Could you work out what's right by adding up everyone's pleasure and pain?
Jeremy Bentham thought morality was arithmetic, and he left his body to be preserved on public display after his death.
▶ Start the storyUtilitarians say yes, at least in principle. Utilitarianism is a family of theories that prescribe actions maximizing happiness and well-being for everyone affected: the greatest good for the greatest number. It is a version of consequentialism, which holds that the consequences of an action are the only standard of right and wrong.
Jeremy Bentham, regarded as its modern founder, put it bluntly: nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. To make the sum doable, he proposed measuring a pleasure or pain by its intensity, duration, certainty and nearness, and then counting how many people it touches. Everyone counts, and everyone counts equally: the theory weighs the interests of all humanity, or even all sentient beings.
Step 1: Rate each pleasure or pain
Intensity, duration, certainty, nearness
Step 2: Count who is affected
Everyone counts equally
Step 3: Add it up for each option
Step 4: Choose the biggest total
John Stuart Mill later objected that pleasures differ in quality, not just quantity. For Bentham, pleasure being equal, the game of push-pin was as valuable as music and poetry. Mill replied that it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
Bentham
- Push-pin is as valuable as poetry, pleasure being equal
- Only quantity of pleasure matters
Mill
- Pleasures differ in quality
- Better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied
The theory's critics found uncomfortable cases. Robert Nozick imagined a utility monster that gets far more pleasure from every resource than anyone else does. If it existed, the monster's pleasure would outweigh everyone else's suffering, and the theory would seem to justify sacrificing the rest of us. Another objection, which came to prominence with Rawls in 1971, is that utilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between persons.
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Recap
Utilitarianism judges acts by their consequences for everyone's well-being, counting each person equally, and critics ask what that arithmetic leaves out.
💡 A trick to remember it · Add it all up, everyone counts once: but a monster that enjoys more can wreck the sum.
Surprising fact · Bentham asked to be preserved as an "auto-icon", which now sits on display at University College London.
Connects to
- 📜 Why did Kant say you must not lie even to a murderer at your door?
- 🏛️ Why did Aristotle say being good is a habit you practise, not a rule you follow?
- Trolley problem
- Consequentialism
- Jeremy bentham
- John stuart mill
- Utility monster
Sources (4)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (16 claims) cites at least one of these.