PHIL-P 140 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Intelligence, God, Aristotle
PHIL-P 140
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Mill, Utilitarianism
Chapter 1
There ought to be one, fundamental principle of morality; or, if there are several, there should be
a way to rank order them where they conflict. (2R)
Claim: Many have accepted the same moral rules and tacitly accept a utilitarian principle
grounding those rules (2R).
Chapter 2
The foundational principle of morality, the criterion of judging right or wrong actions, is the
principle of utility, or Greatest Happiness Principle (GHP):
—“actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to
produce the reverse of happiness” (5L)
—“happiness”: pleasure and the absence of pain (5L)
Why accept the GHP?
“pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things that are desirable as ends; and…everything
that is desirable at all is so either for the pleasure inherent in it or as means to the promotion of
pleasure and the prevention of pain” (5L)
Two qualitatively different kinds of pleasure:
intellectual and sensual ( “higher” and “lower”) (5-6)
intellectual pleasures: those stemming from intelligence, education, developed conscience
1. The only way to judge the value of pleasures, whether in quantity or quality, is to ask which
are preferred by those who have experienced the pleasures in question.
2. If those who have experienced two kinds of pleasures prefer one, even if they could get more
of the other, then the former pleasure is better in kind. (1)
3. Those who have experienced “higher” pleasures as well as “lower” ones prefer the higher,
even if they could get more of the lower.
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4. Therefore, higher pleasures are better in kind than lower pleasures. (2,3)
Further claim: pursuit of ‘higher’ pleasures more likely to promote greater happiness amongst
others, and so better for this reason, acc. to GHP. (8L)
What sorts of consequences? (Actual, intended, expected?):
1. What makes actions morally right/wrong is their “tendency” to produce pleasure or pain—
actions are right “in proportion as they tend to promote happiness.”
– consider consequences that usually apply to a certain type of action.
2. Consequences for whom?
a. not everyone in the world, only those “concerned” with an action (13L)
b. everyone’s happiness is to be treated impartially, counted equally (12L)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Chapter 4
A reconstruction of Mill's ‘proof’ of the “principle of utility/GHP”:
1. Each person’s happiness is desirable as an end of action for that person (and so a “good” to
that person). (24)
2. Happiness is the only thing desirable/good as an end of action for each person (24-6)
- all other desirable/good things are so either as parts of or as means to happiness
- so happiness is the only thing intrinsically good
3. General happiness is a good to the aggregate of all persons. (24) (from 1)
4. General happiness is the only ultimate end of human action. (26) (from 2 & 3?)
5. What counts as morally right is what produces the ultimate end of human action. (26)
6. What counts as morally right is what produces general happiness [=GHP]. (26) (from 4&5)
Chapter 5
What is the Relationship between Considerations of Utility and Justice?
Q1: Can utilitarianism account for moral judgments about what is just/unjust?
Mill’s analysis of rules of justice:
Rules of justice are duties ‘of perfect obligation’: what we must always do or refrain from
doing. You can’t choose when/how to perform them and when/how not to.
Violating them involves harm to a particular person(s); respecting them is a moral
obligation that a particular individual can claim as a “right.”
Mill’s utilitarian account of the basis of these rules:
Rules of justice have a special status. The basis for the special status is utility:
marking off ‘rights’ and protecting them promotes the general happiness.
This is because rules of justice defend security, something no one can do without;
they are thereby “more vital to human well-being” than other moral rules.
Q2: Would not utilitarianism allow for people to act unjustly if doing so on particular occasions
would produce more happiness in a group overall?
Mill: No, not if the infliction of great pain was unjust. It is not permissible to treat people
unjustly (to violate their rights) in order to promote the general happiness.
Rules of justice are so important to human well being that they are, in one sense, inviolable.
However, in another sense, there are still exceptions to rules of justice:
“particular cases may occur in which some other social duty is so important, as to overrule
any one of the general maxims of justice” (25)
“In such cases, … we usually say, not that justice must give way to some other moral
principle, but that what is just in ordinary cases is, by reason of that other principle, not just
in the particular case.… [In this way], the character of indefeasibility attributed to justice is
kept up, and we are saved from the necessity of maintaining that there can be laudable
injustice” (25).
Q3: What determines when we have one of these exceptional cases?
Seemingly natural answer: when it would produce greater utility/‘happiness’.
If so, Princ of Utility basis of all moral decisions.... End may justify any means?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
There ought to be one, fundamental principle of morality; or, if there are several, there should be a way to rank order them where they conflict. (2r) Claim: many have accepted the same moral rules and tacitly accept a utilitarian principle grounding those rules (2r). The foundational principle of morality, the criterion of judging right or wrong actions, is the principle of utility, or greatest happiness principle (ghp): Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness (5l) Happiness : pleasure and the absence of pain (5l) Further claim: pursuit of higher" pleasures more likely to promote greater happiness amongst others, and so better for this reason, acc. to ghp. (8l) What sorts of consequences? (actual, intended, expected: what makes actions morally right/wrong is their tendency to produce pleasure or pain actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness.
