Lecture: Ethics II: Utilitarianism
Lecture script · about 15–20 minutes spoken · Week 11
Opening
Picture a hospital ethics committee around a long table. The hospital has a scarce drug, and more patients need it than it can treat. One member says, "Let's do whatever helps the most people the most." Another asks about the patient who has waited longest. Hold both voices in your head. This whole lecture grows out of that table.
It isn't only a question for hospitals. A nursing student may one day sit on that committee. A business major may weigh a plan that helps most customers but costs a few of them. Each of them is asking whether an act is right because of the good it does for everyone.
In Week 2 you learned standard form, validity, and the valid forms, including hypothetical syllogism and modus ponens. In Week 10 you asked whether morality is relative, whether it rests on God's commands, and whether we always act from self-interest. In this lecture I'll introduce the first full ethical theory of the course. We'll meet its two founders, split it into two forms, press it with three objections, and walk past a pond with a child in it. Next week, in Week 12, two more theories join it.
1. Judging an act by its results
Think about a friend who asks whether to tell a coworker about a mistake in a shared report. You'd probably ask, "What happens if you tell? What happens if you don't?" You're looking ahead to results.
That way of thinking has a name. Consequentialism is the family of ethical views holding that whether an act is right depends only on its consequences, on what the act brings about. Its best-known member is utilitarianism: the consequentialist theory that the right act is the one that produces the greatest overall happiness, with each person's happiness counted equally.
Here's the theory in its strongest form. Happiness and suffering matter to everyone who can feel them. Nobody's happiness matters more because of who they are. So a good act makes the world go as well as it can for everyone it touches. And the theory gives one reason behind rules we already keep: lying, theft, and cruelty usually cause misery.
The course pins 4 ethical theories, and utilitarianism is the one that puts consequences first. Its central question is, what act produces the greatest overall happiness?
Pause and try this. A friend says a consequentialist will do anything at all to get a good result. Is that fair?
Think about what counts as a result.
Here's the answer. It isn't fair. The means are consequences too, so lying or harming goes into the total before anything is decided.
2. Bentham on pain and pleasure
Touch a hot pan and your hand pulls back before you think. Step into the first warm sun after winter and you slow down. Pain pushes; pleasure pulls.
Jeremy Bentham built a theory on that push and pull. His An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation was printed in 1780 and first published in 1789. It opens with a sentence in his own English, so no translator is involved: "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."
For Bentham, pleasure and pain are what make an outcome go better or worse for someone. A good act adds pleasure or takes away pain. And Bentham treats pleasures as differing from one another in amount. More is better than less.
One small thing to hold onto: the book has two dates. It sat printed for 9 years before it was published, and 1789 is the year the course keys.
Pause and try this. Bentham's book was printed in 1780 and published in 1789. Which year does the course key as its publication?
Go back to the word "published".
Here's the answer. It's 1789. The book was printed 9 years earlier, in 1780, but 1789 is when it was first published.
3. Counting everyone equally
Imagine friends choosing a place to eat. One friend picks their own favorite and ignores everyone. Another asks each person, weighs every answer the same, and picks what suits the whole group. The first is thinking about one person. The second is thinking about everyone.
A utilitarian thinks like the second friend. The name for that is impartiality: counting each person's happiness and suffering equally, so that no one's counts for more because of who they are, the agent's own included.
The course's theory-matching set has a statement that says this out loud. It's illustrative, written for teaching: "Count each person's happiness equally and choose the act with the best total." That statement is keyed to utilitarianism.
Back at the hospital table, a utilitarian counts each patient's well-being the same. Wealth, fame, or knowing someone on the committee adds nothing to a claim.
Pause and try this. Someone says utilitarianism means "do whatever makes you happiest". Which view are they really describing?
Remember Week 10.
Here's the answer. They're describing ethical egoism. Utilitarianism counts you once, alongside everyone else the act affects.
4. Mill and the higher pleasures
Think about two evenings. On one, you finally understand a hard idea that's bugged you for weeks. On the other, you eat a favorite snack in front of a show. Both are pleasant. But are they the same kind of pleasant?
John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism came out as magazine articles in 1861 and as a book in 1863. In Chapter II he states the Greatest Happiness Principle, again in his own English: "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness". Notice the words "in proportion". Rightness comes in degrees.
Then Mill parts from Bentham. His higher and lower pleasures are kinds of pleasure that differ in quality as well as in amount, so some kinds count as higher than others. Those two evenings are my illustration, not Mill's own example. But on his view, understanding the hard idea could be higher in kind than the snack, not only bigger.
Mill wrote 72 years after Bentham published, and his articles and book were 2 years apart.
Pause and try this. On pleasure, what does Mill add that Bentham doesn't say?
Think amount versus kind.
Here's the answer. Mill adds quality. Bentham treats pleasures as differing in amount, and Mill holds they also differ in quality.
5. An argument for the theory
Here's an argument from the course's argument set, number 3. It's illustrative. If an act maximizes happiness, it is right. If it is right, we ought to do it. So if an act maximizes happiness, we ought to do it.
Notice its shape. If P then Q. If Q then R. So if P then R. That's hypothetical syllogism, from Week 2, and it's valid. If both premises were true, the conclusion couldn't be false.
But is it sound? That's harder. A critic says the first premise is false, because an act could maximize happiness and still be unjust. A utilitarian replies that the first premise is the theory itself, and that the critic's cases are rare or better handled by rules. That disagreement is open, so the course keys validity only.
Pause and try this. Argument 3 is valid. Does that prove utilitarianism?
Separate "follows from" and "is true".
Here's the answer. No. Valid means the conclusion would follow if the premises were true, and the critic denies the first premise.
6. Act and rule utilitarianism
Here's a story. Weeks ago you promised to help a friend move. Then your manager offers you a paid shift that same day. Your friend has a few other helpers, but not many.
Utilitarians split on cases like this. Act utilitarianism judges each act by its own consequences, asking which act available here and now produces the most happiness for everyone affected. Rule utilitarianism judges acts by whether they follow rules whose general acceptance would produce the best consequences.
So the act utilitarian weighs this one choice: the money, your friend's sore back, your friend's disappointment. Whichever act does better overall wins this time. The course's matching set has a statement in this spirit, keyed to utilitarianism: "A broken promise is wrong if breaking it causes more misery than keeping it."
The rule utilitarian asks a different question. Which rule, generally followed, does the most good? A rule of keeping promises lets people plan and trust each other. So the rule utilitarian keeps this promise, even if breaking it once would do a little more good.
Pause and try this. Has the rule utilitarian stopped caring about consequences?
Ask why the rule was chosen.
Here's the answer. No. The rule is picked for its consequences, so results still decide everything, one level up.
7. Three objections and three replies
Every strong theory meets strong objections. Here are the three famous ones, each with a reply from the utilitarian side.
First, the justice objection: an outcome with the greatest total happiness can still share benefits and burdens unfairly, so a sum can hide an unfair share. Back at the hospital, the best total might pass over the patient who has waited longest. The reply: fair rules for scarce goods build the trust a hospital needs, so a rule utilitarian backs them on utilitarian grounds.
Second, the rights objection: an act could raise total happiness by overriding a person's rights. Picture a manager who settles an office rumor by secretly reading one coworker's private messages. The reply: rules that protect rights do a great deal of good, because people who fear losing their rights live worse lives.
Third, the demandingness objection: if every act must produce the most happiness, nearly every spare hour and dollar you have is owed to others. The reply: a theory of what's best can be demanding, and it can still separate the best act from the acts that deserve blame.
All three objections and all three replies are still argued over, and the course keys no verdict.
Pause and try this. Which objection says a total can hide an unfair share?
Think back to the hospital.
Here's the answer. The justice objection. It says the best total can still divide benefits and burdens unfairly.
8. The drowning child
Now the week's case on the course's thought-experiment roster. In "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", from 1972, Peter Singer asks you to picture a shallow pond. A child is drowning in it. You could wade in and pull the child out, and the cost is that your clothes are ruined. Almost everyone says you must wade in.
That's the drowning child. Its question is: if you can save a life at small cost, must you? It tests the duty to aid strangers.
Singer states a principle behind the answer. If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to do it. And Singer says the principle doesn't depend on utilitarianism.
Let's put the pond in standard form. First premise: if it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, you ought to do it. Second premise: it is in your power to prevent the child's drowning without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance. Conclusion: so you ought to prevent the child's drowning. The second premise affirms the "if" part of the first. That's modus ponens, and it's valid.
A critic replies that a stranger far away isn't in front of you, and many others could help. Singer's side answers that distance and other helpers don't change how bad the suffering is.
Pause and try this. What form does the pond argument take, and is it valid?
Think about what the second premise does to the first.
Here's the answer. It's modus ponens, so it's valid. The second premise affirms the antecedent of the first.
9. The views side by side
Let me pull it together. Bentham and Mill agree on the core: happiness for everyone, counted equally. They part on pleasure. Bentham sees differences in amount; Mill sees differences in quality too. Act and rule utilitarians agree that results decide. They part on whether to test each act or the rules acts follow.
Here's the timeline in words. Bentham's book was printed in 1780 and published 9 years later, in 1789. Mill's articles came 72 years after that, in 1861, and his book 2 years later, in 1863. Singer's paper came 109 years after Mill's book, in 1972.
And here's a count. The course's matching set has 8 statements, 2 for each of the 4 theories. This week keys 2 of them, both to utilitarianism. That leaves 6 for the theories still to come.
The course keys no verdict on whether utilitarianism is the right theory. Your job is to state it so well that its defenders would sign it.
Pause and try this. Of the 8 matching statements, how many are left for the other theories after this week?
Take away this week's 2.
Here's the answer. There are 6 left. This week keys 2 of the 8, and 2 for each of the other 3 theories makes 6.
Closing
Consequentialism judges acts by their results, and utilitarianism counts everyone's happiness equally. Bentham named pain and pleasure as our two masters. Impartiality means you count once, like everyone else. Mill's Greatest Happiness Principle ties rightness to happiness, and his higher pleasures part from Bentham. Argument 3 is valid by hypothetical syllogism, but its soundness stays open. Act and rule utilitarians test acts and rules. The justice, rights, and demandingness objections each press the theory, and each has a reply. Singer's pond asks whether you must save a life at small cost.
Next in this module come the slide deck, the Readings and Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, the quiz, the discussion, and the assignment. Next week, in Week 12, Kant's duties and Aristotle's virtues join the conversation.
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