Utility (Edexcel A-Level Religious Studies): Revision Notes

Utility

Jeremy Bentham: context

Rejection of religious rule: It is irrational to expect human beings to suppress their nature and act contrary to their own interests. Reason suggests that what is good for the majority of people in society will be good for most individuals; we cannot expect others to consider our interests if we fail to consider theirs.

Bentham's utilitarianism aimed to devise a morality that would embrace human nature and allow humans to thrive.

To achieve this, Bentham adopted the consequentialist argument that humans need to follow pleasure and avoid pain.

The principle of utility

The principle of utility:

"An action is good if it leads to the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people."

Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory as it is the consequences of that action that determine whether it is good or bad.

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure... it is for them alone to point out what we should do".- Bentham

The utility is any property that "produces a benefit or advantage or prevents the happening of mischief or pain"

Ethics in a Crisis: The Burning Building.

Imagine you're in a burning building and must choose between saving a child or an expensive painting.

Most people instinctively choose the child.

However, utilitarian ethics might suggest saving the painting is better, as selling it could generate funds to save many more children.

Giles Fraser argues that choosing the painting over the child reflects a lack of sympathy, suggesting that utilitarianism promotes immoral behaviour by devaluing immediate human compassion.

William MacAskill counters this by claiming that saving the painting demonstrates a more refined sympathy.

This perspective recognises the needs of numerous other children, whose lives could be saved with the money from the painting's sale. Therefore, their collective needs outweigh the immediate needs of the one child present.

💡 However, it can be argued that expecting people to act according to utilitarian principles is impractical, even if theoretically sound. Human emotions, particularly empathy, pose significant challenges to implementing utilitarianism in real-life situations.

Strengths of the principle of utility

• In theory, it seems harmless to apply the principle as following pleasure suggests a happy society where people try and minimise pain as much as possible.
• Bentham bases his theory on human nature, and therefore it is an easy theory to apply to society.
• It trusts humans and provides us freedom to choose our own decisions.

Weaknesses of the principle of utility

• Bentham is mistaken to associate good and moral with pleasure.
• Adopting the principle of utility, society could become more self centred and selfish as opposed to better.
• Utility allows horrible acts of evil to take place if it can be justified by more pleasure. For example: gang rape.
• The act of following pleasure alone provides little moral guidance or structure to human life. Humans are easily led astray and therefore providing this much freedom can be extremely damaging to society when humans clearly need guidance.
• Kant would argue against consequentialism as we cannot predict the consequences of our actions.