Introduction Utilitarianism is a movement in ethics which began in the late eighteenth centaury and is primarily associated with the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham and was later adapted and fully developed by John Stuart Mill in the ninetieth century. . The theory states that we should try to achieve ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’. Utilitarianism is a teleological theory of ethics. Teleological theories of ethics look at the consequences to decide whether an action is right or wrong. Utilitarianism is defined as a doctrine that the useful is the good and that the determining consideration of right conduct should be the usefulness of it consequences: specifically: a theory that the aim of action should be the largest possible …show more content…
Bentham’s Utilitarianism sees the highest good as the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Jeremy Bentham believed that by adding up the amounts of pleasure and pain for each possible act we should be able to choose the good thing to do. Happiness equaled pleasure minus pain. Bentham provided a way of measuring pleasure and pain, he called it the hedonic calculus. There are seven criteria to this calculus. First being the intensity being measured – how strong is the pleasure. The second criteria, duration – how long will the pleasure last. The third, certainty – how likely or unlikely is the pleasure. Fourth, Propinquity - How far off in the future is the pleasure or pain. The fifth, fecundity – what is the likely hood that a succession of pleasure will follow. The sixth criteria, purity – What is the probability that the pain will lead to other pain. Lastly, is the extent – how many people will be affected. This calculus gave Bentham a method of testing whether an action is morally right in that if it was good it would result in the most pleasurable outcome, having weighed up all the elements. These factors weigh up the potential amount of pleasure or pain which might arise from moral actions to decide which would be the best option to take. Ideally this formula should determine which act has the best tendency and is therefore
The Utilitarianism is the theory which fund the morality on the utility, and affirms that the true utilitity for and individual can't not always get along with the general utility. The utilitarianism fixes as a starting point the thought which recognize that one of the condition of human nature is to think firstly about his own interests: the morality consists in recognize that the utile of the single coincide with the utile of the others. Historically the Utilitarianism found himself in the English philosophy. The term ''utilitarianism'' was used for the first time by J. Bentham, and with that he designed the fundamental character of his own philosophic system. Bentham affirms also the need of all the utilitarian philosophies to create the ethic as an exact science: a rigorous calculus on the quantitative difference of the pleasures. The Utilitarianism broaden also in the juridical and political field, with the proposition of radical reforms. It was then the ce...
The three situations that we are looking at and examining all fall under the branch of philosophy known as “ethics”. Which is studying the ethics of the situations that were presented to us. The two philosophers who will be exploring these situations with me are Jeremy Bentham and Soren Kierkegaard. Bentham is the founder of “Utilitarianism” which is the belief that we should act to promote the greatest amount of happiness and create the least amount of suffering possible for the greatest number of people. While Kierkegaard is a proponent of the philosophy of “Existentialism” which is the belief that focuses on the individualities and their own uniqueness.
Bentham creates this with the hopes that it will end up changing laws in the society that seemed corrupt and useless to him, basing much of it on Hume’s idea of Social Utility. With his outlook, Utilitarianism was not about how you get your pleasure, nor about the overall quality of the act itself, but instead about gaining as much pleasure as you can in any way possible. Along with maximizing pleasure for oneself, it is stated in Stanford University’s paper on this subject they
Utilitarianism is the doctrine that an action is right in so far as it promotes
Jeremy Bentham spent most of his life focused on what he saw as failings in the justice system. He felt that there were “irrational and chaotic foundations” in the leadership of his time (Lawhead, p465). Bentham did not believe that morality was ingrained in every person from birth, or that moral laws were the same for everyone – and since there was no scientific proof of these things, things that the former government had come to regard as fact, Bentham dismissed them. What Bentham did believe was that pleasure and pain were experienced by each and every person, even if the sources were different. He also believed that achieving this pleasure was the end goal of every person. Even when a person does something that takes the pleasure of others into account, ultimately it is in order to indirectly promote their own pleasure. Therefore he came up with a method for calculating the amount of pain and pleasure that a situation created. Then, by adding up these amounts and determining which course of action provided the most pleasure, for all in the situation, he determi...
Utilitarianism provides a method for calculating the moral worth of specific actions in terms of their consequences. Utilitarianism teaches that happiness comprises the fundamental purpose and pursuit of human life. Therefore, the value and worth of any given action should be evaluated in terms of its ability to produce happiness. The utilitarian defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain, and teaches that in all cases individuals should act in such a way as to achieve the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people. Utilitarianism...
Utilitarianism is an ethical system that states that one should make moral choices based on which moral option brings the most pleasure and for the most people. This system is a consequentialist one, meaning that means or actions do not matter; only the consequences or results of one’s actions determine if the choice made was morally right or wrong. Actions and decisions can only be evaluated by the results they produce. If someone’s actions result in more pain than pleasure, then that action is determined to be a morally wrong one; if an action results in the most pleasure for the most people, then it is considered morally good. This system can be hard to apply when evaluating and weighing moral options since it is a consequentialist system;
‘’Utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory that places the focus of right and wrong solely on the outcomes (consequences) of choosing one action and or policy over others (Cavalier, 1996)’’. It is a morally demanding position and asks one to do the
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory that was first theorized by Jeremy Bentham, who summed up the fundamental quality of utilitarianism as, “It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.” Bentham was not a religious person and did not want to involve
Utilitarianism, or consequential ethics, is an ethical ideology proposed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill that “argues the proper course of action is one that maximizes a positive effect, such as “happiness”, “welfare”, or the ability to live according to personal preferences” (Baggini et
Bentham's moral theory was founded on the assumption that it is the consequences of human actions that count in evaluating their merit and that the kind of consequence that matters for human happiness is just the achievement of pleasure and avoidance of pain. He argued that the hedonistic value of any human action is easily calculated by considering how intensely its pleasure is felt, how long that pleasure lasts, how certainly and how quickly it follows upon the performance of the action, and how likely it is to produce collateral benefits and avoid collateral harms. Taking such matters into account, we arrive at a net value of each action for any human being affected by it.
How does one decide what is the right decision? Philosophers, and most humans in general, have been debating these questions for centuries and still have not agreed upon any definite answers. In order to effectively debate this question, one must first understand the concept of utilitarianism. In the Fundamentals of Ethics, Russ Shafer-Landau explains this term by saying “utilitarians tell us to do what brings about the best overall situation, by choosing the act that creates the greatest net balance of happiness over unhappiness” (123). In simpler terms, an action is right if they benefit the majority. Consider the case in which you are voting on a bill that, if passed, will enhance the welfare of the majority of the citizenry. For arguments
Utilitarianism is a difficult topic to fathom, for it requires a large amount of questions and self-evaluation. In order to understand utilitarianism, think of bad versus bad. A principle stating that when one is faced with two difficult decisions, which choice would be less harmful for all of those involved? John Stuart Mill and Bernard Williams describe utilitarianism as pain versus pleasure or the lesser of two evils approach, and how that approach ties into ones ultimate choice. Utilitarianism is not about the pursuit of happiness, rather, it is really about picking which evil is the best evil.
Utilitarianism is a moral theory that approaches moral questions of right and wrong by considering the actual consequences of a variety of possible actions. These consequences are generally those that either positively or negatively affect other living beings. If there are both good and bad actual consequences of a particular action, the moral individual must weigh the good against the bad and go with the action that will produce the most good for the most amount of people. If the individual finds that there are only bad consequences, then she must go with the behavior that causes the least amount of bad consequences to the least amount of people. There are many different methods for calculating the utility of each moral decision and coming up with the best
The ethical theory of utilitarianism is associated with the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Utilitarianism essentially is the theory that good is what causes a person pleasure and evil is what causes a person pain. Bentham’s utilitarianism is sometimes titled Act Utilitarianism because it focuses on individual actions A “right” action, according to Betham, is one that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Where a “wrong” action is one that would cause more pain than pleasure. Before a person commits an action, they should look at the consequences that it can have on the individual and others. Hedonic Calculus is a method in determining how much pleasure or pain an action will elicit. Hedonic Calculus consists of seven criteria including intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity and extent. Each criteria can be given a score between -10 (worst pain) to +10 (highest pleasure). The action becomes ethical and moral if there is an overall net happiness for everyone that is affected. An acti...