Utilitarianism
Jonathan asked a good (and difficult) question in class today: what is the difference between utilitarianism and the views of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. The 19th century ethical framework called utilitarianism does share some elements with epicureanism.
For instance, both hold that pleasure and pain are the measure of what is good and bad. And both put a high value on empirical investigation. For both, “the good life” is a life that has a high ratio of pleasure to pain, and so pursuit of pleasure is a basis for moral action.
However, one difference is that Epicurus thought that this evaluation of pleasure and pain would lead people to value and pursue tranquility or a state of mental peace. (This is a position that certainly shares something with the philosophy of Zen Buddhism.) Pursuing tranquility would lead people to withdraw from politics and other stressful situations or concerns.
In contrast, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill were very involved in politics. Mill was a Member of Parliament for several years and an advocate of women’s rights.
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I found learning about Utilitarianism very interesting, and out of all the philosophies we have discussed so far, I found I can relate to this one the most. Obviously not to the extent of giving up my kidneys, eye, blood, liver, fingers, etc. at a Utilitarian hospital, but I do try to live my life sort of like a Utilitarian. I always try to put myself in others’ shoes and do what is best for everyone. For the most part, I agree with Mill and his Principle of Harm. However, there are always exceptions to every rule.
Posted September 23, 2008, 10:42 pmAnother difference that I should have mentioned is that epicureanism advises you to act in order to obtain pleasure, or satisfaction, or a peaceful life–for YOURSELF.
Utilitarianism calculates how much pleasure will result from various actions for everyone affected and then subtracts the amount of pain they would cause. The ethical choice is the action that will create the best outcome, measured in pleasure (or absence of pain).
I also mentioned that there is a distinction between “act” and “rule” utilitarianism. This is a response to a common (easy!) criticism of utilitarianism, which is that no person, not even with the best computing resources available, could ACTUALLY make this calculation for every single act. A real utilitarian would never act on anything because she would spend all her time just trying to make calculations. A response to this objection is that utilitarians could simplify their calculations to “rules of thumb.” Thus, they could devise shorthand summaries of what the best (most utilitarian) action USUALLY is, and just follow that rule.
Posted September 24, 2008, 1:37 pmI was thinking yesterday how the purpose of Utilitarianism is to provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people. I was wondering if this goes back to the Trolley problem that was explained to us on the first day of class. If the driver has the choice of killing one person on one path or five people on the other path, would making the choice to kill only the one person be utilitarian of him? Could he be thinking that the death of one person will not affect as many lives as the deaths of five people? Is he considering the pain their families will have to go through? If he killed only one person, then one family would be in mourning as opposed to five families. Is this one possible way to apply the utilitarianism framework to the Trolley problem?
Posted September 25, 2008, 8:05 amEmily M, yes, that’s it.
Posted September 25, 2008, 11:19 amOne thing that the trolley problem is used to illustrate is a case where utilitarianism and deontology produce really different results.
Much of the time, most ethical frameworks will yield similar results for the kinds of ethical dilemmas that we encounter in everyday life. The differences between them are usually not in the results they yield, but in their clarity or in the ease of application. The trolley problem (which is admittedly extreme) was devised to draw out a strong difference between consequentialism and deontology.
Your thinking on this is exactly right: someone who is following the principle “Do not intentionally kill anyone” is either going to be facing a paradox (where they violate the principle if they do act and violate it if they don’t), OR the problem is phrased so that they would be forced into letting 5 people die (due to their inaction) rather than making an intentional choice to kill 1 person.
A utilitarian, though, can solve this one very quickly. Five deaths are clearly worse than 1.
One thing that comes out of this problem is that MOST people have moral intuitions that are in line with utilitarianism. But not everyone does.