1. Starter on your sheet…
Fill in the blanks to make sentences summarising Bentham’s version of Utilitarianism

2. Homework Check…
HW task – research the social, religious and political background at Bentham’s time.

4. Objectives: Deepen our understanding of Act Utilitarianism.
Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the theory.

5. How does an Act Utilitarian make a moral decision?
As a table, create a diagram to show the decision-making process

6. Check your understanding so far…
Find your notes from last lesson. Read through and see if they make sense.
Now read pages 1-top of 4 in your handout. Add any details that are missing from your notes.
Now let’s work through the tasks on page 4.

7. Can you think of any real-life situations where people choose to follow utilitarianism?

8. Remember when we tried applying Act Utilitarianism to different scenarios…
What were the difficulties?

9. A problem for Bentham – in story form!

10. “The ones who walk away from Omelas” by Ursula LeGuin
Briefly summarise the situation in the story.
What would Bentham think about this situation, and why?
Do you agree with Bentham? Why/ why not?
This story highlights a possible problem with Bentham’s ethical theory. What is it?

11. Robert Nozick – “The Experience Machine”
"Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain.
Robert Nozick – “The Experience Machine”
Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life experiences? [...] Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think that it's all actually happening [...] Would you plug in?."

12. What are Karl’s three reasons for not plugging into the machine?
4.16 “You don’t want fun all in one go”
4.24 “It’s about things taking time and then looking back at the journey”
5.11 “You need a bit of the badness to have the goodness”
What are Karl’s three reasons for not plugging into the machine?

13. “What else can matter to us, other than how we feel from the inside
“What else can matter to us, other than how we feel from the inside? What does matter to us in addition to our experiences? First, we want to do certain things, and not just have the experiences of doing them. In the case of certain experiences, it is only because first we want to do the actions that we want the experiences of doing them or thinking we’ve done them. A second reason for not plugging in is that we want to be a certain way, to be a certain sort of person. Someone floating in a tank is an indeterminate blob. There is no answer to the question of what a person is like who has long been in the tank. Is he courageous, kind, intelligent, witty, loving? It’s not merely that it’s difficult to tell; there’s no way he is. Plugging into the machine is a kind of suicide. Thirdly, plugging into an experience machine limits us to a manmade reality, to a world no deeper or more important than that which people can construct. There is no actual contact with any deeper reality, though the experience of it can be simulated. Many persons desire to leave themselves open to such contact and to a plumbing of deeper significance… We learn that something matters to us in addition to experience by imagining an experience machine and then realising that we would not use it.”

14. What would the utilitarian say is the right thing to do in these situations?
You promise your granny that you will meet her on Saturday afternoon at asda to help with her shopping. Just as you are leaving, your friends text you and beg you to come out with them.
You walk past a pond where two people are drowning. You only have time to save one. One is your mother and the other is a doctor developing cancer treatments.
There have been a series of murders and the police can’t find the killer. The public are getting increasingly scared and agitated and want the killer to be caught. The police find a lonely homeless man and arrest him saying that he’s the killer when they know he’s not.

15. Assessing Act Utilitarianism
Now read page 5 and make sure you understand the criticisms.
Do the task at the bottom – write a conclusion-type paragraph explaining why it is/ is not a good ethical theory overall, using the strengths and weaknesses we’ve learnt today.

16. Objectives: Deepen our understanding of Act Utilitarianism.
Assess the strengths and weaknesses of the theory.