Utilitarian

Period
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Bentham Liberty Mill
Punishment Reward Utilitarian
 Utilitarian Period

Utilitarian Utilitarianism
➢ designed to be useful “Theory of Morality”
or practical rather than ➢ it advocates actions
attractive. that foster happiness or
pleasure and oppose
actions that cause
unhappiness or harm.
 Utilitarianism

➢ An ethical theory that ➢ holds that the “most

determines right from wrong by ethical choice” is the one
focusing on “outcomes”. that will produce the
It is a form of consequentialism. greatest good for the
greatest number.
 Utilitarianism

the late 18th- and 19th-century.

➢ John Stuart Mill argued for representative government and universal

male suffrage on utilitarian grounds; he and other followers of
Bentham were advocates of parliamentary reform in England in the
early 19th century. In it, utilitarianism is viewed as ”An ethics for
ordinary individual behavior as well as for legislation.”
The Founder of
Utilitarianism
 The Founder of Utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham John Stuart Mill

➢ He has the important contribution for ➢ He was one of the last systematic
being “The founder of modern philosophers, making “significant
utilitarianism” contributions” in logic, metaphysics,
epistemology, ethics, political philosophy,
and social theory.

➢ He argues that happiness is the sole

basis of morality and that people never
desire anything but “happiness.”
Jeremy
Bentham
Born: February 15, 1748
Houndsditch, London,
United Kingdom

Died: June 6, 1832

Westminster, London,
United Kingdom
The Life of Jeremy Bentham
At the age of four, Bentham, the son of an
attorney, is said to have read eagerly and to
have begun the study of Latin.

At Westminster School, he won a reputation for

writing Greek and Latin verse. In 1760 he went to
Queen’s College, Oxford, and took his degree in
1763.
 The Life of Jeremy Bentham
In November he entered Lincoln’s Inn (see Inns of Court) to
study law and took his seat as a student in the King’s Bench
division of the High Court, where he listened with rapture to
the judgments of Chief Justice Lord Mansfield.

He spent his time performing chemical experiments

and speculating upon the more theoretical aspects of
legal abuses rather than reading law books.
The Death of Jeremy Bentham

Bentham’s body was mummified the

skeleton where reconstructed and
the head was preserved

And before he died, he has a happy life and

gathered his friends and family including
James Mill the father of John Stuart Mill.
 The Works of Jeremy Bentham
Title: First book, A Fragment on
Government 1776.

The subtitle: Being an Examination of What Is

Delivered, on the Subject of Government in General, in the
Introduction to Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries,
indicates the nature of the work.

Bentham found the “grand and fundamental” fault of

the Commentaries to be Blackstone’s “antipathy to
reform.”
 The Works of Jeremy Bentham
Blackstone’s Commentaries or known as
Commentaries on the Laws of England is not the
same as our Constitution or even the constitution of
America but instead, it is the baseline for pre-
revolutionary Common Law.

Bentham’s book, written in a clear and concise style

different from that of his later works, may be said to mark
the beginning of philosophical radicalism.
 The Works of Jeremy Bentham
Title: Théorie des peines et des
recompenses (1811)

➢ Published by his friend “Étienne Dumont” in France

➢ it was translated into two parts The Rationale of

Reward in 1825 and The Rationale of Punishment in
1830.
 “A promised reward, bestowed
upon one who has not deserved
it, is entirely lost. An unpromised
reward, thus improperly
bestowed, is not necessarily lost.”
 The Works of Jeremy Bentham
Title: An Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation
(1789)

➢ In his book, he defined the principle of utility as “that

property in any object whereby it tends to produce
pleasure, good or happiness, or to prevent the happening
of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness to the party whose
interest is considered.”
 The Works of Jeremy Bentham
Title: A Catechism of
Parliamentary Reform (1817)
➢ It was written in 1809 and published in 1817

➢ Advocating annual elections; equal electoral districts; wide

suffrage, including woman suffrage; and the secret ballot.

➢ He supported in principle the participation of women in

government and argued for the reform of marriage law to allow
greater freedom to divorce.

➢ He drafted a series of resolutions based on the Catechism that was

introduced in the House of Commons in 1818.
The Legacy of Jeremy Bentham
Bentham was less a philosopher than a critic of law and
of judicial and political institutions. Unfortunately, he
was not aware of his limitations. He tried to define what
he thought were the basic concepts of ethics, but the
majority of his definitions are oversimple or ambiguous
or both, and his “felicific calculus,” a method for
calculating amounts of happiness, as even his warmest
admirers have admitted, cannot be used.
John
Stuart Mill
Born: May 20, 1806
Pentonville, London,
United Kingdom

Died: May 8, 1873

Avignon, France
The Life of John Stuart Mill
He studied at the University of College in
London. was an English philosopher, political
economist, Member of Parliament (MP), and
Civil Servant.

He is One of the most influential thinkers in the

history of classical liberalism, he contributed
widely to social theory, political theory, and
political economy
The Life of John Stuart Mill
He conceived of liberty as justifying the
freedom of the individual in opposition to
unlimited state and social control.

Mill was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory

developed by his predecessor Jeremy Bentham. He
contributed to the investigation of scientific
methodology, though his knowledge of the topic was
based on the writings of others.
 The Works and Theories of
Jeremy Bentham
Mill joined the debate over the scientific
method which followed on from John Herschel's
1830 publication of A Preliminary Discourse on
the study of Natural Philosophy, which
incorporated inductive reasoning from the known
to the unknown, discovering general laws in
specific facts and verifying these laws empirically.

Mill countered this in 1843 in A System of Logic (fully

titled A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive,
Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence,
and the Methods of Scientific Investigation).
 The Works and Theories of
Jeremy Bentham
Theory of Liberty (1859)
He addresses the nature and limits of the power that
can be legitimately exercised by society over the
individual.

Mill is clear that his concern for liberty does not extend
to all individuals and all societies.

"Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with

Barbarians."

States that it is not a crime to harm oneself as

long as the person doing so is not harming
others.
 The Works and Theories of
Jeremy Bentham
He favors the harm principle: "The only purpose for which
power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a
civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to
others, He excuses those who are incapable of self-
government from this principle, such as young children or
those living in backward states of society".

Social liberty for Mill meant putting limits on the

ruler's power so that he would not be able to use
that power to further his own wishes and thus
make decisions that could harm society.
"The nature and limits of the power which can
be legitimately exercised by society over the
individual."
 The Works and Theories of
Jeremy Bentham
Utilitarianism (title of a book)
“The Utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is
desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end;
all other things being only desirable as means to
that end”
The canonical statement of Mill's utilitarianism can be
found in his book, Utilitarianism. Although this philosophy
has a long tradition, Mill's account is primarily influenced
by Jeremy Bentham and Mill's father James Mill.
John Stuart Mill believed in the philosophy of utilitarianism, which he
would describe as the principle that holds "that actions are right in the
proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to
produce the reverse of happiness".
 The Works and Theories of
Jeremy Bentham
And he suggests that the utilitarian moral agent
when attempting to rank the utility of different
actions, should refer to the general experience of
persons.

The overarching goal of utilitarianism –the ideal

consequence is to achieve the "greatest good for the
greatest number as the end result of human action."

Utilitarianism is thought of by some of its activists to be a more

developed and overarching ethical theory of Immanuel Kant's
belief in goodwill, and not just some default cognitive process of
humans.
 The Works and Theories of
Jeremy Bentham
Mill's major contribution to utilitarianism is his argument
for the qualitative separation of pleasures. Bentham treats
all forms of happiness as equal, whereas Mill argues that
intellectual and moral pleasures (higher pleasures) are
superior to more physical forms of pleasure (lower
pleasures).

He defines higher pleasures as mental, moral, and

aesthetic pleasures, and lower pleasures as being more
sensational.
 The Works and Theories of
Jeremy Bentham
"Strong utilitarian conscience (is a strong
feeling of obligation to the general
happiness)"

Mill defines “utilitarianism” as the creed that

considers a particular “theory of life” as the
“foundation of morals”. His view of theory of life
was monistic: There is one thing, and one thing
only, that is intrinsically desirable, namely pleasure.
Thank you!