Humans have grappled with the question of good and bad since gaining conscience. Ethics is that branch of philosophy which deals with defining, organising and recommending concepts of right or wrong conduct. Ethics seeks to define concepts such as good and evil, virtue and vice and justice and crime to aid our understanding of human morality.

Jeremy Bentham is considered as the father of Utilitarianism. Bentham was an English philosopher born in 1748 into a family of lawyers and lived during a time of major social, political and economic change. He himself was a lawyer, though he never practiced the profession. While he was in the process of joining the profession, he became dissatisfied with the British law and took it upon him to reform the system. In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation published in 1789, Bentham wrote “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do”. This formed the starting point of his inquiry and the foundation for his theory.

Principle Of Utility

Bentham forwarded the principle of utility which formed part of the family of consequentialist ethical theories, which evaluated the actions of an individual on the basis of its consequences.  Bentham was avant-garde in focusing on the consequences of the behaviour instead of on the intent behind the behaviour. He considered intentions to be irrelevant and believed that good actions would result in good consequences. He proposed that the most important consideration should be the pleasure and pain quality arising from the consequences of our actions. Simply put, an action can be characterised as good if it results in pleasure and bad if it results in pain. The principle of Utility is an action that is commended or condemned according to whether it produces benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness or prevents mischief, pain or unhappiness.

However, the principle of utility is different from egoism which endorses pleasure of oneself. Utilitarianism provides that one should pursue pleasure not just for us but for as many sentient beings as possible. Bentham stated that “We should act always so as to produce the greatest good for the greatest number”. A utilitarian would therefore sacrifice their pleasure for the pleasure of the group.

Bentham created the utilitarian calculus to aid in the calculation of pleasure or pain. The individual action is to be judged on 4 elements namely, intensity, duration, certainty and propinquity (whether the pleasure will come soon or will it be a delayed pleasure). Further, in order to calculate for actions classified as certain types then two more elements needed to be included namely fecundity (does the action have any secondary pleasures) and purity (does it have any secondary pains). Moreover, when considering actions for groups one more element is added and that is extent (number of people affected).

Bentham did not believe in the concept of interest of the group. He instead held that the interest of groups is the sum of the interest of the individual and that groups do not exists independent of the individuals. Moreover, he proposed that as the main consideration of the theory is suffering, all persons are equal when calculating the pleasure attached to the action.

Criticism

There have been a number of criticisms of Bentham’s principle. The principle as expounded by Bentham came to be regarded as Act-utilitarianism or classical utilitarianism.

One objection to the principle was that it justified any crime and even made it morally compulsory in order to achieve the satisfaction of pleasure for the greatest number. Bernard Williams presented a thought experiment as a criticism which involved Jim a botanist faced with the choice of killing one prisoner for the release of others or death of all 20 prisoners.  He rejected the theory on the basis that any system that exacts immoral acts and reduces moral decisions to mere algorithms is incompatible with morality. He cited that utilitarianism requires the killing of the prisoner. The trolley thought experiment which involved deciding between killing one or five persons by throwing a switch to divert a trolley car and physician thought experiment which required a physician to kill one healthy person to save the life of five terminally ill patients by preforming organ transplant demonstrate that the theory in a manner justifies any criminal activity (e.g. genocidal murders) or endangering life for the benefit of others.

Another complaint presented was that the theory is impracticable. The theory assumes that an individual has sufficient time, information and knowledge to calculate the consequences of an act, evaluate their worth and make comparison with other alternative acts before taking actions.

Alternatively, a critic stated that the theory failed to recognise other motivations that guide human action. By focusing the theory on simple pleasure and pain devolves human thinking to animalistic needs. As a corollary Karl Marx, in Das Kapital, criticised utilitarianism on the grounds that the principle failed to afford attention to the phenomenon that people from different socioeconomic context perceive joy differently. Furthermore, Pope John Paul II argued that “Utilitarianism is a civilization of production and of use, a civilization of things and not of persons, a civilization in which persons are used in the same way as things are used”. Therefore, utilitarianism tended to make people similar to objects of use.

A prominent criticism was the failure of the principle to distinguish between the well-being of strangers and that of known persons. Therefore, the principle ignores our special obligations. Any act where one prefers a close relative over a stranger shall be an immoral act under utilitarianism. Roger Scruton criticises that theory does not give duty a place inside our ethical judgements.  Peter Singer, a modern day utilitarian, answers that “the question however, is not what we usually do, but what we ought to do, and it is difficult to see any sound moral justification for the view that distance, or community membership, makes a crucial difference to our obligations”. Furthermore, some critics have raised ‘demandingness objection’ which states that the combination of equality with the greatest good for greatest number places unreasonable demands on an individual. The huge number of people and the indefinitely many opportunities to make sacrifices to help them would require a person to sacrifice a lot and remain in a constant state of hardship and self-denial. According to Hooker this is wasteful as such sacrifice shall only result in a slight increase in the aggregate good.

Developments of the theory

J.S. Mill, a student and ardent follower of Bentham, rejected the proposition that all pleasures are the same and can be compared. This emanated from Bentham’s failure to distinguish between pleasure and happiness and defining them as the same thing. Mill in his modification of the principle of utility proposed different ‘levels’ of pleasure and recognised that some pleasures were more desirable and valuable than others.

G. E. Moore proposed ‘ideal utilitarianism’ where he rejected a purely hedonistic character of utilitarianism and argued for the incorporation of a range of values that may be maximized to attain pleasure. He argued against the proposition that pleasure was the only consideration to evaluate morality.

A number of philosophers proposed ‘rule- utilitarianism’ to rescue Bentham’s theory. The theory incorporates the use of rules to aid in the choice of the right action. This modification is purposed to remove the failings arising from calculating the consequences of each and every action resulting in an individual selecting an inferior alternative. Therefore, ‘rule- utilitarianism maintains that an action is right if it conforms to a rule that maximizes utility’

R. M. Hare in 1981 proposed an alternative theory named ‘preference utilitarianism’. He explained the theory as “By this I mean the principle that, in deciding what is good and what is bad for a given individual, the ultimate criterion can only be his own wants and his own preferences.”. The principle unlike Bentham’s utilitarianism which focuses on actions maximising pleasure, preference utilitarianism focuses on promoting actions which fulfill the interest of the individual person or being involved. However, critics have pointed out that the theory fails to consider the views of persons not holding the agency to make preferences like animals or children.

Conclusion

Utilitarianism has profoundly impacted the modern society and its laws. Utilitarianism was radical in the sense that it is a theory that is aimed at defining one simple basis that can be applied when making any ethical decision. Criticism has not diminished its importance. It is important to understand utilitarianism as it forms the basic tenants of legal theory and function of laws. It assists in developing policies by examining their consequences and ensuring it touches the greatest number of people. The theory informs debates on social issues and is the foundation for the modern animal rights campaign.