PHILOS 2D03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Act Utilitarianism
7 Dec 2017
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Utility pleasure itself, together with the exemption of pain . Utility is whatever increases pleasure in the widest possible sense and decreases pain in the widest possible sense => happiness. Since pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends a normative claim follows. Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness . Of two pleasures, the one that has a superior quality will be given preference. The competent judge" will consistently prefer and seek to satisfy those pleasures that accord with our higher faculties". The utilitarian standard: while each individual ought to desire and seek to produce happiness, this is not a suf cient condition for the act to be morally right. Another condition is necessary : mill: not the agent"s own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness together . All moral actions are those done for the sake of.
