hello to you I do hope you're well welcome to this a-level religious studies revision video I'm Ben Wardle and today we are talking about Jeremy bentham's utilitarianism now we will also be touching on John Stewart Mill's rule utilitarianism and preference utilitarianism as well but in today's video our focus is going to be on the founding father of utilitarianism who was of course Jeremy Benson so we'll be covering your key ao1 knowledge and your ao2 evaluation so that you can secure an AAR on this topic in the exam now I thought we could start with one of the most famous quotes from bensam which is that nature has placed mankind under the governance of two Sovereign Masters pain and pleasure and he said it is for them alone to point out what we ought to do because remember benam and his idea of act utilitarianism is all about the importance of of maximizing pleasure for the greatest number of people and minimizing pain and so he of course proposes a honic calculus which we should be using to calculate whether our action is moral or not and of course that is going to be based on whether it brings about the greatest happiness the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest number of people so bensim and his key idea of act utilitarianism is all about maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain and of course this all depends on the prediction of outcomes and consequences this is a consequentialist theory because it requires you to make a prediction about whether your action will bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people so you know a really interesting theory for us to be looking at and actually at the end of the video I will be asking you to make a judgment as to whether you think the strengths of utilitarianism outweigh the weaknesses the please do be ready to let me know what you think in the comments section down below so let's get started shall we with our look at bentham's utilitarianism and I think we have to start with a look at the trolley problem don't we because you cannot talk about utilitarianism unless you have spoken about the trolley problem so let's imagine the scenario shall we that you are walking along down by the train line and you see five people are tied to the track as you do a very common occurrence for you I'm sure um and these five people we don't know who they are but they are all tied to the track we also don't know why they're there but we'll just park that thought for a minute what we do know is that they are tied to the track and there is a train coming towards them now you're obviously seeing this and you're thinking oh dear this is awful these five people are about to be killed by this train what you then realize is that there is a thighing yeah so there is actually a siding which goes off and you could divert the train onto that siding so there is a lever that you can pull and if you pull that lever the train won't continue continue excuse me getting very excited about this it won't continue down the main track but it will actually be diverted off to the siding so you can pull that lever and the train will be diverted and that means of course that those five people who are tied to the track will actually be saved however really important that you know that on that siding there is one person who is working on the tracks that they're you know doing some work to repair the tracks you know they've got the hi is on they've come down from Network Rail and they're doing a bit of Maintenance work so you are thinking in that moment right okay these five people are about to be killed if I don't do anything this train is going to keep going down the main line and it's going to run over and kill these five people but there is a lever that I can pull which will divert the train onto the sidings so that it will actually avoid killing those five people and go off down the sidings but what you know is that if you do that the one person working on the sidings working on that bit of track is going to be killed instead so you've got to think right am I going to act to save these five people even though I know this means I'm going to end up killing that one person now the way that we link this back to utilitarianism is that Jeremy Benson believes in the greatest happiness for the greatest number so he would actually say you are justified in pulling that lever even though you know it will kill one person because the outcome the goal is the greatest happiness for the greatest number because you are going to be saving five lives so for benom you would be justified in killing one person person in order to save five people so this is a really interesting thought experiment when it comes to utilitarianism because it's a way of helping us to remember that utilitarian ethics are consequentialist it's about acting in a way where you are predicting outcomes that your action will be justified if it brings about the greatest happiness for the greatest number so really interested to hear actually what you think what you would do in this scenario but then what you think of bentham's response as well the idea that we should always act to maximize pleasure and minimize pain and so we should always be acting to bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number and of course if we are using that logic if we are using that way of thinking then we would pull that lever we would actually be responsible for killing one person in order to save five others and that is of course about the quantity of pleasure the quantity of happiness so that leads me to the first key thing we need to talk about today which is that Jeremy benam is focused on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain and this is derived from that key quote that we've already mentioned that is that nature has placed mankind under the governance so under the control and the authority of two Sovereign Masters pain and pleasure so you know they direct us they shape us they influence us and he said it is for them alone to point out what we to do so we should always be acting to maximize pleasure and minimize pain because they come naturally to us we naturally seek pleasure and we naturally want to avoid pain now there's a great synoptic link we can make to met ethics here because of course this is an example of ethical naturalism the idea that something that is naturally occurring to us should be pursued and of course this is criticized by GE Mo with his natural istic fallacy because he said just because something seems to come naturally to us that doesn't mean we can assume it's right but for benam he is an ethical naturalist he believes that because Nature has placed us under these two Sovereign masters of Pleasure and Pain they should shape our moral decision making all our ethical decision making should be about maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain and for benam it's very much about quantity it's about the great greatest happiness for the greatest number and so whereas when John Stewart Mill develops utilitarianism he is more specific about what pleasure actually means he says that there are higher pleasures and lower Pleasures for example because he believed that it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied and we'll talk about that more a little bit later but just for now really important that benom focused on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain and that is because he believes Nature has placed us under those two Sovereign Masters as he calls them pain and pleasure and so he believes as an ethical naturalist that our ethics should be focused on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain and of course that is why with the trolley problem you would be pulling the lever you would be killing one person in order to save five because you are maximizing pleasure and you are minimizing pain and this leads us on then to the other key con concept really in act utilitarianism so it's not just about maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain but it's about the end justifying the means so bentham's focus is on outcomes and his honic calculus is created to help you predict outcomes and then make your decision as to whether you should act in that way or not because as I've put here unlike can deontological ethics bentham's utilitarianism is focused on consequences it's all about the outcomes and so of course this requires the prediction of outcomes in order to ascertain the morality of actions you know the morality of Your Action is dependent on its consequences so of course unlike K who is you know very concerned with the action itself and that's why he has categorical imperatives things that are always right or always wrong for benam whether something is right or wrong depends on the outcome it depends on whether it will maximize pleasure and minimize pain whether it will lead to the greatest happiness or the greatest number and that is a really key phrase to get down on a Post-It note and memorize and then obviously youth whenever you're talking about or writing about utilitarianism that The end justifies the means because as I say Ben's approach is all about consequences determining morality that it's about maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain in other words it's about the greatest happiness with the greatest number and that is how we then decide whether our action is right or wrong based on its consequences so this is a teleological Theory this is a consequentialist theory which is all about outcomes and of course one of our criticisms here is that it is actually impossible to accurately predict outcomes isn't it so you know I've got someone there doing a bit fortune telling having a look in their Crystal Ball but obviously a key criticism here is that this is actually very difficult and you could say it places too many demands on the individual because how on Earth are they meant to accurately predict the outcomes of their moral decisions for example with the trolley problem in that moment how on Earth are you meant to actually make that decision you know do you really have the time to get out your honic Calculus and start making a decision about what you should do and that's why for some people John Stewart Mills rule utilitarianism is actually a better approach because it does say to follow the rule rather rather than to just use your honic Calculus in each situation so let's just have a quick look at the key wordss before we go into further detail on who benenson was and what he believes so consequentialist ethics is our first key word and this refers to a type of theological ethical Theory which is based on probable consequences and again you know the key term there is probable it's all about predictions so you're never going to be able to accurately see into the future are you you know you don't have that crystal ball you are not Mystic Meg so it is going to be about predictions and probability um and that's obviously about your uh consequences and outcomes and so the rightness or wrongness of our actions is determined by their consequences so that really is the key takeaway I think today that the rightness or the wrongness of an action is determined by its consequences it's about the outcome it leads to it's about whether it maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain or causes the greatest happiness for the greatest number utility then really key term when we're talking about utilitarianism it is the idea of usefulness um so utility literally means usefulness and the way I remember this is to think about the useful uh you know things in your home that you need on a daily basis you know things like water for example they are useful things that we need so the idea of usefulness is that we should do whatever is useful in increasing overall good and decreasing overall evil and of course because of his uh belief about Pleasure and Pain Benson believes that good is um obviously going to be about pleasure whereas evil is about pain and of course again G Mo would say that he's making a naturalistic fallacy here that he is associating what is the good with pleasure just because that seems to come naturally to us and it seems to be what we naturally desire but that's not necessarily an assumption we can make make is it so again you know linking in met ethics here that question of what is the good for benam the good is pleasure because we seem to naturally seek that and desire that the principle of utility then which is at the core of utilitarianism is the principle that actions are to be judged by their youthfulness in this sense in the sense of their tendency to produce benefit Advantage pleasure good or happiness so the principle of utility is that idea that an actions morality is based on its consequences it's based on the extent to which it brings about happiness pleasure goodness so you know that's the idea here at the core of utilitarianism so we then have act utilitarianism which is Jeremy bentham's original idea and it's the idea that we should always perform the act that leads to the greatest balance of good over evil and remember that key question of what is the good which we know from met ethics benam had answered it by saying the good is that which causes pleasure that brings about Pleasure and minimizes Pain evil in his idea so he uses the honic calculus in order to work this out because of course act utilitarianism is on a caseby casee basis you know every single action has to uh be seen in isolation you know you've got to act in accordance with the principle of utility in every situation you face in life um and so he gives us very kindly his honic calculus to help us do that so this is a system for working out the amount of pleasure or pain involved in a course of action and there are seven parts to this and we are going to talk through them in a moment but they include the intensity the duration the certainty and the facundity so you know the honic calculus is what you need to get out whenever you are in a moral dilemma or you're about to act and you've got to then work out what the consequences of that action will be and will at least lead to a greater balance of pleasure over pain the rule utilitarianism development then is made by John Stewart Mill and this is the idea that we should always follow the rule that generally leads to the greatest balance of good over evil so he replaces the honic calculus with an obedience to rules which lead to the greatest balance of good over evil so John Stewart Mill likes the principle of utility he is more specific than benam in terms of what pleasure actually is as I say he differentiates between the higher and lower Pleasures um and then as I say it's about following the rule so we move from act to rule utilitarianism with M we then have preference utilitarianism which we associate with rmha who again we know from our conversations about meterics and Peter Singer and uh preference utilitarianism is the idea that actions are right if they maximize the satisfaction of preferences or desires so this is a more contemporary development of utilitarianism which could show that it Still Remains relevant you know even if you no longer believe in a honic calculus and you think that's impractical you might say it does remain relevant because of more contemporary versions such as preference utilitarianism we then have this really interesting key term which is swine ethic okay and this is an objection to bentham's utilitarianism that argues it is unfit for humans because it recog is no higher purpose to life than the mere pursuit of pleasure so remember benam has said Nature's placed us under two Sovereign Masters Pleasure and Pain so he seems to be suggesting the purpose of Our Lives is pleasure and for some critics this is a problem because surely they say there must be more to our lives than just pursuing pleasure now as I've said John Stewart Mill does answer this with his differentiation between higher and lower Pleasures you know for mill who is very influenced by Aristotle and the idea of pursuing UD demonia Mill believes that you know there are higher Pleasures you know as his you know development literally says and he believes that there are certain things unique to human beings that we should prioritize you know things like contemplation the study of philosophy the appreciation of art so you know we could say that Mill responds to this criticism but one of the key criticisms of Bam's utilitarianism is that is simply based on maximizing pleasure and for many critics they make the argument that surely there is more to life our life has a higher tellos than just pursuing pleasure and they also question what this could justify you know what kind of behaviors could his act utilitarianism actually justify if it's based on maximizing pleasure for the majority of people uh we'll look at the case study of gang rape for example and then finally the tyranny of the majority again this is another key criticism of bentham's act utilitarianism that we'll be looking at when we focus on our ao2 it's a fear that if the majority rules what is to stop it um from exploiting and taking advantage of the minority or from tyrannizing tyrannizing sorry I don't know what happened to my acccident there in other ways by enforcing the majori will on the minority so this is a really key criticism of Bam's utilitarianism and it's this question of Human Rights you know whereas with k for example he said that every person must be treated as an end in themselves remember for benam he would be quite happy for people to be used as a means to an end such as that poor worker on the track who he's quite happy to kill off to save five other people so the tyranny of the majority in this context is about saying well if you're always focused on maximizing pleasure for the majority what does that mean for minorities in society you know LGBT people for example you know religious minorities could they end up having their human rights eroded could they end up being used as a means to an end to bring about the happiness and the pleasure of the majority um and Fa famously benam said that human rights are nonsense on stilts so we are going to look at the human rights implications of utilitarianism and we'll be asking could it lead to Human Rights abuses and could it lead to minorities being exploited so lots to talk about we're going to start with a quick look at who was Jeremy benam now here he actually is very famously uh UCL actually had his body including his head preserved benam wanted his body preserved after his death and students walking into the UCL campus can actually see him sat there preserved in this box now just a bit of trivia for you his real head was actually stolen uh from the display by students from arriv rival University from KCl where I actually studied uh although I'd like to just confirm I had no involvement in this um so he is actually there and we're going to find out about who he is and why he might be on display at a university because actually he did do a lot of work in pioneering people's access to education so he was an English philosopher and so reformer he lived from 1742 to 1832 he was an empiricist and of course that is one of our key terms for this a level isn't it so he obviously believed as an empiricist in deriving knowledge um from experience via the senses and that includes of course ethical knowledge and the key point is again that he said didn't he that mankind has been placed under these two Sovereign Masters so we believe that we should determine our ethics we should decide on the focus of our ethics through empiricism and he said that shows us that Pleasure and Pain should be our key Focus points when it comes to ethical decision- making that we should move towards maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain because that's what comes naturally to us so you know he derived that from his empirical observations of what he desired and what people desire he was of course as well a consequentialist who believed that ethics is about consequences and actions so in bentham's case the amount of happiness or pleasure that is produced by an action and of course it is interesting how we are using the term pleasure and happiness in a very interchangeable way because of course is pleasure happiness you know and that is a key question we have to ask when we are studying utilitarianism you know benom is quite happy to use pleasure and happiness interchangeably but is that actually the case you know should we be pursuing pleasure does pleasure lead to human happiness or does it show as we've just mentioned this is a swine ethic now he is known for being the father of act utilitarianism Because he believes that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong uh and then as I say just a bit of trivia for you uh he is one of the founders of the University of London and his preserved skeleton is on display at UCL and his preserved head is also kept securely at UCL to avoid it being stolen again so just a little bit of information if you do end up at University in London if you do end up at UCL you might be seeing a bit more of benam so it's nice to know about the ethical theory he introduced to the world isn't it so again I hope you're realizing how important this quote is for our understanding of bensam and his act utilitarianism because I want to remind you again that he said nature yeah this is an example of naturalism of ethical naturalism 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 so our ethical decision- making needs to be about maximizing pleasure which benam Sor is happiness and minimizing pain and of course he therefore believed that it is the greatest happiness for the greatest number that should be a measure of right and wrong and so actions should be judged by their consequences and outcomes so just to break this quote down into a few key bullet points for you he argues that pain and pleasure are our masters we naturally we instinctively seek pleasure and we seek to avoid pain and our psychology is built on seeking pleasure and avoiding pain and of course this is an example then of ethical naturalism because he then decides to make his moral theory to make his ethical Theory all about maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain because he is assuming here that what is natural to us is good the fact that we naturally desire pleasure and we naturally try to avoid pain he then assumed means we should therefore act to maximize pleasure and minimize pain and of course as an empiricist he believes we can discover morality through empirical observation via our senses so from this from this idea that we need to be maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain he presents to us his principle of utility and remember utility means youthfulness so this is the idea that we should do whatever is useful in increasing overall good and decreasing overall evil so again The end justifies the means do whatever it takes to bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number so given that we are motivated by Pleasure and Pain benon proposes one simple moral principle that both individuals and governments should adopt so remember with act utilitarianism it is about you as an individual using your honic Calculus to act in a accordance with the principle of utility and so the idea of utility is that actions should be carried out if they produce more happiness pleasure or goodness and are likely to prevent pain misery and unhappiness so that is the focus of his ethics it is about maximizing happiness and pleasure and minimizing pain and misery so if we have a look at what he wrote he said that by the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or disminuye and minimizing pain and misery and he's saying there every action must be based on the principle of utility so whenever you act it's based on the principle of utility it is not about it is with can following categorical imperatives it's about acting in accordance with the principle of utility it's about doing what is useful to maximize pleasure and minimize pain so this leads to his act utilitarianism so this is the idea that every action you should perform should aim to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number and of course because it is act utilitarianism it is on an action by action or case by case basis and it aims to produce a balance of good over evil in each case and remember that metal link the benem good equals pleasure because that is what Nature has made us naturally desire so he says you should act to produce the balance of good over evil you should be maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain he provides us very kindly very helpfully with his honic calculus which he says we should use before acting so that you know help helps us to ascertain what the consequences of our action will be and therefore that will help us decide whether to act in that way now of course if we bring in a little bit of evaluation and critical analysis here before we focus on our ao2 later we could say that the case by case decision- making of this is both a strength and a weakness because we could say it allows flexibility because it means that you know you are always making your moral judgments in that situation so a bit like situation ethics it's got that flexibility has it however whilst that does give us flexibility and it means that we can act on a case-by Case basis you know it therefore adds considerable time doesn't it it's therefore very demanding and you could argue very difficult because if you have to make every moral judgment on a case-by casee basis that is going to be time consuming because you don't just have a set of rules to follow you don't just have your categorical imperatives which are already laid out for you you have to make that decision you have to make that calculation and so you know it is we could argue time consuming it is demanding that you have to make moral judgments on a case-by casee basis that you've got to get your honic Calculus out and you've got to calculate it before you can act so we could ask you know is this actually practical will this work in practice um now Ben then believed it does work in practice and he you know he gave us he presented to us his honic calculus so that we could use it so the honic calculus is his method of calculating which course of action to take and we should use this on a case-by casee basis and we should use this to decide whether we should act in that way or not and He suggests that there are seven factors that should be taken into account when making a decision and you know they will then determine whether you do it or not so remember he believed in accordance with the principle of utility you should do whatever is useful for maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain and so bringing about the greatest happiness for the greatest number so he proposed as I say seven factors which you must take into account and that will help you work out whether that action will be useful for maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain so the first one is intensity so how strong is the pleasure over pain the next one is duration how long will it last the next one is certainty so How likely is it that the pleasure will actually occur and remember utilitarianism is all about predicting consequences and outcomes isn't it um we then have procin which is how soon will it actually occur Purity How likely is it that the pleasure will come from the original pleasure or the original action extent how many people will be affected and remember it's about the greatest happiness for the greatest number you know and that's why we have the criticism of the tyranny of the majority because it is about maximizing the majority and then we have for Thunder te How likely will it lead to even more pleasure in the future so these are the seven factors that you need to take into account when you are calculating when you are using your honic Calculus uh just a quick note by the way on atmology honic of course comes from Hedonism which is all about uh pleasure and happiness so this calculus is all about putting the principle of utility into action you know will my action be useful for maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain and if it is you know if your overall calculation comes to a positive number so to speak then you can act in that way you know whereas if you're in the minuses don't do the action so this is the calculus that you should be using in order to make your decision should I act in this way will it be useful for bringing about the greatest happiness for the greatest number um so you know do be thinking here about your O2 evaluation is this practical is this helpful has he included the right seven factors in your opinion and will this lead to the right ethical decisions being made or could it lead to things that are morally wrong being excused for example so you know really start to think critically about this calculus is it practical is it going to be helpful for bringing about the greatest happiness for the greatest number or what problems can you actually see with it so just something to think about out and what we will now do then is actually look at how John Stewart Mill developed and you know amended bentham's utilitarianism with his rule utilitarianism so as you can see from the dates here he was born in 1806 and he died in 1873 really famous philosopher one of my all-time favorite philosophers author of on Liberty which is that key text which is the idea that over his own body and mind the individual is Sovereign and he was heavily infl infuenced by benam but importantly you know he he didn't just follow everything benam said you know benam had taught him to think for himself and so you know he did make amendments he did make what you could say are improvements so he is the second of the great classical utilitarians and he keeps the central idea of utilitarianism so he keeps the principle of utility but he is aware of some issues that affect Bam's approach so you know he thought the reactions to benam he saw some of the potential problems with bentham's ethical Theory and then he was able to develop utilitarianism in a way that would improve on it you know that would resolve some of those issues and in his opinion make it much more suitable as a moral theory so he supports the utility principle but he rejected the honic calculus so for Mill the honic calculus has been struck off it's been thrown in the bin he's not interested did in it at all instead he develops what we call rule utilitarianism so you know the honic calculus is very unique to act utilitarianism because of course you need that calculus to ascertain whether your action is right or wrong you know whether it's going to lead to the greatest balance of uh pleasure over pain whereas for Mill he was interested in rules so you don't need a calculus to work out whether your action is morally justifiable instead you need rules so this is more focused on the common good now we're going to break this down a little bit more but I also want to mention at this point he believes that there are higher pleasures and lower pleasures and so when Mill refers to happiness he is referring to the Aristotelian idea of eudemonia and we're going to look at this a bit more again in just a moment he believed that it is better to be a human dissatisfied so he said it's better to be so rates one of the most intelligent philosophical thinkers in history dissatisfied than a pig satisfied so unlike benam who obviously was focused on the quantity of pleasure and he just wanted to maximize as much pleasure as possible for Mill the quality of pleasure is key it is about the quality of that pleasure rather than just the quantity of it so as I've mentioned one of the key amendments he makes is that he differentiates that he makes the distinction between higher and lower pleasures and so he focuses on the quality of pleasure uh rather than the quantity so as I mentioned he is influenced by Aristotle another one of our key thinkers on the course and his idea that happiness does not refer just to fulfilling basic Pleasures you know for food sex drink Etc he is interested instead in this supreme state of Happiness this idea of fulfilling your higher purpose and your tellos so this idea of flourishing fulfillment and of course UD demonia so higher Pleasures uh for mil would include studying philosophy of course so here we are doing this a level we are fulfilling one of our higher Pleasures contemplation so that's Aristotle's idea of theoria visiting an art exhibition and you know anything whenever you're trying to remember what is the higher pleasure it's anything that human beings can do that other animals can't do because it's about using your brain and it's about remembering that we have this unique human ability to reason to think in a very complex way well some of us anyway those of us doing this a level that ability to think you know uh and for him that's the key when it comes to pleasure you know the lower Pleasures are things that any animal can do you know things like eating drinking specs so anything that any sentient being can derive pleasure from that would be a lower pleasure the higher Pleasures are those that are unique to humans and that is because of their ability to reason their enhanced cognitive capabilities H and for Mill and this is based on what Aristotle believed that is true happiness you know it's about fulfilling your full potential as a h human being and flourishing you know and it's about nourishing your intellectual curiosity and your interest in the Arts and literature and classical music you know so it's that higher level of pleasure that is important for me so the key point with him is that he's prioritizing quality over quantity and again another synoptic link here is we can make uh to Aristotle's hierarchy of Souls and the idea that human beings are at the top because of their highly developed ability to reason and so your higher pleasure is going to be derived from any activity which uses and draws upon your higher ability to reason which is why studying philosophy contemplation appreciating art Etc would be seen as a higher pleasure but that is a key point for Mill and of course that is going to resolve some of the issues you know an example is gang rape for example that is a case study used to criticize benam you know the idea of five people you know deriving pleasure they could claim in court from uh raping one person because of course the argument could be there well the five people's pleasure outweighs the one person's pain uh but of course for Mill he is saying well pleasure needs to be you know specified a little bit more closely we need to be very clear what we mean when we say pleasure and we need to make sure that we are take into account the quality of the pleasure rather than just the quantity of it so again you know that's an amendment and a development but then of course the other key development is that for Mill it's about rules following the rules that will lead to in a society the greatest amount of pleasure over pain and it's quite similar to his uh harm principle so in on Liberty he develops the harm principle the idea that people should be free to act in a way that leads to their happiness but that does not harm others so as long as you aren't causing harm to other people then you shouldn't be limited in what you can do and of course that links in with rule utilitarianism because it's about having rules that mean that as a society you can bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people and minimize their pain but that is not being made on a Case by case action by action basis that is about following rules so his Focus would be at a more governmental level yeah so it's about right what rules can we have as a society that will bring about the greatest amount of happiness for people and minimize suffering rather than saying right let's give everyone a honic calculus and let's send them out to make their moral decisions yes so it's' got a bit more order you could say to it you know it's a bit more organized we could argue which means it's more suitable as a moral theory that a government could use or a society could use successfully so in terms of his rule utilitarianism then like bentham's act utilitarianism mil rule utilitarianism also aims at that principle of utility about doing whatever is useful to bring about the greatest balance of good over evil and again the assumption is that what is good is that which brings about pleasure and happiness although of course for Mill it's about higher pleasure however it has H the common good of society rather than the individual with their calculus as its starting point so instead of using as I say the honic calculus Mill believed we should always follow the rule that generally leads to the greatest balance of good over evil okay so it's about rules rather than the calculus and again if we just start to think about our evaluation and our critical analysis we could say that an advantage of this version is that it is quicker in terms of decision making to apply a rule rather than attempt to weigh up all the factors involved in each case and usual seven factors on your Calculus before making your decision however we could say there could be problems when rules clash and how do we resolve them you know if the focus is on following rules what do you do if you're in a situation where rules seem to clash so you know we will go into more detail on our evaluation in a minute but just for now start to be comparing bentham's act with Mills rule utilitarianism one where you've got your honic Calculus and then you're focused on quantity whereas then obviously the other rule utilitarianism where it's about following the rule that generally leads to a balance of good over evil in society and that then of course differentiates between types of pleasure as well and brings into the debate that question of quality not just quantity so let's now have a look shall we at our key ao2 evaluation so we're going to be looking at the strength of utilitarianism and the weaknesses because of course we want to be able to critique this moral theory it's really important we have knowledge of our Scholars really important that we've got great examples of how you can apply utilitarianism but just as important for our ao2 marks is our ability to evaluate to ask what's good about it what could be a problem with it and I want you to remember I am focusing us that's really bad English please please let me start that again I would like us to focus on uh evaluating the statement that the strengths of utilitarianism outweigh the weaknesses that is our key Focus do we think that the good things about utilitarianism redeem it from the problems so although we're going to acknowledge in our essays because of course we always do give both sides we are going to acknowledge that there are problems we are going to conclude that ultimately the strengths of it the benefits of this Theory do outweigh the problems that we have identified so just start thinking about that and again please be ready to let me know in the comments but the first strength we're going to look at is the idea that maximizing happiness is a good Aim so Aristotle he's back and he said very famously in uh you know ancient Greece so over 2,000 years ago that happiness is the meaning and purpose of life the whole aim and end of human existence now it's not just the ancient Greeks who liked happiness his Holiness the Dal Lama for example the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism has said that the purpose of Our Lives is to be happy and there are countless philosophers and you know psychologists who have written about and spoken about the importance of Happiness so we could say that a strength of utilitarianism is that it is focused on a really good aim that many people would agree with so maximizing happiness is a good aim we could say many philosophers would agree with an ethical theory that is focused on the maximization of Happiness however in terms of your critical analysis you know you could ask but what actually is happiness you know the theory is focused on happiness on pleasure but what does that actually mean if everybody has a different idea of happiness for example does that actually not undermine utilitarianism because when we are using our honic calculus for example we've all got a different idea of what happiness or pleasure actually is so does this actually work in practice but in in terms of our key headline strengths we can say that maximizing happiness is a good aim that many people will get on board with and appreciate because they do believe we should be working towards bringing about the greatest happiness for the greatest number that is a noble aim that is a respectable aim that is something that people do want they want to be happy in life and they believe that happiness is an important end goal to be pursu him we could say another strength is that it doesn't depend on belief in God and so it is a secular theory that can work in the 21st century unlike for example natural moral law because we could say you know utilitarianism is a secular Theory it is focused on maximizing happiness and is not dependent on belief in God we can say that is a strength because it means it's appealing and applicable to all people irrespective of whether they are religious or they believe in God or not so of course in the modern world in the 21st century this is going to be universally applicable because it doesn't depend on you believing in God you know you don't have to accept belief in a God who is the author of Morality In order to follow this moral theory instead it is based on the idea that we can discover uh right and wrong naturally because as benom says Nature has placed us under these two Sovereign Masters so we should all be able to discover that for ourselves so benom is not expecting us to believe that there is a God who has determined what is right and wrong you know this is not a Divine command Theory this is a secular Theory it's an empirical theory of ethical naturalism so hypothetically you know we should all be able to go okay what do I desire I desire pleasure so I need a moral theory which maximizes pleasure and so we should all say right let's all be utilitarian in our thinking so of course this means it can be applied in 21st century societies and that it is straightforward and easy to apply because you know people can discover pleasure as a noble aspiration or desire um and so they will then want to work towards it um you know in terms of their moral decision making however of course if you want to bring in some critical analysis or a rebuttal here you could say that using the honic calculus is arguably not easy it gives you too much responsibility you know you can't practically use this Theory you could also of course say and it's a great rebuttal to make that the per purp of Our Lives is not just pleasure so you know even if someone doesn't believe in God that doesn't mean they believe the purpose of life is to maximize pleasure so again that key criticism of act utilitarianism that pleasure is a swine ethic yeah that we aren't just here to pursue pleasure that there is more to life than just pursuing pleasure whether you believe in God or not so again we could bring in there those key criticisms of the swine ethic um and also the naturalistic which we are going to talk about more in a moment's time and another strength of course is that it's seen as Democratic and Progressive because remember the democratic system is based on the majority ruling you know it is based on what the majority of people vote for being the the decision that is seen as right or that is Then followed so you could say this is the most democratic approach to ethics and also there is evidence of it being Progressive so why is that well the theory is democratic because it takes everyone into account there are no favorites or special exemptions are there you know it is about the majority uh and their happiness and their pleasure and as I say that is consistent with the system of voting in uh Democratic societies so we can see that consistency there and we could say that's why a Democratic Society might like this approach to ethics because it is consistent with that Democratic principle of majority rule and of course the fact that are no favorites or special exemptions means everybody is seen as equal although of course the criticism will bring in is that it can lead to the tyranny of the majority because it could actually lead to the exploitation and harm of minorities however we could say another strength is that it is Progressive because uh utilitarianism and utilitarian thinkers such as benam and Mill have H enabled out ofd ideas such as the Banning of homosexual Acts or the oppression of women to be challenged so one real strength of this theory is that its Pioneers have been very Progressive you know benam and his fight for the right to education and his role in founding a university and then Mill and his campaigning on women's rights and gay rights and you know the pioneering work that he did um to help Drive progress in this country we have to bring that into account you know for example John Stewart Mill wrote an essay called the subjection of women he wrote that alongside his wife Harriet Taylor and that argued for gender equality you know writing that in the 1800s very forward thinking and so we can say that actually a strength of this theory is that it is an alignment with the Democratic processes in terms of focusing on the the wishes of the majority and it's also Progressive because it is helping to drive through progress um and it has enabled outof dat ideas to be challenged whereas of course you couldn't have that if you're just clinging to div commands in a holy book for example so we could see it as a bit more modern a bit more relevant and a bit more democratic um however in terms of the weaknesses uh we do have a fear of course don't we so the first one is that there are many different ideas of pleasure everybody has a different idea of what is pleasurable or what makes them happy so when we keep using that phrase maximize pleasure or greatest happiness what does that actually mean you know everybody's going to have a different idea of that in their minds aren't they Pleasure and Pain are dependent of course on the individual what brings one person pleasure is potentially going to bring someone else pain you know my idea of pleasure listening to I don't know one piece of music might be your idea of hell you know and it would be torturous for you to listen to that piece of music you know someone going to watch the football or the rugby or going to watch a show you know that might bring one person pleasure but someone else might see that as horrifically painful yeah so everybody's got different tastes haven't they so this idea of maximizing pleasure or the greatest happiness is actually quite challenging and problematic because it's so subjective and so if everybody's acting to maximize pleasure based on their own understanding of pleasure how do we ever have consistency in our morality you know does this actually work on a larger scale you know because everybody does have such different ideas of what pleasure pain happiness misery actually are and furthermore we could say you know the fact this is a consequentialist theory is another problem with it because it's actually impossible to measure future Pleasure and Pain you know this Theory depends on us predicting future consequences remember we assess the morality of the action on the grounds of its consequences on the basis of what it leads to and we could say it's difficult to accurately predict what will lead to the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people and so utilitarianism may be seen as impractical or too difficult to follow because pleasure becomes such a subjective concept and then the prediction is actually impossible because we cannot guarantee that our action will lead to the pleasure or the minimization of pain that was intended by it another weakness of course is the naturalistic fallacy which we have touched on a few times today and of course the synoptic link that we will be making here is to GE criticism of naturalism uh and that is the naturalistic fallacy so to remind you of bentham's key quote he said Nature has placed mankind under two Sovereign Masters Pleasure and Pain and so he then assumes they should therefore form the foundation and the focus for our moral thinking and our ethical decision making but we could argue um and G Mo would argue that it is wrong to make that assumption that what is natural must be good just because pleasure is something something we seem to naturally desire that does not mean it is good and should be the end goal of our ethics you know Emanuel K would certainly disagree wouldn't he remember he said man must be disciplined for by Nature he is raw and wild so you shouldn't actually be trying to follow your desires and fulfill them you should be disciplining yourself yeah so you know a key criticism is just because we do desire pleasure that shouldn't therefore be the focus of our morality and the decision maker for our ethics you know actually as K said we need to be more disciplined than that we can't just link and Associate and assume that because we naturally desire pleasure it must be the end goal of our ethical decision making now you could argue with your critical analysis here that Mills rule utilitarianism actually resolves this weakness because it says that you know by distinguishing between higher and lower Pleasures we can actually focus on those Pleasures which will lead to flourishing and emonia as Aristotle put it um but you know you could still argue that that doesn't resolve this that ethics can't just be about following our desires that you know it is a naturalistic fallacy it is an incorrect assumption to believe that just because Nature has placed us under these Sovereign Masters they should therefore be the foundation for our ethical decision make him and so that leads actually quite nicely to our next weakness which is the utilitarian certainly act utilitarianism is a swine ethic so as I've mentioned utilitarianism assumes the purpose of life is just pleasure um you know and Mill himself acknowledges the problem with Bam's act utilitarianism and he makes that Amendment doesn't he that it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied and as we've mentioned bentham's act utilitarianism has been called a swine ethic because it seems to permit Horrors such as gang rape at least in theory and although of course this was not intended by benam H and you could argue that for example Mill with his distinction between higher and lower Pleasures resolves the problem the worry could remain that there are no absolute boundaries to utilitarianism and Horrors such as the torture of children for example could be permitted in extreme situations if that was deemed to be useful for the maximizing of future happiness for the great number of people for example you know so the problems here are that anything could potentially be justified by the sentiment that The end justifies the means and again that's why we have the human rights implications which we're going to touch on in a second but really important to remember that this Theory seems to reduce the purpose of Our Lives to pleasure and the question we have to ask and that Mill does seek to answer is are our lives just about pleasure uh should that be the sole focus of our morality because what could that justify and what does that say about human beings and the purpose of our lives but if we just have a look at our final weakness the tyranny of the majority this is remember the key point that although the fact that it's about the greatest number of people means it can be seen as Democratic because it doesn't have favorites on the flip side of that that could be problematic for minorities yeah because the theory maximizes pleasure happiness for the majority which may come at the expense of minorities and this could of course lead to human rights violations and of course we know and it's a great quote to use benom described human rights as nonsense on still so a key contrast here with Canan ethics and the idea in Canan ethics that people should always be treated as an nend in themselves is that for benam people could potentially be used as a means to an end so if you're thinking about business ethics for example you know workers in you know really appalling working conditions in a factory um in a sweat shop that could actually be justified by utilitarianism if it means that they are going to produce really cheap clothes for millions of people who want to go and buy cheap clothes in London for example you know so what could be justified by utilitarianism you know it seems to be pretty much anything and that could come at the expense of minorities so if the majority rules for example what will stop it from um I can't say this word can I let me try again T tyrannizing there we go I have to think about it before I say it uh tyrannizing the minority and enforcing its will onto them so there could be harm to vulnerable minorities and so the rights of minorities such as LGBT people could in theory be compromised as they are ignored by bom's utilitarianism which is as I say quite ironic considering the quite Progressive social reform both benam and Mill were involved in but actually if you look at this theory on paper it can lead to a tyranny of the majority because it's about maximizing the pleasure and the happiness of the majority uh and that could come at the expense of minorities because there are no protections in place to treat people as ends in themselves you know that whole idea of the principle of utility is do whatever is useful as a means to an end and that end is the majority of people being happy and experiencing pleasure so what could potentially be justified and what harm could potentially be caused and so that leads us to our conclusion today which is where I want to hand it over to you and I would love to know do you think the strength of utilitarianism outweigh the weaknesses so obviously we've considered what utilitarianism is and how you should make utilitarian judgments but now I want you to think does this work can this be applied in the 21st century is it practical is it helpful is it based on the right principles and do you think that the strength of it the good things about it outweigh the weaknesses and if you were to compare utilitarianism with the other ethical theories that we've studied do you think it comes out on top or do you think that another theory could be more helpful more practical and be a better approach to moral decision- making so thank you for watching I do hope that's been helpful have a great day and I'll see you soon bye-bye