Judging by results
Learn how Bentham and Mill judged right and wrong by consequences, how to weigh everyone affected, and where this way of thinking runs into trouble.
THE BIG IDEA
Utilitarianism
The English reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) argued that the right action is the one that produces the most happiness and least suffering, counting everyone affected. Not just you, not just your friends: each person's wellbeing counts equally. A good act is judged by its results, not by the motive or the rule behind it.
Bentham used this to attack laws of his day. If a punishment causes more suffering than it prevents, he said, it is simply bad law, however old or respected it is.
The greatest happiness principle
Of the options you really have, choose the one that brings about the greatest total wellbeing for everyone it touches. You add up the good, subtract the harm, and compare. Bentham suggested asking how intense a pleasure or pain is, how long it lasts, how certain it is, and how many people it reaches.
Two ways to spend a Friday: a party you'd mildly enjoy, or helping an elderly neighbour who can't carry boxes up four flights. The party gives you a few pleasant hours. The help saves her real pain and worry. The principle points to the stairs.
Check yourself
Reza has one free evening. His younger sister has an exam tomorrow and is panicking; an hour of his help would calm her and probably lift her grade. The alternative is a football match with friends he'd enjoy. How would a utilitarian tell him to decide?
- Choose the match: his own happiness comes first, because it's his free evening to spend
- Weigh the total good of each, counting his own fun as one person's
- Always help his sister, because utilitarians say your own happiness never counts at all
- Go with whichever option more people would vote for if he asked them
Show the answer
Weigh the total good of each, counting his own fun as one person's
Right. Reza's enjoyment counts, just not extra. Here his sister's relief and her exam likely outweigh a pleasant match, but it's the sum that decides.
MILL'S REVISION
Not all pleasures are equal
Critics mocked Bentham's view as a philosophy fit for pigs: if pleasure is all that matters, why not a life of eating and dozing? John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), in his short book Utilitarianism, replied that pleasures differ in quality, not just amount. Pleasures of the mind, friendship and understanding are higher than bodily ones. His test: ask people who have really known both which they prefer.
Mill's famous line, roughly: better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, and better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
Bentham and Mill
Bentham
Pleasure is pleasure. What matters is how much: intensity, duration, certainty, how many people. A simple game and great poetry are equal if they give equal pleasure.
Mill
Still count everyone's happiness, but kind matters too. Higher pleasures, like learning, deep friendship and creating things, are worth more than a larger amount of lower ones.
Check yourself
Sina says: 'If an evening of scrolling feels exactly as pleasant as an evening learning to play the setar, Mill would say both evenings are worth the same.'
Show the answer
False
False. That is Bentham's view, where only the amount of pleasure counts. Mill added quality: learning an instrument uses your mind and skill, a higher pleasure, and people who know both tend to prefer it even when it's harder work.
A neighbourhood council has money for ONE project.
Rough wellbeing scores (a guess, not a science):
Option A: repaint the park benches
300 people x small pleasure (1) = 300
Option B: a light and crossing at the school road
about 1 serious injury prevented a year (500)
400 parents worry less each day (1) = 400
total = 900
Compare: A = 300, B = 900B does far more good, even though fewer people will ever notice it.
The numbers are rough. What matters is that the council counted
how big each effect is, not only how many people it touches.Nobody can measure happiness in points. The exercise is still useful: it makes you list who is affected and how much, which is where most snap judgements go wrong.
Check yourself
A colleague made an error in a report going to a client. Maryam thinks: 'If I quietly cover for him, everyone in the office is happier, so a utilitarian would cover.' What would a careful utilitarian say she has missed?
- Nothing at all: the whole office ends up happier, so covering is clearly the right thing
- That utilitarians never allow any dishonesty at all, whatever the results turn out to be
- Her own happiness, which should count for more because she's the one deciding
- The client relying on the report, and the trust and habits at stake later
Show the answer
The client relying on the report, and the trust and habits at stake later
Yes. The office is only part of the picture. The client, future trust and the precedent are consequences too, and they may well outweigh one comfortable week.
THE MAIN OBJECTION
What about the individual?
A famous thought experiment: a surgeon has five patients who will die without transplants, and one healthy visitor whose organs could save them all. Five lives against one. If only totals matter, it seems the surgeon should do it, and almost everyone feels that is monstrous. Critics say utilitarianism ignores rights: some things you may not do to a person, whatever the sum.
Some utilitarians reply with rule utilitarianism: judge rules, not single acts. A world where hospitals might harvest visitors is one where nobody dares see a doctor, so the rule 'never kill patients' produces far more good. Critics answer that this rescues the right verdict for a slightly odd reason.
Check yourself
- A runaway tram will kill five workers. Hana can pull a lever to send it onto a side track, where it will kill one worker instead.
- Five patients will die. A surgeon can secretly kill one healthy visitor and use his organs to save them.
Both cases trade one life for five, yet most people accept Hana's choice and reject the surgeon's. What does that suggest pure consequence-counting leaves out?
- Nothing: people are just more squeamish about hospitals than about trains
- Numbers simply matter more in transport decisions than they do in medicine
- Redirecting a danger differs from using a person as a tool
- The surgeon's case has worse consequences in the short term for everyone
Show the answer
Redirecting a danger differs from using a person as a tool
Yes. The totals match, but the surgeon treats the visitor as spare parts. That idea, that people must never be used merely as a means, is the heart of the next lesson on Kant.
Using consequences well
- List everyone affected, including people who aren't in the room.
- Look past today: trust, habits and precedents are consequences too.
- Count yourself as one person, no more and no less.
- Be honest about uncertainty; a likely small harm can outweigh an unlikely big gain.
- If the sum tells you to use someone as a tool, stop and check with the next lesson.
Check yourself
Arman is deciding whether to break a promise to help a friend move so he can take a paid job instead. Which points would a utilitarian count directly, and which only through their effects?
- His friend's stress on moving day
- 'A promise is a promise', on its own
- The money Arman would earn and what it does for him
- 'My father always kept his word'
- Whether his friend will trust him next time
- Whether the rule 'keep promises' is written down somewhere
Show the answer
Counts directly: His friend's stress on moving day, The money Arman would earn and what it does for him, Whether his friend will trust him next time
Only through its effects: 'A promise is a promise', on its own, 'My father always kept his word', Whether the rule 'keep promises' is written down somewhere
Lesson recap
- Utilitarianism (Bentham, Mill): the right act produces the most wellbeing for everyone affected, each counted equally.
- Bentham counted amount of pleasure; Mill added that higher pleasures of the mind are worth more.
- Count people outside the room and effects that come later, and don't count yourself double.
- Main objection: totals can seem to justify using a person as a tool; rule utilitarians reply by judging rules, not single acts.