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Week 11 · Readings & resources

Week 11 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Philosophy Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 11 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 9 items (4 readings and 5 videos). Allow 73–92 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more depth, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (20–25 min total)

① What utilitarianism says, and where it starts

Chapter 11, Section “Name the family: judge an act by its results” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Consequentialism, utilitarianism, and Bentham” · Remember: utilitarianism counts everyone's happiness equally, so the person deciding counts once and no more.

  • Utilitarianism: Crash Course Philosophy #36 — CrashCourse — an episode that opens by asking whether a comic-book hero should give up his rule against killing, then sets utilitarianism against egoism: your interests count, but no more than anyone else's, and it suggests judging as a kind but uninvolved spectator would. It closes by separating act from rule utilitarianism with a surgeon who could save five patients by sacrificing one stranger. This builds on Week 10's work with ethical egoism: notice how the episode keeps the two apart. Three slips to catch: it places Mill's founding work in the eighteenth century, though Mill's Utilitarianism appeared in 1861 and 1863; it offers a familiar slogan in place of Mill's pinned Greatest Happiness Principle; and it ends by saying what the hero should do, a verdict the course does not give. Its middle thought experiment about soldiers and prisoners goes beyond this week. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)
  • An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Chapter I: Of the Principle of Utility — Library of Economics and Liberty — Bentham's own first chapter in a public-domain transcription of the 1823 edition. Read the first paragraph, which opens with the sentence the course pins about pain and pleasure, and check it word for word against Chapter 11. Then skim the next few numbered paragraphs, where Bentham explains what he means by utility and by the interest of a community. The later paragraphs and the long notes go beyond this week. Use it while completing the Week-11 module overview. (reading, 10–15 min)
  • Bentham's Utilitarianism Explained — Learnism — a six-minute overview that defines utilitarianism as maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain with everyone weighed equally, contrasts Bentham's focus on the amount of pleasure with Mill's higher and lower pleasures, and names a worry that the majority could oppress a minority, a form of the justice objection. Its closing summary slips into telling you to maximize your own pleasure, which is the week's first misconception: correct it with impartiality from Chapter 11. Its claims about Bentham's and Mill's personal lives are not ones the course checks, and its pleasure calculator goes beyond this week. Skip its runaway-trolley example near the start, where it says a utilitarian would pull the lever; next week takes the trolley up, and the course keys no answer to it. (video, 7 min) (captions: automatic)

② Where Mill parts from Bentham, and act versus rule

Chapter 11, Section “Meet Mill: the Greatest Happiness Principle” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Mill, higher pleasures, and act and rule utilitarianism” · Remember: Bentham sees pleasures differing in amount, Mill sees them differing in quality too, and that is a real disagreement.

  • Qualitative vs Quantitative Utilitarianism: Mill vs Bentham Explained — Untangle Philosophy — a seven-minute explainer that sets Bentham's measure of pleasure by intensity and duration against Mill's claim that some pleasures are higher in quality, using a thought experiment about choosing between the life of a great composer and the endless, mild life of an oyster. It says Bentham's view tells you to do whatever is most pleasurable for you; that is a slip, since Bentham counts everyone's pleasure, so correct it with impartiality. It quotes a passage it credits to Mill that the course has not checked, so rely on Chapter 11's paraphrase and the pinned Q6. Its closing point about pleasures that accompany eating goes beyond this week. (video, 7 min) (captions: creator)
  • Utilitarianism, Chapter 2: What Utilitarianism Is — Utilitarianism Resources — Mill's own second chapter. Find the Greatest Happiness Principle near the start and check it word for word against the pinned Q6 in Chapter 11; then read on through his account of pleasures that differ in quality as well as in amount. Describe his view in your own words rather than quoting any other line, since the course pins only Q6 from this chapter. The rest of the chapter, where Mill answers a long list of objections, goes beyond this week. (reading, 15–20 min)
  • Act vs. Rule Utilitarianism: Why Mill Thought Bentham Was WRONG — Untangle Philosophy — a five-minute explainer that applies the theory to each act, then to rules, using a friend tempted to reveal a harmless secret for a tiny gain in total happiness. It separates strong rule utilitarianism, which never breaks a rule, from weak rule utilitarianism, which breaks rules when that does more good, and asks whether the weak form collapses back into act utilitarianism. It credits rule utilitarianism to Mill, then admits that reading of Mill is disputed; Chapter 11 states the two forms without crediting either to one thinker. The middle view it closes on, from a philosopher writing now, goes beyond this week. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)

③ The drowning child and how far it reaches

Chapter 11, Section “Wade into the pond: the drowning child” · Session 2, Segment 3, “Objections and Singer's drowning child” · Remember: the pond argument is valid by modus ponens, so the real debate is over whether its first premise reaches strangers far away.

  • Singer: The Drowning Child — Jonny Thomson — a quick narrated version of the pond case, a walk in the park in new shoes, followed by Singer's step from the pond to suffering in faraway places. Three slips to catch: it calls "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" a book, though it is Singer's paper of 1972; it calls the argument a kind of utilitarianism, though Singer says his principle does not depend on utilitarianism; and it ends by taking a side, which the course does not do. (video, 1 min) (captions: automatic)
  • Moral Demands and Permissions/Prerogatives, section 2: Resisting the Demandingness Objection — online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (reference entry) — a reference entry on how much morality can ask of us. Section 1 states the demandingness objection: a view that always requires the best outcome leaves no room for time off and no line between duty and generosity beyond duty. Section 2 sets out the replies from the demanding side, among them Singer's pond case used to argue for a duty of aid stronger than everyday morality recognizes, and then the differences critics see between the pond and giving to strangers: the distance, not knowing who is helped, the many others who could help, and a need that never stops. Compare those differences with the demandingness objection in Chapter 11 and its reply from the utilitarian side; read the entry for the shape of the debate, since the course keys no verdict on it. Its later sections on weaker duties and on permissions go beyond this week. (reading, 10–15 min)

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