Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Utilitarianism
- An action is good if the consequences are favourable
- What is right and wrong will depend on the circumastances
- Relativist
- An act is right if it produces more pleasure than pain
- Principle of utility
- Each is to count for one
- Egalitarian
- Bentham
- Quantitive
- Concerns himself
with the number
of people satisfied
- Hedonic Calculus
- Way of
measuring pain
and pleasure
- Animals count too as they can feel pain and pleasure
- Seven elements
- Intensity
- Is it intense or only mildly pleasurable?
- Duration
- How long will the happiness last?
- Certainty
- Is it possible it might not happen?
- Remoteness/Propinquity
- How close is it to me?
- Fecundity
- Might it breed more happiness?
- Purity
- Is it tainted with other considerations?
- Extent
- Will it affect others close to me?
- Associated with act utilitarianism
- Principle of utility
is applied to each
individual case
- Mill
- Extension of the ideas of Bentham
- Concerned about tyranny of the majority
- Bentham regarded pushpin 'as good as poetry'
- Majority overpowers the minority
- Could justify throwing christians to the lions
- Better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied
- Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied
- Argued for individual happiness
- Animals are not significant to Mill as humans clearly enjoy higher pleasures
- Criticised as it is difficult to know what is a higher or base pleasure
- Someone who has experience and knowledge
of both should define the higher and lower
pleasures
- As they can define the pain/pleasure the action causes
- Competent Judge
- Mill argues for sovereignty (autonomy) and dignity
- The Harm Principle
- Individuals can make their own choices
if it is not harming anyone else but
themselves
- E.g. individual should be allowed
to smoke in private, it is up to him
- Actions of individuals should only be limited to
prevent the harm of other individuals
- Mill would agree with voluntary euthanasia
- Qualitative
- Concerns himself with the quality of
the happiness rather than the
quantity
- Roger Crisp
- Haydn and the immortal oyster
- If
measuring
quantity
of
happiness
- The immortal oyster
would score higher as he
lives for longer
- If
measuring
quality
of
happiness
- Haydn would score higher as he has a higher
quality of happiness even though he only
lives for 70 years
- Example of speed restriction on Lake Windermere
- Water sport is a base pleasure
- Enjoyment of nature and tranquility is a higher pleasure
- Therefore they are more significant
when making the decision
- More deontological
- Rules help us do what is right
- Rights should be protected by the law
- Referred to as a rule utilitarian
- However, in order to save a life
Mill does argue it may be
necessary to kidnap a doctor
- Therefore making him a soft rule utilitarian
- Preference Utilitarianism
- Doesn't
concern
itself with
calculating
happiness
- Concerns
itself with
best interests
of people
and animals
- Animals must count equally
- They feel pleasure and pain
- Animals are more sentient than an embryo
- Considering
humans to be
more
significant is
speciesist
- Trade offs
- Compromise our own self
interests to relieve the
suffering of the majority
- Peter Singer's example of the
Battery farmed chickens
- Consumers should be willing to be a
little more to relieve the suffering of
the chickens
- Example of the dam built in wilderness
- Dam provides jobs and clean energy
- But habitats will be destroyed
- If there was a trade off the
dam would not be built
- Important to preserve wildness for the future generations
- Peter Singer
- Make decisions about the welfare of
other beings, then we will have a
good life
- Toddler in the pond
- If child was drowning in a pond
- We would sacrifice our expensive shoes to jump
in and save them
- Surely instead we could not buy the expensive shoes
- And instead donate that cost to charity
- Argues for infanticide
- Sanctity of life is outdated
and causes more suffering
- We would put an animal out of
their suffering so why not a human
life?
- Considers abortion as swapping one life for another
- His vegetarianism