Utility = net pleasure or happiness

•    Utilitarians generally use the terms happiness and utility interchangeably

•    The right act is that which maximizes utility or happiness

•    You can count yourself, but only as much as anyone else

Two parts to Utilitarianism

•    Theory of Value =  Hedonism

–   Only pleasure is intrinsically valuable

•    Theory of Action = Consequentialism

–  Only the results of an act are relevant to its moral evaluation

–  The motive of the agent or any qualities of the act itself are irrelevant

Nozick’s Experience Machine

• Is hedonism right?

• Is pleasure really the only intrinsic value?

Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832)

•     Founder of Utilitarianism

•     Created the Hedonic Calculus

•     Jeremy Bentham presides over every meeting of the College of London.

•     No college business can be conducted without his presence.

•     A closeup of the wax head that sits atop Bentham’s stuffed corpse.

•     The actual head resides in a bag underneath his chair.

•    Bentham: Founder of Utilitarianism

–  Social Reformer - reacting against stratification of society

–  Created the Hedonic Calculus: a practical way of maximizing utility or happiness

•    When calculating how much pleasure an action will produce, one should consider

–  Intensity

–  Duration

–  Fecundity (capacity for “growing” more pleasures)

 John Stuart Mill

•     Developed Utilitarianism into a popular system

•     His name, not Bentham’s is synonymous with Utilitarianism today

 Objection: Utilitarianism is a crass, hedonistic philosophy

•    Mill’s reply: Some pleasure are qualitatively better than other (quality vs. quantity)

•    Different than Bentham’s calculus

•    Mill’s defense: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”

•    Not all pleasures are created equally.

•    We know some pleasure are better than others because people familiar with both prefer higher pleasures.

•    Higher pleasures

–  Intellectual

–  Cultural

•    Lower pleasures

–  Physical/bodily

–  Common, “blue-collar” pleasures of the uneducated masses

Objections to Mill’s distinction between higher and lower pleasures

•     Elitist, classist, ethnocentric (Mill: Educating the lower classes will allow them to enjoy higher pleasures also)

•     What you enjoy depends purely on conditioning (Mill: higher pleasures are those preferred by those who have experienced a wide range of pleasures)