Assess the strengths and weaknesses of a utilitarian argument for the abolition of the death penalty

This is how Utilitarianism works. Instead of relying on vague ideas about feelings or conscience you classify and measure any action in terms of how many units of pain or pleasure it will produce.

For Utilitarians, motives are unimportant, only consequences count. The stress is on the act rather than the agent. Bentham and Mill would argue that people's motives couldn't be seen or measured, but the consequences of their actions can be. This is why Utilitarianism is sometimes also known as 'Consequentialism'. In certain rare situations Act Utilitarians are allowed to break traditional moral rules if by doing so they produce a balance of happiness over misery.

Mill didn't agree with everything Bentham said. He believed that Utilitarianism could be made into a moral system for ordinary individuals as well as for lawmakers. He was worried about some of Bentham's more vulgar populist attitudes and preferred to talk about 'happiness' rather than 'pleasure'.

Mill also thought that most ordinary people should normally stick to traditional moral rules, rather than 'calculate' what they should do all the time. Perhaps this makes Mill a Rule Utilitarian - someone who believes that morality should still be about obeying moral rules, even if rules are decided upon Utilitarian grounds.

There are typically three types of Utilitarians - Act, Rule and Preference. Act utilitarianism simply deals with the consequences of individual acts, and accepts no general rules, except that we should promote the greatest happiness. Rule utilitarianism allows respect for those rules that are established in society in order to allow the greatest happiness to the greatest number. Preference utilitarianism argues that you should act in a way that reflects the preference of the person concerned, unless that preference is outweighed by other preferences.

When it comes to the topic of capital punishment and abolition of the death penalty they are undecided. One of the main problems that they face is that for the majority of utilitarians is that their judgements come from consequences and what the consequences do in relation to pleasure and happiness.

This is one of the weaknesses to a utilitarian's argument. There decision would be based upon what he person in question had done, what are the pro's and con's of the death penalty and whether abolishing the death penalty will bring about a lot of pleasure and happiness to people.

In conclusion I think that the utilitarianisms case for abolishing the death penalty would not be very strong and they would need to show many different examples of the cases that they would choose. As Bentham and Mill have said it is not very easy to make decisions just based upon the happiness and pleasure that it would bring.