Utilitarianism

Jenny Gonzales
Darlene Tala
John Michael Bernardo
Utilitarianism
• “(from the Latin utilis, useful) is a theory of
ethics based on quantitative
maximization of some good for society or
humanity. It is a form of
consequentialism. This good is often
happiness or pleasure, though some
utilitarian theories might seek to maximize
other consequences. Utilitarianism is
sometimes summarized as "The greatest
happiness for the greatest number."
History
• Can be traced back to Hedonism
• Hedones - greek
• Pain is the essence of life
• Will to live – overcome pain
• Planting food
• Pleasure
• Jeremy Bentham
• John Stuart Mill
• Utilitarianism
UTILITARIAN
PHILOSOPHERS
David Hume
• The concept of right and wrong is
not rational but arises from a
regard for one's own happiness.
The supreme moral good,
according to his view, is
benevolence, an unselfish regard
for the general welfare of society
that Hume regarded as consistent
with individual happiness
William Godwin
• One of the first
exponents of
utilitarianism
• Concerned with
individual moral
perfectibility, couched
in the language of
utility rather than
strictly utilitarian
 Richard M. Hare
• Hare holds that utilitarianism is
the product of conceptual
analysis rather than of moral
intuition.
Richard M. Hare
• Hare claims that we ought to as act
utilitarians.

• The approach to ethical decisions that will

serve us best in practice is not act
utilitarianism, but rule utilitarianism
James Mill
• Developed a
systematic statement
of utilitarian ethical
theory.

• Defended the general

principle that right
actions are those that
tend to produce the
greatest happiness of
the greatest number of
people.
 Henry Sidgwick
• His masterpiece, Methods of
Ethics, has influenced the
culmination of of the classical
utilitarian tradition - “the
greatest happiness of the
greatest number” as the
fundamental normative
demand”
Benthamite Concept
• Postulated by Jeremy
Bentham

• Based on the concept of the

greatest happiness of the
greatest number in the
community.
Benthamite Concept
• Bentham’s theory is that while an individual is part of a
politically organized society, nevertheless, there remains
a element of his individuality that is not merged into
society of which he is a constituent part.
• This is the stage that started individualist utilitarianism
Nature Basis
• Bentham advocated a formula to determine whether an
act is good or bad.

• He utilized the ancient point of teleogical jurisprudence

• “what pleasures ought not to be sought and what pains

ought to be avoided”
Two Ideas of Bentham
1. Nature has placed human beings under a regime of
pleasures and pains. These are sensations that are
quite natural to human beings because they feel them
the most.
2. Every act or conduct is done to procure the happening
of some good (pleasure) or to prevent the occurrence
of some evil (pain)
2 ways of Measuring Utility
1. Composed of several factors:
• extensity – refers to the number of person affected
• Intensity –refers to the degree of the pleasantness
at a given time or over a period of time
• Duration –refers to the period of time the pleasure
or pain lasts
• Propinquity – refers to the influence of the more
immediate rather than the remote pleasures or pains
• Fecundity – refers to the tendency to produce or lead to
either pleasures or pains
• Purity – refers to the tendency not to produce either
pleasure or pains
Ways of Measuring Utility
2. Composed of several factors which have a great deal to
do with personal or individual differences as to sensibility
to pleasures or pains.
Examples ( temperament, health, strength, religion,
physical defect, relationship)
Application in the Legal Order
• The good refers to that which causes happiness, not
necessarily happiness itself, while bad refers to that
which causes misery, not necessarily the misery itself.
Hence, acts whether public or private and their
consequences are to be measured by the calculus of
pleasures and pains, that which tends, to the greatest
happiness of the greatest number of individuals.
Application in the Legal Order
• The ultimate test of goodness or badness of an act or
conduct is the quantum of happiness or justice
(pleasure) or misery or injustice (pain) that it yields
Jherinian Concept
• Launched by Rudolf von
Jhering

• Emphasized the general

interest, all things being
considered in their broad
social context rather than upon
individual interests
Jherinian Concept
• “the law should address the realization of the partnership
of the individual and society”
• While individual persons have their interests to
consider they cannot be more important than the
society of which they are parts.
• “there should be concurrence of selfish individual
interests with the general purposes
Jhering’s Social Utilitarianism
1. Purpose is the prime mover of both individual and
social wills
• Means that purpose is decisive when choices
and decisions are to be made
 All physical determinations are described in the
traditional concept of cause and effect.
 Ex. A stone falls to the ground because of the
pull of gravity
Law of purpose
 Posits the idea that the world of human conduct is
determined by a “for” a
 Ex. A debtor resolves or decides to pay his creditor
for the purpose of liquidating his account
 “proximate cause” must be understood in the light of
the law of purpose which means a law should be
classified as good or bad in the light of its purpose
Jhering’s Social Concept
2. Selfish tendency of furthering individual purposes does
not work for the good of the greatest number but only
when all purposes are focused upon the same social
objectives that the happiness of the individual and that of
the community are realized.
VALUE

Of the

UTILITY SUPPLEMENT
1. Not confined to mere
abstract suppositions.
2. Applicable to and of good use in the science and
art of legislation.

SCIENCE OF LEGISLATION
- The knowledge of the good for the
community.
ART OF LEGISLATION

- The finding of ways and means to

realize or accomplish that good.
ULTIMATE END OF LEGISLATION
• The happiness of the greatest
number in the community.

Individual interests
END or OBJECT of the SCIENCE and ART of
LEGISLATION Collective
purposes
 3. Employed with fruitful application in the field of
human rights.

EQUALITY as main

Right of Life
aspect of LAW
Personality
Dignity

Collective PURPOSES in the conservation of HUMAN

RESOURCES
 4. Jhering’s SOCIAL UTILITARIANISM
• Sought a BALANCE between INDIVIDUAL PURPOSES
and the PURPOSES OF SOCIETY

Individual
JHERING’S CLASSIFICATION
Political
ROSCOE POUND
OF PURPOSES
Social
Theory of Social Engineering of the Conflicting or
Overlapping Interests
CRITICISMS
 1. DISTASTEFULNESS
• No room for special moral obligations to one’s family and close
friends.
• Problem of personal loyalties.

Greatest happiness of the greatest number of

Regards all happiness as equally good,
people
regardless of who gets it.
 Does not provide enough support for
individuals’ rights (what is a right and what is
its justification
If the justification?)
of right depends on its tendency to
promote happiness and prevent suffering, then it is
redundant since this is the sole purpose of utility.
 • The proponent of ethical rights has very unclear thinking as to what rights are
and why they exist – and it is therefore of unclear importance that utilitarianism
does not support them.
• Problem of Distributive Justice or Unjust Consequences

In utilitarianismSociety
one A
considers
Society B
only the sum total of pains and
Society C
pleasures,
 Motives not
their distribution.10
Even though 15
the sum
15
total of units of happiness
might be the same, it might be distributed "unfairly" in various
tarianism
societies.has been criticized15for only looking at the results of actions, no
edesires
total amount and the average
10
or intentions units of value
which motivate
15
them, are the same
which manyin people
Societiesalso
A +con
B bu
tributed unevenly. The total amount of value in Society C is greater than that in
ortant. An action intended to15cause harm but that inadvertently causes g
ciety A where the distribution
10
is even. Even15rule utilitarianism must approve this
lts would be judged equal to the result from an action done with good
tribution --even slavery, if this is what is involved.
ntions. 10 5 5

10 5 5

10 5 6

Total 60 net units of Total 60 net units of Total 61 net units of

pleasure pleasure pleasure
 2. IMPOSSIBILITY
• it is impossible to apply - that happiness cannot be quantified or measured,
that there is no way of calculating a trade-off between intensity and extent,
or intensity and probability, or comparing happiness to suffering.

5a. Happiness is
ofunobtainable. One cannot exist constantly in rapture.
ny 1.
of Variability Humanproponents
the early utilitarian Experience - Differences
hoped betweencould
that happiness people.
someh
Besides poverty, disease,
2. Number death and
of Variablesother evils prevent total happiness.
measured quantitatively and comparedinbetween
Any Situation
people through felicifi
3. Consequences 5b. People
- ability can do without
to discern happiness.
whattothey are, what countsone in
culus, although no one has ever managed construct a detailed
6. Why should other people's
andthat happiness
the the
limit be the standard of morality?
to causality.
ctice. It has been argued happiness of different people is
7. What about4.other values such as freedom, love?
ommensurable, and thusNo Time tocalculus
felicific Calculateis impossible, not only in
Are they not at least as important as happiness?
ctice, but even in principle.
IMPRACTICALITY
• The demands of political reality and the complexities of political
thought are obstinately what they are, and in the face of them the
simple-mindedness of utilitarianism disqualifies it totally. The
important issues that utilitarianism raises should be discussed in
contexts more rewarding than that of utilitarianism itself.

• Utilitarianism gives no special moral weight to things like promises

and contracts.
 INSUFFICIENCY (of scope)
• it fails to consider some sources of value, and that it will therefore
produce the wrong results when these different sources conflict.
There is potential for confusion here - sometimes "utilitarianism" is
used specifically for "hedonistic utilitarianism"; and, sometimes, it
means a particular class of ethical theory (something like "value-
maximizing consequentialism").

So, theories which have other intrinsic values than

happiness and exemption from suffering can be
accommodated within a utilitarian scheme.