Utilitarian hedonism
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) is generally considered the father of actual utilitarianism. The principle of utility - the “greatest happiness principle” or “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” - is the fundamental utilitarian principle, as expressed in this famous passage:
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pains and pleasure.
It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think... The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands or reason and of law. (Bentham 1789 [1967]: 1-2)Bentham sometimes alludes to the sum of individual utility, but the commitment of classical utilitarianism to the principle of the sum does not seem as robust and important as that of two other essential principles: impartiality and welfarism. Impartiality means that everyone counts for one and none for more than one. Welfarism is the focus on individual utility. Utility is conceived as a mental state representing happiness, the positive result of a balance between pains and pleasures or any personal valuable feelings. Individual utilities are calculated in three stages (Baujard 2009). First, Bentham lists the different classes of elementary pleasures or pains. Second, the value of utility is assessed according to different criteria including intensity, duration, certainty or uncertainty, propinquity or remoteness, fecundity, purity and extent - the three latter criteria refer to secondary effects of actions, likely to concern different persons, or induce other actions whose consequences should be assessed.
Finally, the result of this calculation is adjusted to each individual on the basis of the circumstances that influence her sensitivity. Since the idea of measuring pleasures and comparing them raises many practical problems, Bentham proposes to use some proxy for estimating it, and money may be able to provide the needed measuring rod - this being the ancestor of the idea of the willingness to pay or to accept. More generally, there is a global assumption according to which everyone shares vital concerns including security of expectations, subsistence, abundance and equality, such that rights are associated to all these goals.A tension lies in the duality of utility, which is supposed both to explain and justify actions. Why would an action that is desired by an individual always be good for her? Moreover, why would it be good for society? Is vice really undesirable and virtue desirable? Should individuals sacrifice their happiness for that of others? There can be tensions between the reach of the individual’s happiness and that of society, which utilitarianism needs to reconcile.
Bentham recognizes there may be mistakes, cognitive limits, or more fundamentally what we would call now external effects - as introduced by the criteria of fecundity, purity and extent - that are likely to hamper the ideal conjunction of individual interests. Whenever utility is likely not to be maximized, Bentham designs external punishments and rewards, and appeals to various kinds of influence (such as peer pressure) to make sure that individuals are incited to revert to a better action, so that egoistic people, or people who might be wrong, bad at calculating, or insufficiently informed, will eventually act to maximize social utility.
John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism (1806-1873), influenced by perfectionist intuitions, is also meant to answer objections such as those levelled at Bentham’s theory. Among other insights, he recognizes that all pleasures do not seem equally valuable, as evoked in a celebrated passage: “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 a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question” (Mill 1861 [1998]: 37). Mill’s utilitarianism is able to discriminate higher moral and aesthetic sentiments from sources of swinish pleasure. His proof for his principle of ranking is based on the fact that those who have experienced both kinds of pleasures know which is more valuable; this is why we speak of Mill’s qualitative utilitarianism.The details of the consideration of different sources of pleasure as set out in Mill’s view has led certain authors to regret Mill’s “naturalist fallacy” (Moore 1903). In order to distinguish between different kinds of pleasures, we need to suppose there exists another value, other than utility, which has intrinsic importance, such that some specific actions are good by their nature rather than by their actual consequences.