Introduction to Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism

Introduction to Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism

• Bentham's utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory.
• It focuses on the outcomes or consequences of actions, rather than the intentions or motives behind them.
• The core principle is to maximize overall happiness or pleasure and minimize pain for the greatest number of people.
• His philosophy emphasizes quantification of happiness and pain.

Key Concepts

• Hedonism: Bentham believed pleasure is the ultimate good and pain is the ultimate evil.
• Felicific Calculus: This is a method to calculate the overall happiness or pleasure produced by an action. It considers factors like intensity, duration, certainty/uncertainty, propinquity/remoteness, fecundity (likelihood of further pleasures), purity (absence of pain), and extent (number of people affected).
• Act Utilitarianism: This approach evaluates the morality of each individual action based on whether it maximizes happiness (e.g. stealing food to prevent starvation is morally acceptable if it leads to greater happiness).
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative Hedonism: Bentham focused on the quantitative aspect (greater intensity and duration) of pain and pleasure. He didn’t distinguish different types of pleasures (e.g. intellectual vs. bodily).
• Impartiality: All individuals' happiness counts equally. The happiness of one person is not more important than the happiness of another.
• Moral Judgement of Actions: Individuals should look at actions to determine whether they maximize happiness and minimize pain.

Criticisms of Bentham's Utilitarianism

• Difficulty of Measuring Happiness/Pleasure: The quantification of pleasure and pain is extremely complex and subjective. It is difficult to accurately measure happiness for every individual impacted, let alone for a group of individuals or communities.
• Ignoring Individual Rights: Critics argue that utilitarianism can justify actions that violate individual rights if the overall happiness is increased. For example, sacrificing one innocent person to save the lives of many could be argued as morally acceptable if it produces a greater overall good.
• Problem of predicting the consequences of actions.: Predicting the long-term consequences of any action is hard. This raises issues about whether utilitarianism provides sufficient practical guidance for making ethical decisions.
• Potential for Tyranny of the Majority: A focus solely on maximizing overall happiness could easily lead to the neglect or oppression of minority groups if those groups’ happiness is perceived as less important.

Bentham's Impact and Legacy

• Bentham's ideas significantly influenced legal and social reforms in the 19th century. His focus on creating institutions that promoted the greatest happiness had a positive impact on social reform and improved the welfare of many people.
• His work has been highly influential in criminal justice, public policy, and welfare economics.
• His ideas continue to be discussed and debated in modern ethical discussions.
• Though his exact methods (such as the felicific calculus) are less prominent in contemporary discussions, his foundational ideas about calculating the good are still relevant in issues surrounding public policy.