Outline The Key Features Of Utilitarianism
Outline the key features of utilitarianism
The theory of utilitarianism was developed by and associated by Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism is a teleological ethical theory where the moral value of an action can be judged by its consequences. Three main philosophers have come up with different types of utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham introducing Act Utilitarianism and John Stuart Mill trying to improve the flaws that he encountered with Bentham’s theory with his Rule Utilitarianism and lastly, Peter Singer with his preference utilitarianism.
Act Utilitarianism is the original and official form of utilitarianism which states that we must on any occasion act in the way which will produce overall consequences better than those that any other …show more content…
Rule Utilitarianism teaches that we should establish rules based on the greatest happiness principle and then follow these rules. Therefore there is no need to decide the greatest happiness in every situation because following the rules should in general produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Individual acts can therefore be judged as right or wrong by reference to the rules. Mill’s basic idea was that pleasure of the mind that spirit were more value than pleasure of the body. He believes that higher pleasures are generally more intellectual pleasures such as learning, reading and so on. Whereas, lower pleasures are more sensual pleasures such as eating, drinking, sex, etc. Therefore, reading a book, learning something new would be far superior and preferable as humans can only experience these. He said, “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied,” this means that humans are much more capable of experiencing higher pleasures than animals. Therefore, even if humans are dissatisfied their knowledge of such higher pleasure makes their lives better than
The theory of utilitarianism was developed by and associated by Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism is a teleological ethical theory where the moral value of an action can be judged by its consequences. Three main philosophers have come up with different types of utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham introducing Act Utilitarianism and John Stuart Mill trying to improve the flaws that he encountered with Bentham’s theory with his Rule Utilitarianism and lastly, Peter Singer with his preference utilitarianism.
Act Utilitarianism is the original and official form of utilitarianism which states that we must on any occasion act in the way which will produce overall consequences better than those that any other …show more content…
Rule Utilitarianism teaches that we should establish rules based on the greatest happiness principle and then follow these rules. Therefore there is no need to decide the greatest happiness in every situation because following the rules should in general produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Individual acts can therefore be judged as right or wrong by reference to the rules. Mill’s basic idea was that pleasure of the mind that spirit were more value than pleasure of the body. He believes that higher pleasures are generally more intellectual pleasures such as learning, reading and so on. Whereas, lower pleasures are more sensual pleasures such as eating, drinking, sex, etc. Therefore, reading a book, learning something new would be far superior and preferable as humans can only experience these. He said, “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied,” this means that humans are much more capable of experiencing higher pleasures than animals. Therefore, even if humans are dissatisfied their knowledge of such higher pleasure makes their lives better than