UTILITARIANIS

M
UTILITARIANISM
 is an ethical theory that argues for the goodness of pleasure and the determination of right
behavior based on the usefulness of the action’s consequences. This means that pleasure is
good and that the goodness of an action is determined by its usefulness.
 Putting these ideas together, utilitarianism claims that one’s actions and behavior are good
inasmuch as they directed toward the experience of the greatest pleasure over pain for the
greatest number of persons.
 Its root word “utility”, which refers to the usefulness of the consequences of one’s action and
behavior.
 JEREMY BENTHAM
Jeremy Bentham was born on Feb. 15, 1748 in London,
England. He was the teacher of James Mill, father of John Stuart
Mill. Bentham first wrote about the greatest happiness principle
of ethics and was known for a system of penal management
called panopticon (a disciplinary concept brought to life in the
form of a central observation tower placed within a circle of
prison cells.) He was an advocate of economic freedom,
women’s rights, and the separation of church and state, among
others. He was also an advocate of animal rights and the
abolition of slavery, death penalty, and corporal punishment for
children. Bentham denied individual legal rights nor agreed with
the natural law.
UTILITARIANISM
 Utilitarianism is consequentialist. This means that the moral value of actions and decisions is
based solely or greatly on the usefulness of their consequences; it is the usefulness of results
that determines whether the action or behavior is good or bad.

 The utilitarian value pleasure and happiness; this means that the usefulness of actions is based
on its promotion of happiness.
PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
 In the book An Introduction to the Principles and Morals and Legislation (1789), Jeremy
Bentham begins by arguing that our actions are governed by two “sovereign masters”—which
he calls pleasure and pain. These “masters” are given to us by nature to help us determine
what is good or bad and what ought to be done and not; they fasten our choices to their throne.
 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, as well
as to determine what we shall do. On the other hand, the standard of right and
wrong, on the other, the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne.
They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can
make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In
words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain
subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and
assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the
fabrics of felicity by the hands of reasons and of law.
PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
Mill supports Bentham’s principle of utility. He reiterates moral good as happiness and,
consequently, happiness as pleasure. Mill clarifies that what makes people happy is intended
pleasure and what makes us unhappy is the privation of pleasure. The things that produce
happiness and pleasure are good; whereas, those that produce unhappiness and pain are bad.
Mill explains:

The creed which accepts as the foundations of morals, utility or the greatest
happiness principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to
promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By
happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain
and the privation of pleasure.
PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
 Bentham and Mill characterized moral value as utility and understood it as whatever produced
happiness or pleasure and the avoidance of pain. The next step is to understand the nature of
pleasure and pain to identify a criterion for distinguishing pleasures and to calculate the
resultant pleasure or pain; it is in relation to these aforementioned themes that a distinction
occurs between Bentham and Mill.
 JOHN STUART MILL
John Stuart Mill was born on May 20, 1806 in Pentonville,
London, UK. He was the son of James Mill, a friend and disciple
of Jeremy Bentham. John Stuart Mill was home-schooled. He
studied Greek at the age of three and Latin at the age of eight. He
wrote a history of Roman Law at age eleven, and suffered a
nervous breakdown at the age of twenty His ethical theory and his
defense of utilitarian views are found in his long essay entitled
Utilitarianism (1861). He died on May 8, 1873 in Avignon, France
from erysipelas (St. Anthony’s fire).
PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
What Bentham identified as the natural moral preferability of pleasure, Mill refers to as a theory
of life. If we consider, for example, what moral agents do and how they assess their actions, then
it is hard to deny the pursuit of happiness and the avoidance of pain.

For Bentham and Mill, the pursuit for pleasure and the avoidance of pain are not only important
principles—they are in fact the only principle in assessing an action’s morality.
 PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
In determining the moral preferability of actions, Bentham provides a framework for evaluating
pleasure and pain commonly called felicific calculus. Felicific calculus is a common currency
framework that calculates the pleasure that some actions can produce. In this framework, and action
can be evaluated on the basis of intensity or strength of pleasure; duration or length of the
experience of pleasure; certainty, uncertainty, or the likelihood that pleasure will occur; and
propinquity, remoteness, or how soon there will be pleasure.

These indicators allow us to measure pleasure and pain in an action. However, when we are to
evaluate our tendency to choose these actions, we need to consider two more dimensions: fecundity
or the chance it has of being followed by sensations of the same kind, and purity or the chance it
has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind. Lastly, when considering the number
of persons who are affected by pleasure and pain, another dimension is to be considered—extent.
PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
Felicific calculus allows the evaluation of all actions and their resultant pleasure. This means
that actions are evaluated on this single scale regardless of preferences and values.

In this sense, pleasure and pain can only quantitatively differ but not qualitatively differ from
other experiences of pleasure and pain accordingly.
PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
Contrary to Bentham, Mill argues that quality is more preferable than quantity. An excessive
quantity of what is otherwise pleasurable might result in pain.

If the quality of pleasure is sometimes more important than quantity, then it is important to
consider the standards whereby differences of pleasures can be judged. The test that Mill
suggests is simple. In deciding over two comparable pleasures, it is important to experience both
and to discover which one is actually more preferred than the other.
PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
There is no other way of determining which of the two pleasures is preferable except by
appealing to the actual preferences and experiences. What Mill discovers anthropologically is
that actual choices of knowledgeable persons point that higher intellectual pleasures are
preferable than purely sensual appetites.