Notes for Part I Report in Ethics

Content
1 ETYMOLOGY, MEANING, AND PRINCIPLES
2 MAIN METHODOLOGIES
3 CRITICISM
4 CONCLUSION AND REFLECTION

Part I.
Etymology, Meaning, and Principles
Utilitarianism (Etymology)
-originally was called “Benthamism” when it was founded by Jeremy Bentham.
-modified by John Stuart Mill.

Utilitarianism (Meaning and Overall View) *Divide into two slides

-the doctrine that an action is right insofar as it promotes happiness, and that the
greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the guiding principle of conduct.
-one of the most influential and used theories.
-is a family of consequentialist ethical theories.

Separate Slide
In the language of utilitarians, we should choose the option that “maximizes utility,”

Utilitarianism (Principles)
1. Pleasure or Happiness Is the Only Thing That Truly Has Intrinsic Value.
2. Actions Are Right Insofar as They Promote Happiness, Wrong Insofar as They Produce
Unhappiness.
3. Everyone's Happiness Counts Equally.

Well-Known Utilitarians

Jeremy Bentham
-Founder of modern utilitarianism
-An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1780, 1789)
-In Chapter IV, Bentham introduces a method of calculating the value of pleasures and pains.

Separate Slide:
VALUE OF PLEASURE AND PAINS CAN BE CALCULATED BY:
-INTENSITY
- DURATION
-CERTAINTY/UNCERTAINTY
- PROPINQUITY/REMOTENESS
- FECUNDITY
- NUMBER OF PEOPLE AFFECTED BY THE ACTION

Separate Slide:
Bentham’s statement:
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.
It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do… By the principle of utility is meant that
principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever according to the tendency it
appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question:
or, what is the same thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every
action whatsoever, and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every
measure of government.

JOHN STUART MILL

- Secondary proponent of the theory
- Utilitarianism(1861, 1863)
- Utility is the consequence of a good action
- Utility, within the context of utilitarianism, refers to people performing actions for social utility.

Separate Slide
MILL’S STATEMENT:
It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact, that some kinds of
pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in
estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures
should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.

Separate Slide
MILL'S 'PROOF' OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The
only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it... In like manner, I apprehend, the sole
evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it…
No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far
as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness… we have not only all the proof
which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that
each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good
to the aggregate of all persons. (Chapter IV, Utilitarianism)

Separate Slide:
Both Utilitarians adopted a “Hedonistic” point-of-view