Mill believed that there was a more positive role for laws in society, unlike Bentham who thought that laws were secondary. There are principles that work as a general means or securing the greater good. A good example would be lying, while there may be a good reason for lying in a certain circumstance, as an overall principle lying cannot be supported because in the end it does not support the greatest good for the greatest number. Mill acknowledged by breaking the rule may contribute to an individual’s short term happiness but is detrimental to long term happiness for all those concerned, this was then known as rule utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism also exists in two different forms. Rule utilitarianism (linked to Mill) tries to give the greatest overall benefit and happiness to society; the best rule/law of conduct is found to bring the greatest amount of good so that everyone can follow it. However, this can cause problems if you use this rule in a place where it is not generally followed, as problems will be caused if you differ from the general population. Another problem, a problem which can be applied to both at and rule utilitarianism is that it is impossible to predict that consequences of an action, and therefore you cannot guarantee that happiness will result. There is still no guarantee of course that the minorities will be affected and how do you constitute what happiness is?
Act Utilitarianism links more the Bentham and determines that it is the final result that matters, therefore saying that the consequences justify the means. Although it has the benefit of being the most flexible, one problem of this is that the means may cause terrible suffering and anguish for many people but if the result is a good one then the actions are still, supposedly, morally good. Therefore Act utilitarianism can also be used to justify many horrible and evil things, such as killing millions of people to achieve peace for example. This opinion is shared by Alasdair Macintyre when he states ‘Utilitarianism can justify horrendous acts as being for the pleasure of the many’. Lastly, It is impractical to say that we should calculate the morality of each choice.
Preference Utilitarianism believes that you should take into account the preferences of the person concerned in each case until they are outweighed by the preferences of others. This allows people to define what pleasure and pain is for them. Peter Singer uses this to argue for the rights of animals alongside the theory of utility. In 1973 R.M.Hare argued for preference utilitarianism, he believed the “right thing” to do is to maximise the satisfaction of the preference of each individual involved.
There are a number of strengths to utilitarianism as a whole though. It encourages people to think of others all the time, preventing selfishness, leading to following arguably more moral paths of action, such as treating others as you would want to be treated. It benefits the greater good, which most of the time would be beneficial, as most people (you would hope) do not share the same sense of happiness as say a pedophile would. It is also based on the consequence of an action, which is what matters. Utilitarianism promotes democracy, well thought through decisions that would then link to morality and happiness for the greater good.
Among the weaknesses is that it is difficult, if not impossible to predict consequences, what is an important factor of utilitarianism. The theory also disregards motivation and goodwill, which is also an important factor in achieving happiness. Furthermore, it says that the majority is always right and does not protect the minorities, e.g. Nazis in WWII and the Jewish community, where they quite obviously were not right. Also it is very unrealistic. To expect people to act in the interests of others above themselves is probably wishful thinking more than anything, so it’s application because of this would undoubtedly be difficult.
b) Comment on the view that the strengths of utilitarianism are outweighed by the weaknesses.
The utilitarian approach to deciding what the right thing to do is to try and make the most amounts of people happy. Both Bentham and Mill believed this, they were both hedonists, believing that the most important thing in life is to be happy. However their theories differed in the way they measured pleasure. Bentham measured happiness considering the quantity of pleasure whereas Mill measured it by the quality of happiness that would occur. Both of these have flaws though, but whether these flaws outweigh the weaknesses is what will be examined.
Utilitarianism provides a clear method for deciding on a course of action that disregards personal confusion. Bentham’s aim was to achieve a specific scientific formula to calculate how much pleasure and pain is produced from each proposed action. From this Bentham proposed the hedonic calculus which had seven criteria; intensity, duration, purity, extent, certainty, fecundity and remoteness. These factors weigh up the potential amount of pleasure or pain which might arise from moral actions to decide which would be the best option to take, which of course is a strength of the theory, as the best action would supposedly be taken.
But, there is an obvious flaw to this. When we use Bentham’s theory we are unable to predict the future so as to see how our decisions will affect people later on. There is no way of telling for sure what the consequences of our actions will be, we just do what we think is right at that specific time. An example of this is shown through one of Roald Dahl’s stories, ‘Genesis and Catastrophe’. A doctor saves both the mother and child in a very difficult birth. His concluding words were ‘you’ll be alright Mrs. Hitler.’ If the doctor was a utilitarian he would say he was doing the right thing because the most amount of people were made happy by both mother and child being alive, but the doctor couldn’t see into the future to see what consequences this act would have. He thought more people would be happy because he saved his life but as it turns out Hitler went on to make millions of people suffer, causing them a lot of unhappiness. So a utilitarian looking back on this would say that to save the baby was the wrong thing to do because of what he did in his life. The doctor could have never known because we can’t see the future.
Another weakness of the utilitarian theory is the problem of special responsibilities and prima facie duty. You have a certain responsibility and duty to your family and the closest people around you. Generally you regard these people higher than say a complete stranger. To explain this, an example could be that there is a bus crash. You can only get one person out of the bus and your mum is stuck on the bus but there is also a scientist who, in his mind, has the cure for cancer, but it is your prima facie duty to save your mother. This would prove a problem for a utilitarian because they have to consider how many people would be made happy by saving either their mum or the scientist. If they were to save the scientist then millions of people could be cured of cancer and this is generally what a utilitarian would choose but then you have let your own mother die. You have a special responsibility to your mum as she is your family and she brought you up and you both love each other. So this is a dilemma that some utilitarian’s may have to face, as is an obvious flaw, as most people would be inclined to save their mother.
Despite this, a theory that promotes pleasure must be a good thing as most people see pleasure as desirable over pain. The intention of Utilitarianism was not to create immorality but to please to maximum number of people possible. Surely it is better for a hundred people to be happy than five. But, people such as Alistair MacIntyre, have criticised this as it assumes that most people are good. his is dangerous, as you can justify evil with it. For example, if a woman was jogging through a park and came across a gang of men who raped her. Utilitarianism justifies their actions as the men’s pleasure is far greater than the woman’s and, as they are the majority, the woman’s pain would not matter. So, under Bentham’s theory it would be possible to justify acts of sadism or torture if the majority, no matter how perverse the pleasure, carried them out. Mill’s qualitative principle does go some way to addressing this weakness, however, as is explained now.
The strengths to the utilitarian theory and this can be seen in Mills improved version of it. He believed that there are different levels of pleasure. The higher pleasures are those of intellect, feelings and imagination, e.g. reading a book. The lower pleasures refer to pleasures mainly of the body e.g. sex. A recent example of this would be to use the case of the American soldiers torturing the Iraq prisoner. In Bentham’s theory, this act would have been seen as ok because the pleasure of the soldiers outweighed that of the prisoner, even though we can see that it is wrong. In Mills theory the soldiers pleasure does not justify their actions because it is of such a low value that it doesn’t outweigh the extreme pain the prisoner goes through.
Also, many countries run by means of democracy. Our political leaders are elected through the ballot box, the majority overriding the minority. This however does not automatically mean that they are the most suited people for the job. Utilitarianism allows people to contemplate the situation before making the decision. This time prevents people from making hasty, unethical judgements, as it encourages thought before action. Utilitarianism as a concept ensures that the most amount of people are satisfied which would mean that fewer conflicts would arise.
The theory has also been criticised for being too simplistic. The theory relies on a single principle by which we make moral decisions. However, we cannot solve every dilemma by reference to one ethical theory because every dilemma is unique in some way. Additionally, the theory gives no credit to motivation. Not every action done out of good will is going to result in good consequences, but the attitude with which it is performed should be worthy of some credit.
Utilitarianism though is a theory that Christians can relate to, as Jesus preached an ethic of love, requiring people to work for the well-being of others. ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’. The largest connection Christianity has with Utilitarianism is the death of Jesus, he was crucified and died for the sins of mankind-sacrificing himself for the majority. However, Utilitarianism does accept evil where Christianity most certainly does not.
In my view, the weaknesses do indeed outweigh the strengths. Despite the fact that its focal point is to concentrate on happiness of the majority of people rather than an individual, the hedonic calculus, one of the very key features, is not practical enough to apply it to real-life situations, because pleasure and pain are hard to determine by it. Another key feature that is severely flawed it the fact that humans do not always agree on what actions bring pain and pleasure, and utilitarianism is weakened by the fact that people have to agree with each other. Yes, there are the strengths as mentioned above, but the theory is not practical in the main stream due to the flaws in its key features, and so as it would be extremely difficult to apply, it would be impossible to come to any conclusion other than it’s weaknesses overwhelm the strengths.
