43-44. Utilitarianism

I've made a serious blunder. I neglected to post the homework version of Utilitarianism before the show, mostly because I didn't realize we'd get through two theories in one night. So, although you can't do it for credit, here at least is what should have been included in the previous homework assignment.

Part 1: Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory credited mostly to a British philosopher named John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism defines good acts as ones which bring people pleasure and bad acts as ones which bring people pain. We should always be trying to increase or maximize pleasure in the world and decrease or minimize pain. The other key component of Utilitarianism is that each and every person in the world counts equally in our evaluations of pain and pleasure. For instance, if some act brings moderate pleasure to two people and brings moderate pain to only one other person, then that is a good act because it has created more pleasure than pain. Because Utilitarianism takes other people’s pains and pleasures into consideration, it is much more appealing than mere Egoism. It becomes especially appealing when the pain or work or effort is going to come from us and the pleasure is going to be gained by a lot of other people. That seems like nothing more than putting the needs of others before our own and being generous with our lives, which looks like a good idea.

Historically, one of the strengths of Utilitarianism is that it helps us deal with situations that seem to offer no hope of resolution because principles are seriously in conflict. For instance, when the US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, the claim was that killing 50,000 (arguably) innocent people would save the lives of 500,000 soldiers. Thus, the death of some was less than the death of many, and we went ahead. If every single human life is infinitely precious and cannot ever be outweighed by greater goods, then our response to evil seems to be quite hindered by the very principles which we use to condemn evil. If it will take deadly force to stop the Nazis, but one must never kill, then what can we do but lay down and die? Utilitarianism tries to answer to such problems. Some of you may have seen Star Trek 2, where Spock says, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” This is an excellent Utilitarian phrase.

As we will discuss, the distinctions between actual consequences and intended consequences and between whether each individual act should be analyzed on its own or whether it is the consequences generally found to follow from following a rule of behavior are certainly relevant questions for Utilitarian to address.

1-6. Answer questions from above.
7. Do the needs of the one ever outweigh the needs of the many?
8. Would you sacrifice a loved one to save the lives of two strangers? Should a person want to?
9. How do you count pleasure and pain?