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Utilitarianism (Preference Utilitarianism (Simplify Smart's theory…
Utilitarianism
Preference Utilitarianism
Non - hedonistic and focuses on the satisfaction of people's preferences
Having this preference satisfied is valuable
Explain Mill's distinction in terms of what people prefer
More unified account of what is valuable
Simplify Smart's theory
Approval is not relevant
Bentham's Quantitative Hedonism
The principle of utility
Greatest happiness in interest
Total happiness
Utility
Produce benefit
Absence of pain
Measuring pleasure and pain
Hedonic calculus
Last longer
Produce more pleasures
How many people are affected
Intuitive appeal
Only motivation is pleasure or pain
If happiness is good then surely it is reasonable to think that more happiness is better
Too simple?
Is happiness all that matters?
Can we add up happiness?
Is pleasure the only good? Smart
How would Bentham respond to Mill?
Higher pleasures are more fecund
Smart claims that Mill seems right that not all pleasures are equal
Understanding preferences
Scenario where someone is wired to electrodes in his brain so by just pressing a button he can give himself intense sensual pleasures
We want to do more with our lives
What matters is our attitude
'Happy' expresses approval not content
Mill rejects this saying we should put aside morality
Concludes Mill isn't pure hedonism as it is evaluative
Sadism?
Defends this hedonism
No pleasure is intrinsically bad
Three claims
What is right?
Based on consequences
Act consequentialism
What is good?
Happiness
Hedonism
Who counts?
Commitment to equality
Mill on Utilitarianism
Empirical induction does not work in ethics
We cannot easily infer the principles of morality from particular cases
Principle of utility has played a significant role in forming moral beliefs
Qualitative hedonistic utilitarianism
Happiness is attainable (rids objection 3)
Main obstacles are poor education and poor social arrangements
Mill sympathises with objection 2
Rejects that pleasures and pains are equally valuable
Higher and lower pleasures
Higher
People prefer valuable pleasure
Condition of experiencing both
Chosen over a greater quantity of the other type of pleasure
People do not reliably pursue the higher pleasures of thought
Mill accepts this but argues this is no objection
There is a difference between action and preference
Higher pleasures can be more demanding
Thought, feeling and imagination
Intelligence and artistic creativity
Compares humans with a pig
Pigs cannot experience deep personal relationships
We would rather the possibility of pain than being a well - looked after pig
Comes from our dignity
Rejects felicific calculus
Adds quality to quantity
Mill's Proof of Utilitarianism
Stage One: Happiness is Good
What is good is an end - the purpose - of our actions
What we should aim at is what is desirable
Show happiness is
Only happiness is desirable
Desirable
Happiness is good
Something is desirable is that people desire it
Each person desired his own happiness
Person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons
Stage Two: Only Happiness is Good
It is not obvious that everything we desire is meant for happiness
Mill responds to clarify further what happiness is
Truth
Freedom
Each ingredient is desirable in itself
External means to the end
Truth is desired and therefor happiness consists of knowing the truth
To desire something is just to find it pleasant
As pleasure is happiness, we only desire happiness and happiness is good
Nozick's Experience Machine
Imaging being faced with the chance of plugging in to a virtual reality machine
We must agree to plug in for life or not at all
Most of us would not agree to plug in
We value contact with reality
Most of us do not want a psychological state as this is a relation
Maximises happiness
Comparative
Easy and avoids controversial moral intuitions
Based on consequences