This document contains part of my A Level Revision Booklet I complied, detailing everything you need to know for the exam. This particular document contains notes on Utilitarianism, objections, Kant's Deontology, objections, and Aristotle's Virtue Ethics, and it's objections. This document, along w...
A2 Ethics
Utilitarianism
Utilitarian ethical theories are consequentialist. They say that it is the consequences
of an action that make it either right or wrong.
Act utilitarianism: we should act so as to maximise pleasure and minimise pain in
each specific instance
Rule utilitarianism: we should follow general rules that maximise pleasure and
minimise pain (even if following these rules doesn't maximise pleasure in every
specific instance)
Preference utilitarianism: we should act to maximise people's preferences (even
if these preferences do not maximise pleasure and minimise pain)
Act Utilitarianism
Act Utilitarianism is the simplest form of utilitarianism, it applies the utility principle to
a case-by-case basis. It can be summarised by three claims:
•Act Consequentialism: Whether an action is right or wrong depends solely on its
consequences
•Value Theory: The only thing that is good is happiness
•Equality: No individual's happiness is more important than anyone else's
The Hedonic/Felicific calculus
Jeremy Bentham is widely considered the first act utilitarian philosopher.
He created the felicific calculus to provide a way to calculate whether an action is
right or wrong. It uses the following seven variables:
•Intensity: how strong the pleasure is
•Duration: how long the pleasure lasts
•Certainty: how likely the pleasure is to occur
•Propinquity: how soon the pleasure will occur
•Fecundity: how likely the pleasure will lead to more pleasure
•Purity: how likely the pleasure will lead to pain
•Extent: the number of people affected
Act utilitarian's would agree that the morally good action is the one that maximises
the total happiness.
Objections
Note: many of the problems with act utilitarianism below inspired the alternative versions of
utilitarianism (e.g., rule and preference). If you are writing an essay (i.e., 25 marks) on utilitarianism,
you can use these to argue against act utilitarianism but for an alternative type of utilitarianism.
Difficult to calculate
Impractically complicated to use every single time one has to make a decision.
, How do you quantify and compare each of the seven variables? How do you
decide between a longer-lasting dull pleasure and a short-lived but more intense
pleasure?
Impossible to know how intense a pleasure will be in the first place! Are we
supposed to hook everyone up to brain scanners every time we are faced with
an ethical choice?
Tyranny of the majority
Some things just seem wrong regardless of the consequences.
For example, imagine a scenario where a murder has taken place and the public are angry and worried
about the murderer. It would make the crowd happy to see the perpetrator apprehended and punished
for his crimes. However, what if the police can't catch the murderer? They could just lie and frame an
innocent man instead. If the crowd believe the murderer has been caught (even if he hasn’t really) then
they would be just as happy whether it was the actual perpetrator or not. And let's say the crowd is
10,000 people. Their collective happiness is likely to outweigh the innocent man's pain at being falsely
imprisoned. After all, there are 10,000 of them and only one of him (hence, tyranny of the majority).
Moral status of particular relationships
Certain people - namely, friends and family - are more important to us than
others are.
Nevertheless, act utilitarianism is concerned only with the greatest good for the
greatest number. There are no grounds, then, to justify acting to maximise their
happiness over some random person on the street.
That £10 you spend buying your mum a birthday present made her happy, sure, but it would
have made Joe Bloggs, who is homeless, happier. The time you spent with your friends made
them happy but volunteering at the local soup kitchen would have increased the greatest
good for the greatest number more effectively.
This objection can be used to show that act utilitarianism is too idealistic and
does not work in practice. Or you could argue that certain relationships have a
unique moral status and that act utilitarianism forces us to ignore these moral
obligations.
Higher and Lower Pleasures
Mill Objects to Bentham and argues that there are Higher and lower pleasures: "It is
better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates
dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."
Mill thought there was an objective test: if almost everyone who knows what they
are talking about compares two pleasures and agrees that the first is ‘more desirable
and valuable’ than the second, then the first is a higher pleasure.
Mills Proof: Mill’s argument that happiness is the only good.
Stage one: Happiness is good
What is good is what we should aim at in our actions and our lives. So what is good is
the ‘end’, the purpose to our actions.
What we should aim at is what is desirable. Mill wants to show that we desire
happiness SO happiness is the good, but also that happiness is the only good.
P1. The only proof that an object is visible is that people actually see it. Something is
desirable if people actually desire it.
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