Philosophy - British Utilitarianism

British Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism - an essentially British philosophy of the 19th C; defined virtue in terms of utility (the enhancement of the happiness of man); “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”  (goal of society).

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) - advocated the intellectual and social independence of individuals, defended civil liberties, declared belief in democratic ideals regarded as a means toward universal happiness, not as an absolute truth; his system was egoistic and individual.

fiction - refers to widely accepted values.

- rejected Kant’s view of duty as the criterion of moral values; rather pleasure was the proper measure of right conduct.

- devised a method of determining which alternative actions would be preferable because of the amount of pleasure to be anticipated (a Hedonic calculus), based on (1) intensity  (2) duration (3) certainty (4) remoteness (5) fecundity (6) purity (7) extent

James Mill’s utilitarianism and “association of ideas” (based on the psychological principle of contiguity) influenced greatly both David Ricardo (1772-1823) and Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) - delineated the foundations of inductive logic and scientific method; induction is the process by which we conclude that what is true of certain individuals of a class, is true of the whole class.

- the principles of induction are possible only because of the presence of uniformity in nature.

- pleasures differ in kind as well as in amount (Quantitative Hedonism)

Mill advocated laissez-faire individualism, including freedom of competition, freedom to unite, freedom of belief, freedom of taste; he qualified these freedom’s with the proviso that an individual’s freedoms must not injure others or transgress upon their rights.

- he was a theistic finitist: believing in a good God who is involved in a world not of his own making (ie. a God of limited power).

Henry Sidgwick argued that another’s happiness will become as important to us as our own as soon as we accept the Kantian theory that what is right for one is right for all.

- morally right acts are not limited to conduct which gives pleasure, but consist of conduct which produces the best possible consequences (Hastings Rashdall and George Edward Moore).