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What type of theory is utilitarianism?
Teleological - concerned with the outcomes of an action rather than the action itself
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What is the background of Utilitarianism?
- Industrial Revolution brought people to the cities in hope of work but they ended up poor, in slums, alcoholism, prostitution
- Revolutions around the world - France and America - led to greater demands for rights and democracies
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Who came up with Utilitarianism and what did they think of the Church?
- Jeremy Bentham Not a fan of the Church who led to the belief that your wealth ( or lack of it!) was given by God and it should not be changed
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What did Bentham hope to achieve with his theory?
- Universal - open to the use of anyone
- To benefit the majority
- To correct some inequalities of his time
- To result in the most happiness for the largest number of people
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What is the principle of utility?
How useful an action is at bringing about the desired consequence - in this case, happiness for the majority
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How did Bentham measure the happiness resulting from actions?
- The Hedonic Calculus
- Measure the:
- Purity of the Happiness - how free from pain it is
- Intensity - how great the happiness is
- Duration - how long the happiness lasts
- Certainty - how certain happiness will be the outcome
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Which Philosopher further developed Utilitarianism? What was their background?
- John Stuart Mill
- Child prodigy
- Nervous Breakdown age 20 - felt like he has suffered, while Bentham had lived a comfortable life.
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What did he think of Bentham's ideas?
- While he agreed, he thought they were too idealistic saying there is more to life than just happiness. Things like justice and dignity are also important.
- "It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied"
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What did Mill come up with as a result?
He said humans have already discovered the actions that produce happiness through trial and error - dont need the Hedonic Calculus
We have general rules that we follow so came up with Rule Utilitarianism
"Follow the rule that would produce the best result if everyone followed it"
Strong and Weak rule utilitarianism provide flexibility
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How did Mill feel about people's freedom?
- Wanted to maintain freedom, as society relied upon people's own talents.
- Produced the harm principle saying "The only time power can be exercised over any member of a civilised society, against his will, is to prevent harm to others"
- This became the foundations of most modern civil liberties.
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What are more modern takes on utilitarianism?
Preference Utilitarianism
- came from act and rule utilitarianism, but since happiness is hard to measure, it is based off preference which is easy for people to express.
- The idea becomes 'do the action that satisfies the most preferences for the most people'
Negative Utilitarianism
prevents the greatest harm to the greatest number of people - follows the idea that the results of harm are more dramatic than of good, and so should be avoided, and that there are more ways of doing harm than there are good.
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How good is Utilitarianism as a theory?
- ☁ Doesn't protect minorities e.g sadistic guards
- ☀Solved by the harm principle which prevents people from doing harm, and so the theory is positive as the majority are, usually, satisfied.
- ☁ Gives extreme results when taken literally e.g someone giving away all their belongings to serve the majority
- ☀ Should be taken in moderation. If everyone follows it, and offers a little, then everyone is better off
- ☁ Not possible to predict the future correctly☀ People are pretty good at predicting the future, and there is no need for special wisdom
- ☁ Rule Utilitarianism can be inflexible
- ☀ Strong and weak solves the issue.
☀IT SUCCEEDED DURING ITS TIME
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