Photo: Drew Goddard / NBC.

Suppose you do want to be responsive to the interests of others, how exactly should you act? Here in Unit 4, we follow this train of thought in the ethical theories of Utilitarianism. We begin with Classical Utilitarianism, which provides a deceptively simple principle: promote the greatest good for the greatest number. Of course, the devil is in the details, where Utilitarianism must clearly specify what it meant by this greatest good and how you should go about promoting it. This module will help explain these, and other, details.

In order to accomplish that, we have 3 learning outcomes. By the end of this module, you will be able to…

1. Describe the various elements of Jeremy Bentham’s Classical Utilitarianism,
2. Summarize how the Hedonism of Classical Utilitarianism may justify its concern for the well-being of all sentient life, and
3. Apply Bentham’s “Felicific Calculus” for measuring the morality of your decisions.

Read & Annotate This:

An Introduction Concerning the Principles of Morals and Legislation

Context

Jeremy Bentham was a British philosopher who argued that happiness alone has intrinsic value, and that the fundamental moral obligation of a person is to produce as much happiness as they can.

The focus here, though, is not just on your own happiness. Rather, in the famous Utilitarian phrase, “everybody [is] to count for one, nobody for more than one&rdquo. (John Stuart Mill, whom we will read in Module 17, attributes this phrase to Bentham, though it does not seem to appear in any of Bentham’s publications).

In any case, this places priority on achieving the “greatest happiness of the greatest number” (Bentham, 1789/2003, p. 20), another Utilitarian motto. All this locates the virtue of beneficence towards all—including non-human animals!—at the heart of ethics. In particular, Bentham advocates a form of Utilitarianism that equates happiness with pleasure and the absence of pain.

Today, Bentham’s theory is known as Classical Utilitarianism, which makes the following claims about morality:

1. Teleology: The goodness of outcomes is the only thing with intrinsic moral value.
2. Consequentialism: The overall goodness of outcomes (that is, the goodness of the outcomes for everyone affected by those outcomes) is the only thing with intrinsic moral value.
3. Welfarism: The overall goodness of an outcome is measured solely by the well-being of everyone affected.
4. Hedonism: Well-being is nothing other than “happiness”, understood as pleasure and absence of pain.
5. The Total View, which has three claims:

   5a.	Quantitative Monism: Individual well-being is measured numerically, and specifically, by one numerical quantity. This quantity is usually called Utility.
   5b.	Sum Ranking: Overall well-being is the aggregate utility for the group. This involves two claims: i. Each person in the group has an individual utility value associated with their own personal well-being, and ii. The aggregate utility for the group is calculated by summing up these individual utilities.
   5c.	Optimization: More aggregate utility is always better than less aggregate utility.

Do not panic if this all looks frightening to you!

I will walk you through all of this during my videos. The most important thing to focus on when reading Bentham (1789/2003) is how he understands and measures “happiness”. You should also reflect on why Bentham believes this is the proper foundation for all of morality. Do that, and you will be surprised how the complex seeming elements of his Classical Utilitarianism all fit together.

Finally, just for fun, I have included (in the optional “Curious for More?” section below) a nice little discussion of Utilitarianism that the Philosopher Todd May put together for the TV show, The Good Place, which aired a few years ago. His presentation also includes a lot of ideas that we will touch upon in future modules in this course.

Reading Questions

As you read, keep these questions in mind:

1. How does Jeremy Bentham justify that happiness, understood as pleasure and absence of pain, is the proper foundation of all ethics and morality?
2. How would you formulate Bentham’s “calculus” of pleasures that a person is supposed to use when making a decision?
3. Bentham’s “circumstance” of “extent” (1789/2003, p. 42) maintains that a person’s actions should be evaluated by the pleasure of all affected, and not only the amount of pleasure that person receives by performing it. What reasons could Bentham have to reject Ethical Egoism?

Although I strongly suggest that you write out brief answers to these questions, you do not have to turn in written responses. You do, however, need to be prepared to answer questions like these on module quizzes and the unit exams.

References

Bentham, J. (2017). An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation. (J. Bennet, Ed. & Trans.). Early Modern Texts. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/bentham1780_1.pdf (Original work from 1780/1789/1823)

The Good Place. (2018, December 21). Mother Forkin’ Morals with Dr. Todd May - Part 2: Utilitarianism - The Good Place (Exclusive) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuVreCbQOwc

Watch This:

Video 1	Video 2
Video 3	Video 4
Video 5	Video 6

Do This:

Module 15 Quiz Due: October 22

Tweets for the Week Due: October 22

Curious for More? (Optional)