U T I L I T A R I A N I S M

“classic utilitarianism”John Stuart Mill

(1806-1873) Jeremy Bentham

(1748-1832)

The Greatest Happiness Principle

“Actions are right in proportion as they tend to

promote happiness, wrong asthey tend to produce the

reverse of happiness”

The Greatest Happiness Principle

“pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends...all

desirable things are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, oras means to the promotion of pleasure

and the prevention of pain.”

Objection: There is more to life than pleasure; knowledge, virtue and otherthings are important too. Utilitarianism is a doctrine worthy only of swine.

Reply: Utilitarianism requires that we consider everyone’s pleasure, not justour own. Also, says Mill, there is more to life than physical pleasure. Pleasures of the “higher faculties” (including intellectual pleasuresinaccessible to lower animals) are of higher quality than physical pleasures(and thus count for more).

Mill: "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of adifferent opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question".