ethical theory discussion

Notes  on  consequentialist  ethics:  Bentham  and  Hedonism   Nathan  Poage      

Preliminary  Matters   Ethical  theories  have  two  general  aspects:  an  axiology  or  theory  of  value  which   describes  what  is  good  and  a  deontology  which  discusses  what  ought  to  be  done.   Consequentialism  is  in  general  a  hedonistic  theory  in  terms  of  value  because  what  is   of  value  is  pleasure  (hedone  in  Greek).    We  find  this  hedonism  clearly  at  the   beginning  of    Jeremy  Bentham’s  Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation:       Nature  has  placed  mankind  under  the  governance  of  two  sovereign  masters,         pain  and  pleasure.  It  is  for  them  alone  to  point  out  what  we  ought  to  do,  as       well  as  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:     every  effort  we  can  make  to  throw  off  our  subjection,  will  serve  but  to       demonstrate  and  confirm  it.  (Bentham  8  in  The  Classical  Utilitarians:       Bentham  and  Mill,  Hackett,  2003)     This  passage  is  somewhat  ambiguous  in  what  it  is  that  it  claims.  For  instance,  one   interpretation  of  this  passage  is  that  being  governed  by  pain  and  pleasure   (hedonism)  is  a  psychological  reality  that  we  can’t  fight.  Another  interpretation  is   that  what  is  of  value  is  pleasure,  what  is  of  disvalue  is  pain  and  that  these  values   govern  what  we  should:  do  our  “oughts”  if  you  will.  In  general  Bentham  thinks  that   what  we  should  do  is  to  create  the  most  utility  (pleasure,  benefit)  for  those  affected   by  a  particular  action,  thus  his  theory  is  a  maximizing  theory.  In  Chapter  IV  of  the   Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation  he  gives  further  guidelines  for  how  we  are  to   measure  pleasures  and  pains  on  a  personal  level:  we  judge  them  by  their  1)   intensity,  2)  their  duration,  3)  their  certainty  or  uncertainty,  4)  their  propinquity   (closeness)  or  remoteness.  Considered  as  they  are  connected  to  other  pains  and   pleasures  we  should  consider  their  fecundity  (their  ability  to  produce  more  of  the   like  sensation)  and  their  purity  (the  likelihood  that  they  will  not  be  followed  by  their   opposite  sensation).  Finally,  in  reference  to  others,  we  should  consider  the  extent  of   the  pleasure,  that  is  how  many  and  to  what  extent  the  pleasures  or  pains  will  affect   others.          

To  the  left  is  an  image  of  Jeremy  Bentham,   perhaps  the  most  famous  originator  of  the  theory   of  utilitarianism,  which  is  the  primary  form  of   consequentialism.  There  are  several  questions  we   could  ask  about  the  theory  and  several   philosophical  objections  we  could  make  to  it.  One   objection  has  to  do  with  its  theory  of  value  (its   hedonism)  and  goes  back  to  the  philosopher   Plato.  In  his  dialogue  the  Philebus,  he  discusses   what  is  of  ultimate  value  and  comes  to  the   conclusion  that  there  are  two  sources  of  value:   pleasure  and  knowledge.  We  would  not  like  to  be   turned  into  another  type  of  being  even  if  we  were   guaranteed  a  large  quantity  of  pleasure;  his   example  is  of  a  mollusk;  we  would  not  want  to  be   turned  into  a  mollusk  even  if  this  mollusk  would   have  a  full  share  of  pleasure  (even  a  life  more   pleasurable  than  are  own  if  these  lives  could  even   be  compared).  This  is  because  the  mollusk  lacks  a   characteristically  human  life,  a  life  which  includes   knowledge.  In  fact,  Plato  thinks  that  pleasure   requires  knowledge  to  make  it  valuable.  If  we   don’t  have  knowledge  we  wouldn’t  know  if  we   had  pleasure  or  not;  we  wouldn’t  be  able  to  plan   to  find  sources  of  pleasure  for  the  future  and  we   wouldn’t  be  able  to  remember  our  past  pleasures   and  compare  them  to  our  pleasant  pleasures   (Philebus  21c-­‐d).       In  the  Gorgias,  Plato  argues  that  pleasure  would   not  be  good  if  it  made  us  cowardly  or   dishonorable.  His  idea  is  that  it  is  possible  that  if   we  were  cowards,  and  ran  away  from  the  battle   that  we  could  have  more  pleasure  than  if  we   stood  and  faced  the  enemy  but  this  would  not  be   a  good  human  life  even  though  it  was  a   pleasurable  life  (Gorg.  498a-­‐499c).     A  similar  point  was  made  later  on  in  the  history   of  philosophy  by  the  British  Philosophy  G.  E.   Moore;  Moore  challenged  the  idea  that  pleasure  is   the  good  (hedonism)  by  arguing  that  while  it  may   be  clear  that  something  provides  pleasure  (say   receiving  an  unjust  advantage),  it  is  not  clear  that   it  is  good.  We  can  still  always  ask  the  question   “yes,  it  is  pleasure,  but  it  is  good?”.       Some  pleasures  are  bad  (receiving  an  unjust   advantage  say).  However,  a  utilitarian  will  be  able   to  admit  that  it  is  bad  to  the  extent  that  it  causes   pain  but  it  has  to  be  seen  as  good  to  the  extent   that  it  is  a  pleasure.  Others  would  like  to  deny   that  a  bad  pleasure  should  be  counted  as  a  value   in  an  ethical  theory  (cf.  Rawls).