Explain Bentham's version of Utilitarianism.

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Explain Bentham’s version of Utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism, is the ‘ethical theory by which actions are judged according to their anticipated results. Jeremy Bentham first brought about utilitarianism. Bentham believed that what is good is that which equals the greatest amount of pleasure or happiness and the least amount of pain and suffering to the maximum amount of people. Jeremy Bentham’s theory can be divided into three parts.  His research on human nature, and the conclusion that it is something that is motivated by pleasure and pain. Secondly, the principle of utility, which was his moral rule and finally the hedonic calculus, which he created in order for others to measure how good or bad the consequences of an action, was.

        Firstly, after some extensive research, Bentham, concluded that people would naturally seek pleasure and try very hard to avoid pain:

‘Nature had placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do as well as to determine what we shall do.’ (Bentham chapter I, I)

Bentham truly believed that pleasure was the purest form of good and pain the sole evil, he saw this a moral fact. This is why Bentham is also known as a hedonist. ‘Hedone’ means pleasure in Greek and as a results Bentham’s version of utilitarianism is called hedonic utilitarianism.

Bentham’s principle of utility was a way to decide the goodness or wrongness of an action on its usefulness, ‘utility’. Therefore an action that creates the most pleasure is a useful one and therefore it is good. It is consequently ‘An action is right if it produces the greatest good for the greatest number’:

‘By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever; and therefore not, only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government.’

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Good, in Bentham’s eyes, is the maximum amount of pleasure with the minimum amount of pain and bad is the maximum amount of pain afflicted to people and the minimum amount of pleasure. This then means that his utilitarian theory is a democratic one. This is because it is good when it is the maximum amount of good for the maximum amount of people. As a result Bentham claimed that if someone is faced with a problem they should think of a solution that would bring the maximum amount of happiness to the maximum amount of people. For example, if ...

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