Utilitarianism is a family of ethical theories that prescribe actions which maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals. It was founded by Jeremy Bentham and further developed by John Stuart Mill. Bentham viewed utility as anything producing benefit, pleasure, or preventing pain, while Mill considered both quantity and quality of pleasure. Utilitarianism's core principles are: 1) pleasure/happiness is intrinsically valuable, 2) actions are right if they promote happiness and wrong if they cause unhappiness, and 3) everyone's happiness counts equally. Critics argue it is impractical to consider only consequences and not actions themselves, or to treat all individuals' happiness as equally important.

1. GEC 8: ETHICS
UTILITARIANISM

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjIX6KDlnPA

4. WHAT IS UTILITARIANISM?
• Utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories
that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-
being for all affected individuals. Although different
varieties of utilitarianism admit different
characterizations, the basic idea behind all of them is to
in some sense maximize utility, which is often defined in
terms of well-being or related concepts.

5. UTILITARIANISM
• For instance, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of
utilitarianism, described utility as "that property in any
object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage,
pleasure, good, or happiness...[or] to prevent the
happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the
party whose interest is considered.

6. John Stuart Mill Jeremy Bentham

7. UTILITARIANISM
• "Utilitarianism was founded by Jeremy Bentham and
further developed by his disciple, John Stuart Mill.
Bentham was most interested in the ramifications that a
utilitarian ethics would have for the law, and he developed
a precise system for correlating a crime's detrimental
effect on utility to the severity of its punishment.

8. What is utility?
• Utility refers to a way of understanding the results of peoples’
action.
• Specifically, they are interested on whether these actions
contribute or not to the total amount of resulting happiness in the
world.
• Utilitarian value pleasure and happiness, this means that the
usefulness of actions is based on its promotion of happiness.

9. Principle of utility
• 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.

10. What are the main differences between Bentham and Mill's
utilitarianism and which theory is better?
•Both thought that the moral value of an
act was determined by the pleasure it
produced. Bentham considered only quantity
of pleasure, but Mill considered both
quantity and quality of pleasure.

11. Basic principles of Utilitarianism
By Emrys Westacott
• There are three principles that serve as the basic axioms of utilitarianism.
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.

12. Basic principles of Utilitarianism
By Emrys Westacott
1. Pleasure or Happiness Is the Only Thing That Truly Has Intrinsic Value. ...
• Utilitarianism gets its name from the term "utility," which in this context does not
mean "useful" but, rather, means pleasure or happiness. To say that something
has intrinsic value means that it is simply good. A world in which this thing exists,
or is possessed, or is experienced, is better than a world without it (all other things
being equal).
• For example, a screwdriver has instrumental value to the carpenter; it is not valued
for its own sake but for what can be done with it.

13. Basic principles of Utilitarianism
By Emrys Westacott
2. Actions Are Right Insofar as They Promote Happiness, Wrong Insofar
as They Produce Unhappiness. ...
• This principle is controversial. It makes utilitarianism a form of
consequentialism (doctrine of an action to be nudged solely by its result) since it
says that the morality of an action is decided by its consequences. The more
happiness is produced among those affected by the action, the better the
action is. So, all things being equal, giving presents to a whole gang of
children is better than giving a present to just one. Similarly, saving two lives
is better than saving one life.

14. Basic principles of Utilitarianism
By Emrys Westacott
3. Everyone's Happiness Counts Equally.
• This may strike you as a rather obvious moral principle. But when it was put
forward by Bentham (in the form, "everyone to count for one; no-one for
more than one") it was quite radical. Two hundred years ago, it was a
commonly held view that some lives, and the happiness they contained, were
simply more important and valuable than others.
• For example, the lives of enslavers were more important than enslaved
people; the well-being of a king was more important than that of a peasant.

15. Professor James Rachels critiqued the philosophy of utilitarianism,
mainly by attacking the following points:
• 1. Actions are judged to be right or wrong only on the basis of their
consequences.
Utilitarianism was making happiness the goal that we seek out in our endeavors.
• Example:
An example proving this is if a friend bad-mouths somebody behind their back,
Utilitarianism will claim that it is a moral action, because the person is not aware; Ergo,
it did not cause them any harm. Happiness should be a response to what one has
achieved or obtained.

16. Professor James Rachels critiqued the philosophy of utilitarianism,
mainly by attacking the following points:
• 2. The only consequence that matters are whether happiness or
unhappiness results
• The dogma (principle or belief) of only considering the consequence
(result/effect) of an action important, rather than the action itself.
• For example, if a police officer is accused of abusing somebody based on
their race, clearly the best solution according to utilitarianism would be to
find the officer guilty, and punish them severely, as this will cause the greatest
number of people to achieve happiness.

17. Professor James Rachels critiqued the philosophy of
utilitarianism, mainly by attacking the following points:
• 3. No one's happiness is more or less important than another's- each
are equally important
• Rachels also attacks the Utilitarianist argument that everybody is
equal, and your own happiness is no more important than
anybody else's. He claims that this is completely impractical, as
one can usually increase the happiness of somebody else
whenever they buy something.

18. • For example, if one has Php 2 000 that he can either
spend on new shoes, or he can donate it to help the poor,
obviously donating it will help more people, but is it
reasonable to sacrifice the happiness of yourself and your
loved ones in order to help complete strangers? Rachels
would claim that it is not.

19. PRICIPLE OF THE GREATEST NUMBER
• Equating happiness with pleasure does not aim to desire
the utilitarian moral agent alone and independently from
others.
• This is not only about our individual pleasures, regardless
of how high, intellectual, or in other ways noble it is, but it
is also about the pleasure of the greatest number affected
by the consequences of our actions.

20. • Bentham and Mill see moral good as pleasure, not merely
self-gratification, but also the greatest happiness principle
or the happiness for the greatest number of people.
• We are compelled to do whatever increases pleasure and
decreases pain to the most number of persons, counting as
one and none as more than one.