A Benthamite would know that a good action is one which benefits society and the individual involved in making that decision, and one that promotes pleasure over pain. Furthermore, Bentham’s concept, promotes the Greatest Happiness For the Greatest Number (GHFGN) theory. When a decision has to be made over a moral situation, the hedonic calculus is employed. In employing the hedonic calculus the individuals involved should be considered by applying the seven criteria to them in relation to the options for the choice of action you have. Here the GHFGN theory comes into proceedings and the option which gives GHFGN, and which will maximise pleasure over pain is the correct choice.
The act is then carried out and can only be determined to be right or wrong after the event takes place. This is called consequentialism. An action is a posteriori, i.e. if the consequences bring maximum pleasure and minimum pain.
2) “It was inevitable that Bentham’s ideas would be considered inadequate by religious believers and especially by later Utilitarians. His ethical theory had to be suspended.”
Critically examine this view.
There are clearly problems with utilitarianism in the Hedonic form and John Stuart Mill aimed to rectify these problems. He builds on Bentham’s work, but believes there are structural problems with the theory.
A major flaw with Bentham’s work was that pleasure was quantitive. This is faulty because it will just lead to over indulgence and people may not pay attention to the more important things in life. Mill moves away from this into a new structure where happiness is qualitative. Mill wants us to make judgments as to the quality of one thing over another. Even if one may bring less pleasure than another it is a good thing as it is a higher quality pleasure and therefore more noble and of greater value. This form is referred to as eudaimonistic utilitarianism. The fault with Hedonistic utilitarianism is that it is subjective and could lead to selfishness and isolation.
Another inadequacy with Bentham’s theory is consequentialism and that right and wrong are a posteriori in their determination. Consequentialism can cause people to lose direction as the moral goodness of an action is only judged to be right or wrong after the action has taken place. Mill suggests that rules should be put in place to act as general guidelines which will ultimately bring about GHFGN.
Bentham believes that all are entitled to happiness (egalitarian). The faults that arise from this are when people chose to ‘bend’ this rule, such as criminals or deviants. Mill suggests that criminals and deviants from society should have the entitlement of equal happiness taken away.
The Hedonic Calculus throws up another inadequacy. The problem of it is that it takes too long for people to work through before taking a moral action. It is dated and inaccessible for most people to use easily. Some see it as false science. Mill argues that this should be replaced with a set of general rules.
Act utilitarianism provides a flaw. People can make misjudgments with relation to pleasure and people are unable to predict the medium and long term consequences of their outcomes. Mill replaces act utilitarianism with rule utilitarianism, in that a utilitarian principle can lead to the framing of general rules, these may be broken in exceptional circumstances.
In answer to how religious believers would feel Bentham’s theory to be inadequate, I would say that some of his theory goes against traditional Christian morality. In calculating the happiness to be achieved, it does not appreciate the value of self-sacrifice, which features highly in traditional Christian morality. Mill attempts to counter this and tries to link his theory into Jesus’ teachings, by claiming that to love your neighbour as yourself comprises ‘the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality’. Secondly he gives a positive role to self-sacrifice.
In conclusion, there are many flaws in Bentham’s original utilitarian theory. However some very good foundations have been laid which enabled Mill to build upon the theory. For religious believers, I feel there are not to many inadequacies, and where there is, Mill sufficiently deals with them.
