Utilitarianism

Overview

Recall questions on the principle of utility, psychological hedonism, the hedonic calculus and its seven criteria, act and rule utilitarianism, strong and weak rules and rule worship, punishing the innocent, higher and lower pleasures, preference utilitarianism, and whether good can be measured well enough to decide.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is the principle of utility?

   Model answer

   Utility is the standard that judges actions by how much they add to well-being and reduce suffering. An act is right in so far as it produces the largest net surplus of pleasure over pain, or of good over harm, counting everyone affected. Nobody's interests count for more than anyone else's, so the theory is impartial by design. Because it fixes rightness by the outcome rather than by the kind of act, it is a teleological and relativist approach rather than a deontological one.

2. 2

   Why is utilitarianism classified as teleological and relativist?

   Model answer

   Teleological because the rightness of an act depends entirely on the end it produces rather than on the kind of act it is. Relativist because no act is fixed as right or wrong in itself: the same deed can be right in one set of circumstances and wrong in another, depending on how the balance of benefit and harm falls out. This is the direct opposite of the deontological and absolutist approach behind duty-based ethics.

3. 3

   What is psychological hedonism, and what part does it play in utilitarian reasoning?

   Model answer

   It is the claim that human beings are in fact governed by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, so these are the two things that actually move us. Early utilitarian argument used this as a foundation: if pleasure and pain are what everyone really seeks and shuns, then a morality built on maximising the one and minimising the other is grounded in human nature rather than imposed on it.

4. 4

   What is the hedonic calculus and what is it for?

   Model answer

   It is a procedure for working out the benefit or harm an act will produce by scoring the pleasure and pain that follow from it, so that competing options can be compared. Its purpose is to make moral decisions a matter of measurement rather than intuition, and in its original form it measures the pleasure of the individual person affected before extending the reckoning outwards.

5. 5

   Name the seven criteria of the hedonic calculus.

   Model answer

   Intensity, how strong the pleasure is; duration, how long it lasts; certainty, how likely it is to occur; propinquity, how soon it will arrive; fecundity, whether it will lead on to further pleasure; purity, whether it will be free of accompanying pain; and extent, how many people share in it. Extent is the one that turns an individual reckoning into a social one.

6. 6

   Work through a decision using the hedonic calculus.

   Model answer

   Suppose a town must choose between a new hospital wing and a new sports stadium. The hospital scores high on intensity for those it treats, on duration, on certainty, on fecundity because health enables everything else, and on purity because it brings little accompanying pain. The stadium may score higher on extent and on propinquity. The method forces both goods onto one scale so the comparison can be made explicit rather than assumed.

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