Notes in GE 5 – Ethics

Part III
FRAMEWORKS AND PRINCIPLES
BEHIND OUR MORAL DISPOSITIONS

Lesson 4
UTILITARIANISM

UTILITARIANISM EXPLAINED
Perhaps the most prominent moral philosophy in the last two centuries,
utilitarianism is known as a consequentialist theory, a subclass of teleological moral
theory. A teleological ethical system judges the rightness of an act in terms of an
external goal or purpose. Its basis in the determination of what one ought (or ought not)
to do rests exclusively on the consequences of the act.
Consequentialist ethics proposes that actions, rules, or policies should be
ethically measured and evaluated by their consequences, not by the intentions or
motives of the agent. Consequentialists suppose that there is no kind of act which may
not be justified by its effects.
Utilitarianism is the most influential consequentialist theory. Derived from the
Latin term utilis which means ‘useful’, utilitarianism basically states that what is useful
is good, and that the moral value of actions is determined by the utility of its
consequences. Utilitarianism explains that those actions that bring about favorable
effects are moral while those that produce damaging results are immoral. It is thus
essentially opposed to ethical theories that consider God’s will or some inner sense or
faculty, like the conscience, to be the final arbiter of morality.
Utilitarian ethics is basically hedonistic as it identifies happiness with pleasure. In
general it puts forward that an action is right is it amplifies pleasures and minimizes
pain.

Act-Utilitarianism
In Act Utilitarianism, the principle of utility is applied directly to every
alternative act in a situation of choice. The right act is then defined as the one which
brings about the best results, or the least amount of bad results.
One of the criticisms against this outlook is the difficulty of getting a full
knowledge and certainty of the consequences of people’s actions. Moreover, it is argued
that it is possible to justify immoral acts using Act Utilitarianism.

Rule-Utilitarianism
In Rule Utilitarianism, the principle of utility is used to decide the validity of
rules of conduct (moral standards or principles). Moral and immoral are then defined as
following or breaking those rules.
One of the criticisms against this view is that it is possible to produce unjust rules
according to the principle of utility.

ORIGINS AND NATURE OF THE THEORY

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are British philosophers who had immense
impact on British thought. Bentham was the head of a group of reformers called “the
philosophical radicals,” whose members included James Mill and his son, John Stuart
Mill. Bentham and the younger Mill are considered the main proponents of
utilitarianism.
Jeremy Bentham founded the doctrine of utilitarianism but John Stuart Mill later
systematized and modified some of Bentham’s utilitarian principles.

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Bentham’s Utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham proposed the primary form of utilitarianism in his Introduction
to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. He confessed nonetheless that he took over the
principle of utility from David Hume.
Bentham explains that ‘utility’ means that property in any object, whereby it
tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness or to prevent the
happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness. The principle of utility thus states
that an action is right insofar as it tends to produce the greatest happiness for the
greatest number.
For Bentham, it is the principle of utility which serves as the objective barometer
in ethically evaluating human action, state laws, and legal systems.
For Bentham, people are essentially seekers of pleasure and avoiders of pain. He
wrote that pleasure and pain are “two sovereign masters” under which nature has
placed mankind.
For Bentham, nothing else but pleasure is intrinsically good. Though he
recognizes four sanctions or sources of pleasure – the physical, the moral, the religious,
and the political – the physical source, for him, is the basis of all others. Giving
emphasis on only one kind of pleasure, Bentham gives not importance to the quality of
pleasures.
Dubbed as quantitative hedonist or quantitative utilitarian, Bentham even went so
far as to create a detailed method, the ‘hedonic calculus,’ to calculate the quantitative
worth of pleasures. The method has seven criteria that allow one to quantify the
amount of pleasure or pain an action brings about – intensity, duration, certainty,
propinquity (or remoteness), fecundity (or fruitfulness), purity and extent to which
pleasure and pain are shared among the greatest number of people.
In general, utilitarianism determines the moral value of an act by calculating the
sum of pleasure it caused, and the amount of pain generated. The one moral act to carry
out in any case is that which can be sensibly seen to afford the greatest net benefit.
As regards justice and punishment, Bentham disapproves retributive justice.
Rendering of evil for evil, for mere retribution’s sake, would just augment the quantity
of evil in the society. Punishment can only be justified if it deters people from
perpetrating future harms.

Mill’s Utilitarianism
John Stuart Mill is the most famous proponent of utilitarianism after Bentham.
He made the doctrine the subject of his philosophical treatise published in 1863.
Like Bentham, he advocates ‘the greatest happiness principle’ which states that it
is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.
Mill differs fundamentally from Bentham on two central aspects.
Mill rejects the purely quantitative treatment of the principle of utility. Mill
distinguished between higher and lower pleasures. Physical pleasures belong to the
lower pleasures or those which animals, too, can experience. Mill famously declared, “It
is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates
dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”
By higher pleasures, Mill basically means intellectual, which includes artistic,
political, and even spiritual pleasures. These more desirable and more valuable
pleasures are exclusive to humans.
Considered a qualitative hedonist, Mill just wants qualitative distinctions among
pleasures. A happiness that is made up principally of higher pleasures is a higher,
deeper, truer, and more valuable form of happiness. Mill thus denies the limited
identification of the term ‘happiness’ with ‘physical pleasure and the absence of pain’
and the concept ‘unhappiness’ with ‘pain and the absence of bodily pleasure.’
Mill introduces the so-called ‘secondary principles’ which set the tone for a
contemporary variant form of rule utilitarianism. He believes that past experiences
teach us which kinds of action promote happiness and which do not. These secondary
principles serve as practical rules, giving knowledge about the tendencies of actions

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Notes in GE 5 – Ethics
when no better information is available. It is the consequences manifested in past
experiences which validate these rules.

AN ANALYSIS OF UTILITARIANISM
Utilitarianism appears to be a direct negative reaction against Kantian ethics.
While Kant proposes that an act is justified by the person’s motive to perform his duty,
Bentham and Mill counteract this by submitting that actions are evaluated through their
consequences.
As a moral theory, utilitarianism appears to be attractive. It has transcultural
appeal as all sentient beings understand pain and pleasure. It proves an action to be
right or wrong by pointing to observable evidence. It promotes actions that empirically
improve life on earth.
Utilitarianism also allows for exceptions to the rule if justified by the
consequences. It would say that an act is warranted if that course of action will generate
the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
The theory nonetheless receives some negative criticisms. For one thing, it is not
easy to foresee with certainty the consequence of actions. It is also impractical and
improbable to find out in advance, before we must act, all the people who might be
affected by our options, whether they will be pleased or hurt, and to what extent they
will be affected.
Moreover, utilitarianism’s principle that the total number of outcomes should be
considered before an act can be declared to be right or wrong is also problematic. An act
may have had advantageous immediate effects, yet its long-range effects may be
extremely detrimental. If we cannot determine the rightness or wrongness of an action
until we identify all of its outcomes and we shall have to wait considerably long for
there may be a countless number of consequences, the theory is nonetheless impractical.
These comments are somehow addressed by Mill’s introduction of ‘secondary
principles’. We may argue that these secondary principles are not purely utilitarian and
can even be viewed as supporting Kant’s categorical imperative. Moreover, there is a
possibility that we may act in accordance with the ‘secondary principles’ and yet our
action may not produce the outcomes we expect it would have. If we acted rightly in
this case, utilitarianism’s core dictum that a right action is one that yields favorable
outcomes is rejected. If we acted wrongly in this case, the doctrine on secondary
principles should be ignored.
By giving moral importance exclusively to the consequence of actions,
utilitarianism may also bring about complications. We may ask the adherents of the
theory, “Does the end always justify the means?”
Finally, utilitarianism definitely indicates that an act is right even if it is done
from an evil motive as long as it brings about advantageous effects. Obviously, a society
in which all people act from evil motives is a creepy place to live in regardless of the
consequences of their actions.

BUSINESS’ FASCINATION WITH UTILITARIANISM

Utilitarianism is perhaps the most broadly understood and normally applied
ethical theory to business. In an organizational context, utilitarianism basically teaches
that a decision regarding business conduct is proper if and only if that decision
generates the greatest good for the greatest number of persons.
In the theory, ‘good’ is typically defined as the net benefits that accrue to those
parties affected by the choice. In business, this implies that all the stakeholders affected
by the decision must be given their just consideration.
Act utilitarianism, one major school of thought in the theory, centers on the
action that has been taken, evaluating it along the lines of whether the chosen action
produces more good than bad consequences.
Business executives normally embrace the utilitarian approaches to ethical
problems because they are so compatible with traditional business thinking. Just as
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utilitarianism seeks to maximize happiness, or the good, business executives usually
hope to maximize profit, return on investment and share price.
Another influential appeal of the utilitarian approach, as long as business is
concerned, is its cost-benefit character. Practically, business managers often weigh the
pros and cons of alternative economic and managerial actions.
Of course, business managers also understand that their business decisions must
often be placed in the context of a ‘win-lose’ situation. The repercussions of a business
action are rarely singular; rather, they are multiple and may cut both ways.
Another reason business managers are so fascinated with utilitarianism lies in its
flexibility in response to differing situations. The factors taken in a utilitarian structure
can be “conveniently varied from the short term to the long term or from financial to
non-financial criteria. While conflicting stakeholder claims can be recognized, managers
typically weigh business owner or shareholder goals associated with corporate
profitability as more important than the goals of other groups such as employees or the
community.”

Main Reference:
ETHICS: Principles of Ethical Behavior in Modern Society
by Jens Micah De Guzman et al.
Utilitarianism, pages 126 – 137

Prepared by:
MICHAEL ANGELO F. EMPIZO
Saint Louis College, City of San Fernando, La Union
Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension
May 24, 2020

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