by Kevin J. Browne

Created on: May 27, 2008

There are two dominant approaches in ethical theory. One approach maintains that we judge actions by their consequences and the other maintains that we judge actions by appeal to rules. The second theory, called deontology, will be addressed in the next lecture. The first theory, utilitarianism, we will consider now.

The idea of applying utility to ethics has its roots in 18th century philosophy. David Hume mentions it in his Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals and Adam Smith devotes a portion of his Theory of Moral Sentiments to the concept. However, as a fully formed ethical theory, utilitarianism was the product of two philosophers in the 19th century. The first of these was British philosopher Jeremy Bentham.

Bentham began with what he considered to be a self evident psychological principle. Human beings act in accordance with two motives: the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. This being the case, the principle of utility can be formulated as "the doctrine that we ought to act so as to promote the greatest balance of pleasure over pain." However, there are two problems with this initial formulation. First, it seems overly concerned with pleasure as opposed to right action or behavior. The second problem is that this principle of utility doesn't address whose pleasure we should be concerned with.

From Bentham's perspective the first problem was not a problem at all. Good, strictly speaking, is equated with pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure simply is the pursuit of good. And as we'll see momentarily, for Bentham what counts is the quantity of pleasure. However, the second problem needs addressing. Bentham was concerned not only with self satisfaction but also with social reform. This being the case, Bentham reformulated the principle of utility to say "that we ought to act so as to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Note also, the change in terminology from pleasure to happiness. This is to remind us that the utilitarians are not only concerned with physical pleasure and pain, but all types of pleasure.

Bentham's version of utilitarianism emphasized the quantity of pleasure and he actually developed a way of calculating the quantity in order to determine the correctness of any given action. This "hedonic calculus" consisted of seven points which included the intensity of the pleasure, its duration, certainty, and extent. So from a purely quantitative perspective various pleasures were identical as long as their numerical

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