Not to do this is to worship the rules rather than the principle of utility itself. In order to avoid rule worship, the theory collapses into act utilitarianism, as we have to make exceptions to every occasion of this sort. This seems like an improvement, but there are situations where breaking the rule increases utility - where it may be expedient to break them, to put it Mill's way. ![]() (23) In short, utilitarianism is consequentialist and welfarist. Second, utilitarians believe that the good is additive. only in virtue of the well-being of the lives of particular individuals. This theory of justice claims that equal consideration of interests will lead to equality of resources because of the diminishing marginal utility of income. Do not kill people (as killing people tends to lower net utility). Utilitarianism holds, first, that a state of affairs is good or bad to some degree. Mill suggested that the principle of utility should be used to determine moral rules which govern utility. These are real difficulties, knotty points both in the theory of ethics and in the practical personal matter of living conscientiously. Mill developed rule utilitarianism to avoid this. ![]() This meant that some abhorrent acts were permitted.įor example, two torturers may be justified in their activity if their pleasure outweighs the harm done to the victim. Bentham's theory was act utilitarianism, but Mill's was rule utilitarianism. Bentham's theory applied the principle of utility to individual acts and situations directly. Though Mill's theory is more respectful of human nature, it makes pleasure even more difficult to calculate as we now have to consider unquantifiable quality of pleasure, as well as the quantity. For Mill, higher pleasures are more valuable than lower pleasures, because of their "intrinsic superiority". Mill acknowledged this, and to sidestep the criticism, he considered both quantity and quality pleasure. Mill distinguished between higher pleasures (those that require mental faculties that only educated humans could obtain) and lower pleasures ( bodily pleasures that both animals and humans could experience). "Quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry". This is because he made no distinction between the pleasures experienced by beasts and those experienced by humans. Both thought that the moral value of an act was determined by the pleasure it produced.īentham considered only quantity of pleasure, but Mill considered both quantity and quality of pleasure.īentham's utilitarianism was criticised for being a philosophy "worthy of only swine".
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