1. A theory of maximal pleasure or happiness
Utilitarianism
A theory of maximal pleasure or happiness

2. Jeremy Bentham
Bentham set out his new ethical theory in his book The Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789).
Bentham first of all needed to give an account of ‘goodness’. He defined pleasure as the highest good and what people most desire in life. This view of motivation makes Bentham a ‘psychological hedonist’.
He further formulated the Utility Principle: an action is right if it brings about maximal happiness for most people. The familiar phrase “the greatest good for the greatest number” was coined by the philosopher Francis Hutcheson.

3. The Hedonic Calculus
This is a form of calculation, designed to work out how great is the pleasure or pain resulting from a certain action.
Bentham identified seven significant criteria:
Intensity (intense pleasure is best)
Duration (pleasure which lasts)
Certainty (pleasure which will definitely happen)
Propinquity (pleasure which is close at hand)
Fecundity (pleasure which promotes further pleasure)
Purity (pleasure not mixed with pain)
Extent (pleasure which affects many people)

4. Advantages of Bentham’s system
Flexibility – the moral agent can choose to do whatever he / she thinks is best, in the circumstances.
Makes intuitive sense – people tend to agree that pleasure is good and pain is bad; this seems to be a strong opinion shared almost universally.
Empirical – it allows people to use their knowledge and observation of the world around them, to make informed decisions.

5. The problem with Bentham
Firstly, Bentham’s claim that all pleasures are of equal value (commensurate) seems weak. Would sadism be a good reason for acting? If several sadistic guards derived intense pleasure from torture, then this act might be deemed to be justified (an objection raised by Bernard Williams, among others).
Another difficulty inherent in judging each act individually by its consequences is that we cannot predict what the full future consequences of actions will be. Controversial actions have been justified by ‘the greater good’, but the true impact of acting in a certain way is very hard to judge. Complex government level decisions can be particularly helpless in this regard; if we invade a country (like Iraq), will we really know what will happen in the long run? Immanuel Kant criticised consequentialist or ‘hypothetical’ ethics for its bold assumption that we can control what results from our actions.

6. Mill proposed a number of criticisms and reforms of Bentham’s theory
John Stuart Mill
Mill proposed a number of criticisms and reforms of Bentham’s theory

7. Mill’s Higher and Lower Pleasures
Mill regarded pleasures of the mind as ‘higher’ than those of the body. Art and music would be better than sex and food. Mill sought to avoid the accusation that Utilitarianism is just a theory of cheap self-gratification. Thus, he is arguably more socially conservative than Bentham in his outlook.
But how do we distinguish between pleasures? Mill introduced the concept of ‘competent judges’ – people who have experienced many types of pleasures and so are able to discriminate.
Mill thought that he was himself a good example of a competent judge – educated and refined. This brings the accusation that Mill was an elitist snob.

8. Act and Rule Utilitarianism
Bentham was an ‘Act Utilitarian’ because he regarded the consequences of each act as a separate calculation. E.g. Stealing may or may not be wrong, depending on its consequences in any given situation. This view is truly relativist.
However, Mill’s criticisms of Bentham gave rise to ‘Rule Utilitarian’. Mill believed that we should consider the consequences which usually follow from types of actions and make general social principles accordingly. E.g. Stealing generally causes pain, and therefore a rule should state that stealing is wrong. Mill thought about the normalisation of our behaviour (as in the Golden Rule: ‘do unto others as you would have them do to you’) and wished to avoid moral anarchy.
Mill also developed something called the ‘harm principle’. We should give people liberty to do what they choose, if it causes no harm to others.

9. Strengths of Mill’s Approach
It avoids the problem of ‘evil’ pleasures found with Bentham, such as sadism.
It is natural to distinguish between pleasures. Surely we can agree that friendship is a higher pleasure than getting drunk.
Rule Utilitarianism would not allow crimes against minorities which benefit the majority.
Rule Utilitarianism allows a concept of justice – the innocent cannot be hurt for the pleasure of others (remember the Golden Rule).

10. Weaknesses of Mill’s Approach
The distinction between higher and lower pleasures is very subjective – it is just his opinion and people may easily disagree. Some might think that hamburgers are better than music played on the cello.
According to R.M. Hare, Rule Utilitarianism might disapprove of sensible rule breaking, like telling white lies.

11. Deontology

12. Duty and Prescriptive Ethics
The term ‘deontological’ is derived from the Greek word deon, meaning ‘duty’. So, deontological systems are concerned with describing our moral duties.
By contrast with consequentialist systems, deontology is concerned with the intrinsic properties of actions – whether they are good or bad in their own right.
The most famous moral deontologist is the German philosopher Immanuel Kant ( ).
Kant thought that our morals should not be influenced by feelings (‘inclination’), but instead we should be concerned with fixed statements of duty (I ought to…). This makes Kantian ethics ‘prescriptive’.

13. Goodness and Moral Law
Kant maintained that humans seek an ultimate end called the supreme good, the summum bonum. This is the state in which the highest virtue and the highest happiness are combined.
While Kant was not interested in arguments for God’s existence, his theory of ethics assumes God. Kant thought that reaching the summum bonum must somehow be guaranteed. So, he thought it reasonable to assume that God exists to support the idea that we can reach the highest good.
But what is goodness? Kant thought that he had found it in the idea of moral law …

14. “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe … the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
Kant believed that the moral law is objective; its rules are real and binding. The logical definition he applied to moral statements was synthetic a priori. The ‘synthetic’ part means that moral statements are not true by definition (not analytic) and so can be true or false. The ‘a priori’ part means that moral statements cannot be demonstrated through experience; they are more a part of our understanding.
So, again: moral law is synthetic a priori – it may be true or false and is not known directly from our experiences. It is a part of our reason.

15. The Categorical Imperative
For Kant, to reject a true moral principle involves a logical mistake. Furthermore, whenever we act, we act on a maxim: a rule/principle. Although it may be difficult to work out what that maxim is in a given moral action, a maxim is always there. Kant speaks of moral actions as categorical imperatives, but there is also one underlying moral principle which he calls the Categorical Imperative. This is the fundamental test of maxims. Kant formulates the Categorical Imperative in three ways:
1.) For any maxim to be true, you must be able to allow that it could become a law for everyone.
2.) Never treat people just as a means; always see them as a valuable end in themselves.
3.) Act as though you assume that everyone is following the moral law.
The Categorical Imperative
1.) “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
2.) “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.”
3.) “Every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxims always a law-making member in the universal kingdom of ends.”

16. Strengths and Weaknesses of Kant and Deontology
Kant’s distinction between duty and inclination seems sound. What is right is not always what we want.
Justice for Kant would always be safeguarded for individuals, who are always “ends in themselves”. He avoids the Utilitarian flaw of allowing the minority to suffer for the benefit of the majority.
Kant’s appeal to reason and universal values is sane and constructive. Surely it is best if we can give grounds for our ethics and share those values with others.
Weaknesses
The refusal to consider consequences at all seems perverse; what if certain actions have horrendous or wonderful results? Is that not important?
Deontology leaves the individual with no flexibility and no chance to consider individual circumstances. Intuitively, we seem to accept that certain rules must have sensible exceptions. For instance, sometimes we might need to lie to protect others.
We might question whether it is really possible to ‘universalise’ moral maxims. There are an infinite number of possible moral choices; is it reasonable to suppose that the same rules can be applied consistently in different circumstances?

17. A modern approach: Thomas Nagel
A contemporary philosopher who supports deontological ethics is Thomas Nagel. He has been much influenced by Kant and has sought to show that deontology is still of relevance today. His main work on ethics is The Possibility of Altruism. He writes:
“Common moral intuition recognizes several types of deontological reasons – limits on what one may do to people or how one may treat them. There are special obligations created by promises and agreements; the restrictions against lying and betrayal; the prohibitions against violating various individual rights, rights not to be killed, injured, imprisoned, threatened, tortured, coerced, robbed; the restrictions against imposing certain sacrifices on someone simply as a means to an end; and perhaps the special claim of immediacy, which makes distress at a distance so different from distress in the same room. There may also be a deontological requirement of fairness, of even-handedness or equality in one’s treatment of people.”
In other words, in daily life we generally assume that there are some fixed duties and expect others to comply with them. We expect fairness, loyalty, etc.

18. A modern critique: Peter Singer
Kant’s deontological ethics have recently been criticised by Peter Singer.
Singer criticises Kant for removing the element of sympathy and emotion from ethics:
According to Kant, it is only when a person somehow loses ‘all sympathy with the fate of others’, so that the person is no longer moved by any inclinations, but acts for the sake of duty alone, that ‘for the first time his action has its genuine moral worth’.
Singer also argues that the idea of ‘duty for its own sake’ leads to a ‘closed system’ in which people do not inquire into the reasons for our actions. This he regards as dangerous.
Finally, without sympathy, Singer claims that the idea of duty can lead to ‘moral fanaticism’ – the elevation of a perceived duty above all consideration of humanity.

19. Virtue Ethics

20. Virtue Ethics begins with Aristotle, who was a student of Plato and, ultimately, rejected Plato’s teachings. This disagreement gave rise to a fundamental dispute in moral philosophy: what is good?
Plato gave a ‘metaphysical’ account of goodness. He regarded the good as something real – the ultimate reality which is the source of our being. Thus, our job is to contemplate the good. That is the ultimate aim of philosophy.
Aristotle, meanwhile, criticised what Plato had said about goodness. He instead gave a naturalistic and psychological account of good – it is a part of our natural dispositions as human beings. This led Aristotle to the idea of purpose. Ethical life means living in tune with our natural purpose of rational and virtuous behaviour. This makes Aristotle’s virtue ethics a ‘teleological’ system.
Nice beard Plato, but you haven’t understood the nature of goodness. It is natural, not metaphysical.

21. Aristotle’s Ethics Discussed in his book Nicomachean Ethics
Instead of offering ‘normative ethics’ (i.e. claims about what is right or wrong), Aristotle put forward a system which is ‘aretaic’ (arête is Greek for ‘excellence’), focused on the character of the individual. In other words, aretaic virtue ethics focuses upon the desire to be a person of a certain quality.
Aristotle thought that the purpose in our life is to become happy by practising the ‘skill’ of virtuous behaviour. This ultimate aim (telos – Greek) is called eudaimonia (‘well-spirited’ – so roughly, ‘flourishing’), referring to the idea that the person practising virtue feels fulfilled and content.
“[Pleasure] is also thought to be most important for the forming of a virtuous character to like and dislike the right things.”

22. The Virtues
For Aristotle, the good life meant following the doctrine of the mean, the middle path between extremes. Being virtuous means being neither deficient nor excessive, but properly balanced.
For instance, it is virtuous to have courage by avoiding a deficiency of courage (cowardice) and avoiding excessive courage (rashness). One learns to pick up the right balance of behaviour through practice and habit.
Aristotle distinguished between intellectual and moral virtues, setting out what he saw as 12 key moral virtues with their corresponding deficiencies and excesses.
Examples
Modesty is a virtue. Those deficient in modesty are shameless, but those excessive in modesty are bashful.
Wittiness is a virtue. Those deficient in wit are boorish, but those excessive in wit are guilty of buffoonery.

23. WARNING: Deficiency of Virtue in our useless modern world!
After years of Virtue Ethics being unfashionable, in 1958 the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe wrote in ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ that all of our modern morality is misguided – just plain wrong.
We have mistakenly supposed that ‘goodness’ is a property of actions rather than of people. To resolve this mess, Anscombe proposed that we turn back to Aristotle and rediscover the idea of personal virtue.

24. The Virtues of Virtue Ethics
Virtue Ethics allows that we learn about ethics over time. Surely that’s realistic.
Virtue Ethics is flexible, because it does not prescribe absolute duties.
The theory allows that ideas of virtue will vary among cultures.
Martha Nussbaum has argued that Virtue Ethics is compassionate and caring because it takes the whole person into account. It is interested in the wellbeing and fulfilment of the individual.

25. The Vices of Virtue Ethics
The theory does not give clear moral rules and guidance, unlike Kantian ethics or Natural Moral Law. Robert Louden has claimed that Virtue Ethics cannot resolve moral dilemmas, because it does not tell us what to do.
Hugo Grotius argued that truth and justice are not middle ways, but ethical absolutes.
Virtue Ethics does not deal with the problem of people doing wrong, thinking that they are acting virtuously.
Some things are always wrong (Louis Pojman suggests torturing the innocent). We need moral systems which absolutely forbid these things, but Virtue Ethics doesn’t.
D’oh!