Another weakness one could pick out of Bentham’s version of Utilitarianism is that there is huge difficulty in weighing up how much pleasure is actually achieved from an action. In the same example as the last, take 3 men and replace them with women, so we have 4 a side. The men continue to beat the women. Does the women’s pain now outweigh the men’s pleasure? Or is it still the latter? Some may say that by using Bentham’s hedonic calculus we can measure pleasure, but in reality it is nigh on impossible to weigh up side by side with pain.
Continuing along with the last criticism, Bentham relies a lot on measurement of pleasure and pain to come to a morally right decision in his version of Utilitarianism. Not only is this a huge flaw as I have previously stated, but to measure up consequences is another big weakness. Surely consequence is not measurable because we do not know when a consequence will end? For example, a man falls over in the street, but a boy comes over to help him up. To most, this seems like a morally right thing to do. However, the man may then stand up, walk on and then murder someone. This is seen as another major loophole in Bentham’s thinking.
When do consequences of our actions really come to an end? How can one judge amounts of pleasure, and weigh it up side by side with measures of pain? These are but a few questions that arise after scrutinising Bentham’s reasoning, and exploiting his weaknesses.
Mill’s version of Utilitarianism avoids the problems associated with Bentham’s. Discuss.
Unlike Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill is classed by many as being a Rule Utilitarian. The main differences between Bentham’s thinking and Mill’s is that Bentham’s is a quantitative thinking and Mill’s is qualitative. This means that Mill considers the quality of a consequence, as opposed to Bentham who considers the quantity of good pleasurable outcome in a consequence.
To many, this means that Mill’s version of Utilitarianism avoids the problems that Bentham’s has. This is because the main weaknesses of Bentham’s is that any action can have the potential to be justified. In Mill’s version of Utilitarianism this is not the case, simply because Mill is a strong Hedonist. This means that he believes that Happiness is the greatest importance in life, and because of this (unlike Bentham) Mill stresses happiness rather than pleasure. To quote John Stuart Mill ‘Some kinds of pleasure are more desirable than others. It would be absurd not to consider quality, as well as quantity.’ As with the example of the 7 men who murder the one woman. Under Bentham’s Utilitarianism Ethics this action could be seen as acceptable, however Mill would look at this and say however that the woman’s amount of happiness is so low, that the small amount of happiness that the men are attaining from the action does not add up enough to be seen as acceptable in comparison to the pain and suffering the woman is experiencing. This would make the action morally wrong.
Saying this however means in no way that Mill’s version of Utilitarianism is bulletproof, there are still weaknesses in it. One being that it is still difficult to predict the consequences of an action, and therefore difficult to make an ethical decision about the action, but the other being that it is extremely difficult for anyone to define what actually constitutes as happiness. How can one measure up and compare happiness with pain, and vice versa? It seem Mill’s version of Utilitarianism does not avoid Bentham’s weaknesses, as it poses that we as humans, we humans that do not always make the right decisions, have to picture in our heads the measure of happiness to pain.
