Utilitarianism: Explanation And Study of Criticisms

Authors Avatar

Utilitarianism: Explanation And Study of Criticisms

 The dictionary definition of Utilitarianism is: ‘The doctrine that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the guiding principal of conduct.’ When making a moral decision, we should look at the outcome of an action. Whatever brings the greatest happiness to the most people is the morally ‘right’ decision. It is a consequentialist principal where the majority rules. It is also relative as each situation is looked at differently and will have a different outcome. Utilitarianism is known as the theory of utility. The meaning of utility is usefulness. Each action is judged by its usefulness in bringing about desired consequences. The word utility was first used to describe a group of social reformers. They attempted to make laws and practices of use-useful to people.

One of the earliest Utilitarians to live by this principle was Epicurus – he stated:

     “Friendship goes dancing round the world proclaiming to us all to awake
to the praises of a happy life.”

Utilitarianism is the view that people should do whatever brings about the most good and the least bad for everyone affected. This is sometimes called "cost-benefit analysis" or "end justifies the means" morality. Usually, the utilitarian thinks "good" means happiness or pleasure. Similarly, the utilitarian calls unhappiness and pain "bad". Problems with utilitarianism in general include the following:

We can never know what the consequences of any act or rule maybe.

We may try to determine the worth of individuals.

The majority maybe permitted to harm the minority.

Some actions maybe to terrible to commit, however good their consequences.

There are three kinds of utilitarianism: act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism and preference utilitarianism.
Act utilitarianism is concerned with individual acts, while rule utilitarianism is concerned with the rules we follow when we act. Act utilitarians think that we should do whatever act will bring about the most good and the least bad. Rule utilitarians think that we should follow rules that will bring about the greatest good and the least bad for everyone affected. Preference utilitarianism focuses on the inclination of the people involved.

The act utilitarian believes that we cannot establish general rules because people and situations are all different. Problems for act utilitarianism include the following:

We can’t always know what is good for others.
It takes too long to work out what to do.
We cannot teach others how to act if there are no rules to follow.

The rule utilitarian believes that there are enough similarities among people and situations to justify setting up general rules to govern our actions. Problems for rule utilitarians include the following:

It’s hard to be sure that the rules will bring about the best consequences for all affected

Its hard to avoid making exceptions to the rules

The best rule might just be to be an act utilitarian.

Preference utilitarianism is also not a totally secure theory because it is difficult to predict the inclinations of the party concerned.

Utilitarianism is a purely consequentialist theory:

Consequentialism claims that what we ought to do is solely determined by the value of consequences of what we do.  Although Utilitarianism is by far the most developed and popular version of consequentialism, it is by no means the only possible or reasonable one. In this context it may be helpful to distinguish among various types of consequentialism on the basis of which consequences of an action are deemed morally relevant.  For example, one might hold that only the consequences affecting the agent are morally relevant, or that only those affecting others are relevant, or that it makes no difference who is affected by the consequences.  But even if one restricts one's attention to the last type of consequentialism, there are still at least three reasonable options available: 

Hedonistic consequentialism, which identifies utility with pleasure and absence of pain (this is utilitarianism).

Subjectivist consequentialism, which identifies utility with the satisfaction of individual preference.
Problem: It collapses the desirable into the desired.  But the two at times don't coincide.  For example:

people often don't know what's good for them or are unable to choose it because of lack of information, irrationality, false consciousness, or weakness of the will.

one might argue that some things, e.g., love, beauty, friendship, are good, no matter whether they are desired or not.

Join now!

Welfare consequentialism, which identifies utility with the satisfaction of interests rather than mere preferences.
Problem: it's hard to come up with a list of “true” (vs. merely perceived) interests.

Utilitarianism may be incompatible with a principle of justice.

A serious problem for utilitarianism comes in trying to respond to the following question. “Utilitarianism requires that we do that action which produces the most amount of good (in the proper time period). But, for whom is the good produced?” For oneself; egoism? For everyone else’s benefit but oneself; altruism? For everyone’s benefit, one’s own benefit being calculated equally among ...

This is a preview of the whole essay