Consequence-based Ethical Theory 2: John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism (handout)

Utilitarian
Anyone who judges actions by a standard of utility, i.e., by how much an action produces what is desirable.
 
Utilitarianism
The moral theory which prescribes that everyone ought to act so as to bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Maximize total average welfare.

"The creed which accepts as the foundation 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." J.S. Mill
 
 

1. An action is MORALLY GOOD if and only if it does more good than harm.

- Actions that produce the greatest overall happiness for the greatest number of people are the best.

Distinguish Two Forms:

Act Utilitarianism : "Whatever ACT promotes the greatest good is the right act."

Rule Utilitarianism : "Whatever RULE of action promotes the greatest good when followed is the right rule, and should be followed unless rules conflict, in which case the act that promotes the greatest good is the right act."


2. Mill's Argument for Utilitarianism

  1. Every action has an end, this is the purpose for which each action is done.
  2. Morality provides rules for human conduct that will best realize the ends of human action.
  3. Happiness is a good and the ultimate end of all human activity.
  4. Therefore, morality provides rules that will produce the most happiness (pleasure) or the least unhappiness (pain, suffering) for all humans.
  5. Therefore, the basic rule of morality is this: The more an action increases overall human happiness, the more right an action is, and the more it decreases overall human happiness, the more wrong it is.


3. Mill's Harm Principle: "Restrict liberty only if it prevents harm."

"...the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right...The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."

 

4. Utilitarians choose the best or most beneficial action by the following 5-step procedure

  1. Imagine all practical alternative actions available;
  2. Predict as rationally as possible whatever the likely consequences of each alternative action will be;
  3. Estimate the balance of good or bad in the consequences of each action, taking into account every human and every entity whose welfare is affected by the action;
  4. Compare the amount of good in the consequences of each alternative action with the amount of good in every one of its alternatives;
  5. Select the action (or rule) that produces the consequences containing the most good (or least bad) compared with the alternatives.

- Does this method produce the greatest overall happiness?

 

5. Mill's reply to the objection that "Utilitarianism is a doctrine worthy only of swine since it holds that pleasure is the highest good"

  1. One pleasure is more desirable or superior to another if it is preferred by the majority of people who are both acquainted with and able to appreciate it. E.g., people prefer intellectual pleasures over creature comforts.
  2. The majority of people who are competent and informed prefer mental pleasure to bodily pleasures.
  3. Therefore, mental pleasures are superior to bodily pleasures.


6. Mill's Argument defending the Greatest Happiness Principle: "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to promote the reverse of happiness"

"The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it: and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. If the end which the utilitarian doctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practice, acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince any person that it was so. No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons. Happiness has made out its title as one of the ends of conduct, and consequently one of the criteria of morality."

—ex. Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill (1863),
Chapter 4: Of what sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible.

 

The argument reconstructed:

  1. Seeing something proves that it is visible.
  2. Thus, desiring something proves that it is desirable.
  3. The only thing each person ultimately desires is his or her own happiness (pleasure).
  4. The only thing that is ultimately desirable for a person is his or her own happiness.
  5. Therefore, each person should perform those actions that promote the greatest happiness.

- Does this conclusion follow from these assumptions?



7. Generic Rule Utilitarian Principle:

"If following rule R promotes more overall good than any other rule (not-R), then one should follow rule R."