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    Utilitarian and Pragmatic Ethics

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    Jann Rey Recla
    Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that evaluates actions based on their consequences, specifically whether they maximize happiness and pleasure or minimize harm, pain, and suffering. The central idea is that one should act to bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people affected by the action. Jeremy Bentham introduced the concept of utility and the principle of utility, which holds that an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness. John Stuart Mill later refined utilitarianism by arguing that some kinds of pleasure, such as intellectual pleasures, are qualitatively higher than others like physical pleasures.

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    Utilitarian and Pragmatic Ethics

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    Jann Rey Recla
    335 views23 pages
    Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that evaluates actions based on their consequences, specifically whether they maximize happiness and pleasure or minimize harm, pain, and suffering. The central idea is that one should act to bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people affected by the action. Jeremy Bentham introduced the concept of utility and the principle of utility, which holds that an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness. John Stuart Mill later refined utilitarianism by arguing that some kinds of pleasure, such as intellectual pleasures, are qualitatively higher than others like physical pleasures.

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    Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that evaluates actions based on their consequences, specifically whether they maximize happiness and pleasure or minimize harm, pain, and suffering. The central idea is that one should act to bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people affected by the action. Jeremy Bentham introduced the concept of utility and the principle of utility, which holds that an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness. John Stuart Mill later refined utilitarianism by arguing that some kinds of pleasure, such as intellectual pleasures, are qualitatively higher than others like physical pleasures.

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    335 views23 pages

    Utilitarian and Pragmatic Ethics

    Uploaded by

    Jann Rey Recla
    Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that evaluates actions based on their consequences, specifically whether they maximize happiness and pleasure or minimize harm, pain, and suffering. The central idea is that one should act to bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people affected by the action. Jeremy Bentham introduced the concept of utility and the principle of utility, which holds that an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness. John Stuart Mill later refined utilitarianism by arguing that some kinds of pleasure, such as intellectual pleasures, are qualitatively higher than others like physical pleasures.

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    utilitarian and

    pragmatic ethics
    HAPPINESS

    as the ultimate goal of human


    endeavor
    Utilitarianism
    ○ It is a philosophical view or theory about how
    we should evaluate a wide range of things that
    involve choices that people face.
    ○ A consequentialist theory
    ○ Extension of hedonism beyond mere selfish
    pleasure to the pleasure of the group
    ○ Founding Father Jeremy Bentham
    Utilitarianism

    ○ In general, whatever is being evaluated, we ought to choose the one that will
    produce the best overall results. In the language of utilitarians, we should
    choose the option that “maximizes utility”
    The central idea, according to utilitarianism, is that one should always act in such
    a way as to bring about the greatest amount of happiness possible for those who
    are affected by one’s actions. This principle is known as Utility or Greatest
    Happiness Principle: the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

    “
    Car Accident
    A doctor witnesses a car accident.
    In the car, there are three people.

    1. A pregnant woman

    2. The young woman’s husband

    3. The woman’s father.


     All have an equal chance of
    survival but he can only save
    two person in time. One
    person is bound to die
    Car Accident
     If the doctor was a utilitarian, he
    would save
     The pregnant woman first – this
    is because she and the baby
    would have the
    happiness/pleasure of two
    people.
     The husband would be next
    because the happiness of a new
    family would outweigh the
    happiness of one man.
     The old man would be left
    because he has had his portion
    of happiness
    Jeremy Bentham
     He was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer.

     He proved to be something of a child prodigy: while still a toddler he was discovered sitting
    at his father's desk reading a multi-volume history of England, and he began to study Latin
    at the age of three.

     He received his bachelor’s degree at 15 years old and master’s degree at 18 years old.

     Wrote ‘The Principles of Morals and Legislation’ in 1789 in which he proposed his ethical
    theory of utilitarianism.
    Fundamentals of Utilitarianism

    ○ All humans by nature seek to attain pleasure and avoid pain.

    ○ All humans, by nature, seek utility.


    Utility - tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or
    happiness or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness
    to the party whose interest is considered.
    Fundamentals of Utilitarianism

    ○ The community is a fictitious body, composed of individual persons who


    are considered as constituting as it were its members.

    ○ Every individual’s utility counts the same as every other individual’s utility.

    ○ For Bentham, utility is judged quantitatively only.


    Bentham’s Seven Quantitative
    Utilitarian Criteria

    Intensity Duration Certainty


    How strong is it? How long does it last? How likely is it to
    happen?

    Extent Propinquity
    The number of people How near at hand is it?
    affected by it.

    Fecundity Purity
    How likely is it to How free from pain is
    produce more? it?
    Mill’s Utilitarianism
    • Tried to reform utilitarianism so that quality, not just quantity, matters,
    when evaluating utility.

    • Some pleasures are ‘higher’ than others.


    “It is better to be a human being satisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be
    Socrates satisfied than a fool satisfied”

    • The pleasures of the mind are higher than those of the body.
    BENTHAM J.S. MILL: Higher and Lower Pleasures

    INTELLECTUAL
    QUALITY of pleasure For Mill

    H
    G

    H
    R
    E

    I
    QUANTITY of intellectual
    pleasure. “…better to be a pleasures are
    dissatisfied human being intrinsically
    All pleasures than a pig satisfied; and more valuable
    are of equal better to be a Socrates than physical
    value. pleasures.
    dissatisfied than a fool Those who have
    satisfied” felt both kinds
    W
    O
    R
    E

    L
    will prefer
    PHYSICAL intellectual
    pleasures.
    Act and Rule Utilitarianism
    How do they differ?
    Overall aim in evaluating actions should be to create the
    best results possible.
    Act Utilitarians

    ○ Act utilitarians make decisions which promote the greatest pleasure


    for the greatest number for a particular situation, without following
    any principles, other than utility.
    ○ They assess each individual situation on its own merits.
    Rule Utilitarians

    ○ They stress the importance of moral rules.


    ○ According to them,
    a. A specific action is morally justified if it conforms to a justified moral
    rule.
    b. A moral rule is justified if its inclusion into our moral code would create
    more utility than other possible rules.
    Pragmatism

    ◉ This was developed in the U.S. during


    post civil war period.
    ◉ A method and theory that could be of
    tremendous utility in solving intellectual
    problems and in forwarding man’s
    progress.
    Pragmatism
    KEY THINKERS

    William James Charles Sanders Pierce John Dewey


    Pragmatism

    ◉William James shared the American


    distrust of purely theoretical or
    intellectual activity.
    A theory is true if it
    works
    It has been verified and has been found to deal successfully with
    experience.
    Pragmatism and Ethics

    ○ Since truth is that which works, or yields satisfactory results in terms of our
    experience, what is true, in these terms, turns out to be what is profitable for us to
    believe, or what is good.

    ○ Thus, given a problem in human behavior, we can ask, “Would performing


    certain actions be right in order to solve a given problem?”
    Pragmatism and Ethics

    ○ For the pragmatist there is no “fixed” world to be revealed by experience;


    there is only a continuous quest to find workable solutions to life’s
    problems.

    ○ The way to discover what is morally right or wrong is the same as when
    seeking truth: a good action is one that works to solve a given problem.
    Relativism
    Pragmatism cannot offer any absolute moral principles. We
    must always act on the hypothesis that works, and this must
    involve a purely subjective evaluation.

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