agreed that actions should be measured in terms of the happiness, or pleasure, that
they produce.

After all, they argued, happiness is our final end – it’s what we do everything else for.

Think about it like this: many things that you do, you do for the sake of something else.

You study to get a good grade.

You work to get money.

But why do you want good grades, or money?

There are different answers we could give – like maybe we’re seeking affirmation for our intelligence,
or the approval of our parents, or a degree that will give us a career we want.

But why do we want that particular career?

Why do we want approval?

We can keep asking questions, but ultimately our answer will bottom out in,

“I want what I want because I think it will make me happy.”

That’s what we all want – it’s one of the few things everyone has in common.

And utilitarians believe that’s what should drive our morality.

Like Kant, utilitarians agree that a moral theory should apply equally to everyone.
But they thought the way to do that was to ground it in something that’s really intuitive.

And there’s really nothing more basic than the primal desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

So, it’s often said that utilitarianism is a hedonistic moral theory – this means the good is equal to the
pleasant, and we ought, morally, to pursue pleasure and happiness, and work to avoid pain.

But, utilitarianism is not what you’d call an egoistic theory.

Egoism says that everyone ought, morally, to pursue their own good.

In contrast to that, utilitarianism is other-regarding.

It says we should pursue pleasure or happiness – not just for ourselves, but for as many sentient
beings as possible.

To put it formally: “we should act always so as to produce the greatest good for the greatest
number.”

This is known as the principle of utility.

OK, no one’s gonna argue with a philosophy that tells them to seek pleasure.

But, sometimes doing what provides the most pleasure to the most people can mean that you have
to take one for the team.
It can mean sacrificing your pleasure, in order to produce more good overall.

But where morality is concerned, utilitarians argue, as special as you are, you’re no more special than
anybody else.

So your interests count, but no more than anyone else’s.

Now, you might say that you agree with that.

I mean, we all like to think of ourselves as being generous and selfless.

But, even though I’m sure you are a totally nice person – you have to admit that things seem way
more important – weightier, higher-stakes – when they apply to you, rather than to some stranger.

So, utilitarians suggest that we make our moral decisions from the position of a benevolent,
disinterested spectator.

Rather than thinking about what I should do, they suggest that I consider what I would think if I
were advising a group of strangers about what they should do.

That way, I have a disposition of good will, but I’m not emotionally invested.

And I’m a spectator, rather than a participant.

This approach is far more likely to yield a fair and unbiased judgment about what’s really best for
the group.

utilitarianism is a really demanding moral theory.

And, if we’re the ones who happen to be there, and we can do something to make things better, we
must.

Even if that means getting our hands dirty.

And if I sit by and watch something bad happen when I could have prevented it, my hands are dirty
anyway.

So, we shouldn’t think about it as killing one man.

That man was dead already, because they were all about to be killed.

Instead, we should think of our decision as doing what it takes to save more people .

Now, if we decide and want to follow utilitarian moral theory, we have options.

Specifically, two of them :-

 Act Utilitarianism-
 Rule Utilitarianism

Act Utiliarism

When Bentham and Mill first posed their moral theory, it was in a form now known as Act
Utilitarianism, sometimes called classical utilitarianism.

And it says that, in any given situation, you should choose the action that produces the greatest
good for the greatest number.
But sometimes, the act that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number can seem just
wrong.

For instance, suppose a surgeon has five patients, all waiting for transplants.

One needs a heart, another a lung. Two are waiting for kidneys and the last needs a liver.

The doctor is pretty sure that these patients will all die before their names come up on the
transplant list.

And he just so happens to have a neighbor who has no family.

Total recluse. Not even a very nice guy.

The doctor knows that no one would miss this guy if he were to disappear.

And by some miracle, the neighbor is a match for all five of the transplant patients.

So, it seems like, even though this would be a bad day for the neighbor, an act-utilitarian should
kill the neighbor and give his organs to the five patients.

It’s the greatest good for the greatest number.

Yes, one innocent person dies, but five innocent people are saved.

This might seem harsh, but remember that pain is pain, regardless of who’s experiencing it.

So the death of the neighbor would be no worse than the death of any of those patients dying on the
transplant list.

In fact, it’s five times less bad than all five of their deaths.
So thought experiments like this led some utilitarians to come up with another framework for their
theory.

This one is called- Rule Utilitarianism.

This version of the theory says that we ought to live by rules that, in general, are likely to lead to the
greatest good for the greatest number.

So, yes, there are going to be situations where killing an innocent person will lead to the greatest
good for the greatest number.

But, rule utilitarians want us to think long-term, and on a larger scale.

And overall, a whole society where innocent people are taken off the streets to be harvested for their
organs is gonna have a lot less utility than one where you don’t have to live in constant fear of that
happening to you.

So,

As an owner of human organs, this approach might make sense to you.

Today we learned about utilitarianism.

We studied the principle of utility, and learned about the difference between act and rule
utilitarianism.

thank you !