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Chapter 2 The Greatest Principle / Utilitarianism, A discount for seniors …
Chapter 2 The Greatest Principle / Utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism
Rounding Up beggars
Beggars reduce happiness of the overall community
Bentham suggests putting beggars in a workhouse
Beggars work to pay for own clothes, food, etc
Rooming assignments that minimize discomfort
Bentham's main idea is that morality is maximizing utility
Utility is whatever produces pleasure and whatever reduces pain
Utilitarianism can be the basis for politics
Make laws that will boost the happiness of the overall community
Bentham wanted to change penal policy, he invented the Panopticon
Objection 1: Individual Rights
Throwing Christians to lions
In Ancient Rome Christians got thrown to lions for entertainmnent
Utilitarianism = cares about the sum satisfaction
Is torture ever justified?
Practicing torture will do harm
Should a bomb
suspect
be tortured for the sake of thousands of people?-This scenario is misleading because it calculates cost and benefits
The city of happiness
A perfect city called Omelas is perfect because of a child who lives in misery
Bentham's first objection to Utilitarianism is the one that appeals to human rights
Utilitarianism does not respect individual rights
Objection 2: A Common Currency Value
The benefits of lung cancer
Government is financially better off when citizens smoke because they die sooner
Study completely ignored human values
Misapplies Utilitarianism because doesn't do a full cost-benefit analysis on how it affects the families
Study puts a price tag on human life
Exploding gas tanks
180 lives lost at a cost at a calculated value of $200k per person
Loss of future happiness not included in utility calculations of the value of a life
$49.5 million cost of lives lost> $137.5 million fuel tank improvement
EPA 's calculations for worth of air pollution standards lessened value of seniors' lives
Criticism: cost-benefit analysis is misguided vs Defenders: human life is worth a price --> some choices have a predictable outcome
According to Utilitarians placing a cost on human life is a taboo to overcome
Pain for Pay
Is it possible to translate our desires and aversions as humans into a common scale?
Edward Thorndike conducted a survey, asking how much people would pay to suffer various experiences
Results found individuals would have to be paid $100,000 to eat an earthworm, while living on a farm in Kansas would be $300,000: Is living in Kansas really that much worse than eating a earthworm?
Experiences differ in ways that don't admit to meaningful comparison
St. Anne girls
Can moral goods be translated into a single measure of value?
St Annes College's faculty opposed having male guests at the all-women's college because they morally opposed it
To disguise their reasoning, faculty blamed cost, leading to adopting a compromise of three overnight guests a week, for 50 pence per night
Headline in the Guardian the next day: St Annes Girls, Fifty Pence A Night. The language of virtue did not translate to utility
John Stuart Mill
Mill tried to save utilitarianism by recasting it as a more humane, less calculating doctrine.
The Case for Liberty
Principle: People should be free to do whatever they want, provided they do no harm to others.
Mill argued, the only actions for a person being accountable to society are those that affect others.
Mill's theory: We should maximize utility, not case by case, but in the long run.
On Liberty (1859) by Mill is about the defense of individual freedom.
Respecting individual rights for the sake of promoting social progress leaves rights hostage to contingency
.
Based rights on utilitarian considerations misses the sense in which violating someone's rights inflicts a wrong on the individual and the effect on the general welfare.
Individuality matters less for the pleasure it brings than for the character it reflects.
Higher Pleasures
Reduces all value to a single scale
Utilitarians can distinguish higher pleasures from lower pleasures- access quality (not just quantity) of our desires.
Some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others.
Shakespeare versus The Simpsons
3 examples of popular entertainment
WWE Fight
Least votes
Shakespeare
Second most votes of most enjoyable
Many students think Shakespeare offers a higher pleasure even after the results shows that students prefer The Simpsons
The Simpsons
Most votes of most enjoyable
A discount for seniors
