Utilitarianism

Philosophical theory which occurred at the beginning of the 19th century in Great Britain. It concerns the question: What should I do?. The utilitarian answer would be, that all your actions should be valued by the principle of the greatest happiness for the biggest amount of people. Hence this is an ethical theory which considers the consequences of an action. The oppositional theory is called deontology that values the action and its morality itself. The primary representatives of Utilitarianism are Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) as the founder and John Stuart Mill who extended and modified the theory.

Jeremy Bentham

Bentham describes Utilitarianism as the principle of the biggest happiness or pleasure for the greatest amount of people. Happiness is defined as pleasure and the exemption from pain, which should not be misunderstood as a life full of egoistic and reckless actions. On the contrary; everybody has the duty to take care of the others, of the community. Although there are some criteria established to decide what defines a good action such as content, duration, certainty, contiguousness and dimension, this is a radical individual theory that allows everyone to decide on their own what is good or pleasant for them and what not. You don’t have to decide for anyone else. So virtue can be defined as the most effective advancement of happiness, so that pleasure is increased and pain is reduced. The only question of morality is the topic of the ability to suffer, there is no objective moral thought necessary.

John Stuart Mill

Mill, being educated from his early childhood in the terms of utilitarian theory, also agrees on the principle of the greatest happiness, but there are some modifications in his works. First of all Mill disliked the fact that Bentham only considers the quantity of an action ignoring the quality. Mill thinks that there are some actions or some consequences that are more preferable and useful than others. His argument therefore is the difference between human and animalistic pleasure. The person overmatches the simple animalistic fulfilment of drives with his ability to think, because he has not only reason but also emotion as well as imagination and a moral sense. Another modification o the classic theory is that Mill postulates laws to confirm to utilitarian principles. These laws should harmonise individual and social interests as well as education and public opinion. This makes his form of the theory a little less individual and subjective compared to Bentham.

Critique

The critique which is uttered most frequently is that Utilitarianism doesn’t follow any moral standards, that there aren’t any fixed rules of behaviour, so that everything is allowed that causes happiness in any way. Furthermore in most of the cases it isn’t possible to foresee all the consequences that an action might have. Another critical point is that according to the utilitarian theory, you calculate with human destiny just like numbers in an account book.

Sources

Aßmann, Lothar, et al. Zugänge zur Philosophie. Berlin: Cornelsen, 2004.

Bentham, Jeremy, Deontologie oder die Wissenschaft der Moral. Trans. John Bonring. Leipzig: Allgemeine Niederländische Buchhandlung, 1997.

Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism/Der Utilitarismus. Trans. Dieter Birnbacher. Stuttgart, Reclam, 2008.