Founding Fathers Of Utilitarianism

"Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove." - Jeremy BenthamJeremy Bentham created the utilitarianism school of thought, which is an incredibly useful ethical position. It can be most effectively defined by Wikipedia, "Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility." Utilitarianism has many benefits, but those benefits are harmonized with some major flaws. I will discuss the founding fathers of utilitarianism, the strengths and weaknesses of act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism, other forms of utilitarianism, and recent philosophers of this school of thought.

This idea of the greatest good for the greatest number
was developed by Jeremy Bentham. Although the ides of utilitarianism is often traced back to and credited to Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill carried on his work and became well know for his development of the Utilitarianism theory. In Utilitarianism, Mill 's famous short work, he argued that cultural, intellectual, and spiritual pleasures hold a higher value than physical pleasures. He believed that the cultural, intellectual, and spiritual values held more value in the eyes of someone who had experienced both the physical pleasures as well as the cultural, intellectual, and spiritual pleasures. In other words, the quality of pleasure was better than the quantity of pleasure. 'It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied ' As stated by rsrevision.com. Utilitarianism says that if actions promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number, then actions are right. This is the basic principle of ethics, and the foundation of morality.

Act utilitarianism states that, when faced with a choice, we must first consider the likely consequences of potential actions, and from that, choose to do what we believe will generate the most happiness. Act utilitarianism focuses more on the individual act in accordance with the situation. The text for this class states that an act-utilitarian 's ethical problem may be framed in this way: "What effect w ill my doing this act in this situation have on the general balance of good over evil?" For example, can rules like, "don 't lie" be used as more a guideline rather than a rule for a persons actions? There are several situations where lying can be absolutely acceptable, like when telling the truth will save an individual 's life. Someone who lies to a killer about where their potential victim is hiding is lying for the greater good.

The most important, and obvious, pro of act-utilitarianism is that it takes into consideration the specific situation. For Example, a mother steals food in order to feed her children because she has no other way to provide for them. Under normal circumstances stealing is wrong, but in this case it would also be wrong to let her children die of starvation. Act-utilitarianism also takes into account that every situation has unique in its own way, just because it was right for one person to make a similar decision, does not mean that it applies to every situation. This principal allows an individual to stick with the decision that will create the most happiness, rather than sticking to a rule that may mot apply in every situation.

On the flip side, there are several cons in relation to act-utilitarianism. The most obvious being, where do you draw the line? The mother who steals food in order to keep her children alive can justify her actions, but so can Sam who is stealing for another good cause. Soon enough the staling gets out of control, and collectively the thief 's are causing more harm to the vendor than they are doing good for others. Another con to act-utilitarianism is that it is an impractical approach to guiding one in decision making. It may be easy to gage the short term effects of the decision that is made, but not the long term effects. The Mother stealing food for her children may understand that if she steals food her children will survive, but what she doesn 't see is that if she steals food the vendor she is stealing from will not make enough money to buy the food his family need in order to survive. Also, when faced with a situation people are usually expected to make a split second decision, and if in that split second they have to weigh the short- term consequences, the long-term consequences, and the benefits, the person has decision overload. Where as if they have concrete rules to follow, there is not as many things to think about on the spot.

The cons of act-utilitarianism brought about rule-utilitarianism. According to this approach, certain moral rules, if followed, will always produce the greatest amount of good over evil, as stated by Michael S. Russo. A rule utilitarian would argue that instead of an individual bringing about the greatest good over evil he should follow the rules that will most likely bring about the greatest good for everyone. For example, instead of the mother stealing food in order for her two children to survive she should establish a rule for herself that no matter how bad the situation she will not steal. Even though her two children may die the vendor 's 8 children may have the food they need in order to survive, therefore following the rules actually brought about the greatest good for the greatest number. In order for this method to be effective decision makers must first establish a set of rules that benefit the greater number, before they are put into a personal situation.

One pro of rule-utilitarianism is that decision making becomes less personal, which means the greater good will most likely be brought about for the greater number.
Another pro is that the decision maker does not have to weigh the pro 's and con 's of the decision, which can interfere with the greater good of the decision. Since decision makers aren 't always able to see all sides of the situation, with act-utilitarianism they sometimes make the wrong decision. However if a decision maker uses asset of rules to guide him through the decision making process he is most likely to have an outcome of greater good, even though he may not ever see the good
outcome.

The most obvious con of rule-utilitarianism is that rules don 't have exceptions, and because every situation is different the rule may not always bring about the greater good. For instance the rule "never lie" may not apply in the situation where not telling the whole truth would hurt less people than telling the truth. Rule-utilitarianism doesn 't give the decision maker the opportunity to consider the obvious situational circumstances; it only forces the decision maker to make decisions based on a set of rules that can never account for every single situation. Rule-utilitarianism also does not account for the fact that not everyone will always follow the rules. Sure, in theory this approach works if everyone participates, but the fact is that we could never get everyone to follow the rules for the greater good, human kind is to selfish.

People have adapted utilitarianism in several ways according to their specific beliefs.
Motive-utilitarianism is one adaption that proposes that our initial moral task is to instill motives within ourselves that will be generally useful across the board of the actual situations we are likely to encounter. Basically, it is the intention of the decision rather than the outcome of the decision that should be the main focus.

Two-level-utilitarianism is another adaptation that states that one should normally use 'intuitive ' moral thinking, rule utilitarianism, because it usually maximizes happiness. However there are obviously some times when we must think critically in order to decide what to do, and behave as an act utilitarian would. This means that a decision maker would normally follow the rules, unless the rules obviously did not apply, and caused more harm than good. The main problem with this is people rarely know when or where to draw the line, because it is easy to justify a decision when in a personal
situation.

Negative utilitarianism requires the decision maker to cause the least amount of harm to prevent the greatest amount of suffering. Some argue that this theory is more effective because preventing harm is ultimately more important that creating happiness. However there are several cons to this theory that include killing in the least painful method in order to prevent any pain from happeningAs we have seen, utilitarianism is a complex school of thought. The basic idea of utilitarianism has been explored and challenged, while new forms of the original thought have arisen. Although there are pro 's and con 's that come along with each branch of utilitarianism as I was doing research I found that I am more of an act-utilitarian than a rule-utilitarian. I believe that each situation calls for a different decision, and that you can only have a set of values that you stick to rather than a set of rules.

References1-www.rsrevision.com, " Theory in detail, the greatest happiness principal"2-http://www.molloy.edu/sophia/ethics/utilitarianism.htm, " Utilitarianism in a Nutshell" by Michael S. Russo, Department of Philosophy Molloy College3-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism, Utilitarianism4-Utilitarianism, by John Stuart Mills