Utilitarianism, the ethic of the "greatest happiness principle", is probably the best known system of making decisions. Basically, according to the utilitarian, those actions are good which maximise happiness and those actions are bad which minimise happiness and cause pain. But utilitarianism is not really as simple as this.

The pursuit of happiness as an aim has a long history. The ethics of the pre-Socratic philosopher Epicurus are a form of egoistic hedonism, i.e. he says that the only thing that is intrinsically valuable is one's own pleasure. Anything else that has value is valuable merely as a means to securing pleasure for oneself. However, Epicurus has a sophisticated and idiosyncratic view of the nature of pleasure, which leads him to recommend a virtuous, moderately ascetic life as the best means to securing pleasure. This contrasts Epicurus strongly with the Cyrenaics, a group of ancient hedonists who better fit the stereotype of hedonists as recommending a policy of "eat, drink and be merry".

Ethics based purely on human experience

Jeremy Bentham was the founder of modern utilitarianism. He called the idea of human rights "nonsense on stilts" and his attitude to rights philosophies was shared by his godson John Stuart Mill. Both men sought to take moral philosophy back to basics, back to what we can know from experience, and build from that a simple system to guide moral decision making, on both individual and societal levels. They rejected any assumptions or postulations that could not be supported by ordinary experience. Believing in the authority of religious values, the reality of God or an afterlife, the inequality of human beings or the existence of inherent "rights" was all deemed irrational. Ethics concerned how human beings should behave towards other human beings in this world, it should be guided by observation and measurable fact, not by prejudice, unfounded belief or wishful thinking.

Pleasure and pain, ‘mankind's two masters'

Bentham began by observing that "nature has placed mankind under two sovereign masters, the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain". He noted that the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus had come to this conclusion, one which was still held to in the nineteenth century; it chimed with ordinary human experience. From the observation that human beings do seek pleasure, Bentham then moved to argue that they should seek pleasure, that such was natural to them. The utilitarian maxim he devised exhorted people to "always act so as to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number". Bentham moved another step in arguing that people should seek to maximise pleasure for people in general, rather than just for themselves.

Nobler than hedonism

In fact, utilitarianism is radically different from the hedonism or egoism that the foundational observations of people's pleasure-seeking characters might suggest because some decisions which maximise the number of people made happy would make the decision-maker very unhappy. For example, a couple are in love but one is married with children. The hedonist might have an affair or even divorce. The utilitarian, on the other hand, must weigh up the pleasure and pain caused to all the people involved and, on balance, would probably have to walk away. High standards of rationality and altruism are expected of the utilitarian and it is just wrong to reject the system as one that just panders to baser human desires and enables us to justify doing as we please.

Bentham's way of assessing pleasure

Bentham immediately saw the difficulty with using the utilitarian maxim as the basis for a normative approach to ethical decision-making. How could pleasure be quantified effectively, let alone ranked according to quality? The measurement of pleasure, pain, happiness or sadness is incredibly difficult and Bentham was aware of this. He suggested various criteria for assessing pleasures. In one essay he listed seven criteria by which to evaluate pleasure produced by an action, namely:

• extent (the number of people affected)
• duration (how long it lasts)
• purity (does pleasure depend on pain in some way?)
• fecundity (the likelihood of producing further pleasures),
• intensity (how strong a sensation)
• nearness / remoteness (how close at hand it is)
• certainty (is it definitely going to be this way?)

Push-pin and poetry

Unusually for his time Bentham argued that "Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry." In other words, pleasures from any source can be assessed side by side and "intellectual pleasures" for example should not be counted as inherently superior to a children's game. This meant that Bentham's utilitarianism was egalitarian; people from any social class, race, religion or gender could be counted as equals before his calculations.

The problem with Bentham's system was the problem that has always dogged another egalitarian system: democracy. It tended to level down rather than level up; in other words it was easily prepared to sacrifice rare and extraordinary pleasures if it meant a small increase in the everyday pleasures of a majority of people.

An example from state-funded education

Think about universities. They are elitist and expensive; not everybody gets to go to one, let alone for very long, and yet they have been, until now, paid for out of everybody's taxes, regardless of the benefit taxpayers do or don't receive. Bentham might argue that those who want to go to university should pay the full cost themselves and that public money should go on projects which benefit more people, for example on schools. That is, it is better that 100 per cent of people have a good primary education than that 35 per cent of people can study at university.

This argument is familiar. In cutting spending, Western governments aim to minimise pain rather than to maximise pleasure - but the effects are the same and so are the calculations. Bentham devised a "hedonic calculus" to expedite decision-making and it would be surprising if some version of it is not being used in every government department today.

Pleasure / pain x number of people affected = numerical "score" (which is compared to other scores to determine the right action)

Of course, the business of assigning values to the pleasure or pain caused by any course of action is difficult, and further, it is always tricky to know how many people will be affected by a decision and how wide the assessment should be. Nevertheless, by using research coupled with the criteria outlined above, it will be possible to provide a defensible rationale to underpin decision-making. Once various courses of action have been scored it is even relatively easy to make "objective" comparisons.

John Stuart Mill - prodigy, breakdown, recovery

John Stuart Mill was born in 1806. His father was James Mill, a strongly committed Benthamite. John Stuart Mill began to learn arithmetic and Greek at the age of three. Between four and seven he was reading works by David Hume and Edward Gibbon. He began Latin at eight. At 12 he was learning theoretical chemistry. Mill's father was described by his son as a stoic who had contempt for the passions and emotions; he seems to have showed no tenderness to Mill at all.

When Mill had a breakdown in 1826 his father was the last person to whom he could turn for support. He was therefore left on his own to sort out his emotional crisis. For three years Mill said that he was merely a "Benthamite reasoning machine" and had left out all aspects of feeling and emotion. He condemned the followers of Bentham for "their neglect both in theory and practice of the cultivation of feeling" and their "undervaluing of poetry and of imagination generally as an element of human nature". Mill's feeling that there must be "something more" than the Benthamite approach of cold reasoning led him to the poetry of Wordsworth (in 1828) and Coleridge. Mill said of the poetry of Wordsworth: "What made Wordsworth's poems a medicine for my state of mind was that they expressed - not mere outward beauty, but states of feeling, and of thought coloured by feeling, under the excitement of beauty."

Wordsworth gave him access to a range of feelings that his Benthamite background had denied him. Through Wordsworth's poems, Mill came to a conviction that "I seemed to draw from a source of inward joy, of sympathetic and imaginative pleasure, which could be shared in by all human beings; which has no connection with struggle or imperfection, but would be made richer by every improvement in the physical of social condition of mankind." Wordsworth's poems also made Mill sensitive to the feelings of others.

Mill's religion of humanity

Mill advocated a "religion of humanity" not unlike the secular humanism advocated by Dawkins, Grayling et al today. Influenced by the French philosopher Auguste Comte, he saw the purpose of such a religion as being primarily practical - it had to have a utility function. His lack of concern for ontology is seen in his rejection of any grounding for this religion except seeing it as an abstraction comprising those who "in every age and variety of position have played their part worthily in life".

For Mill, the golden rule is altruism. It is the best a human being can be. Becoming this is fostered by everyone seeking the good of others. Although Mill does not seem aware of it, there are Aristotelian links here with the idea of a common human nature that all should aspire to fulfil - all humans share a common human potential. However while Aristotle grounds this in our common human nature, Mill is not concerned with ontology and ignores this line of thought. The nature of a given thing, for Mill, is "the aggregate of its powers and properties" - which is very Aristotelian.

Mill, although a utilitarian, developed a much broader understanding of utilitarianism than did Bentham - indeed he rejected Bentham's narrow vision. Mill's version is grounded in our common humanity and the good of society as a whole: "A theory which considers little in an action besides that action's own consequences ... will be most apt to fail in the consideration of the greatest social questions ... for these... must be viewed as the great instruments for forming the national character, or carrying forward the members of the community towards perfection or preserving them from degeneracy." The last phrase is vital and Bentham could never have said it. It shows that Mill had an almost Aristotelian view of the telos or purpose of human life.

Considering religion's usefulness rather than its veracity

Mill is not concerned about truth - in other words he shows no interest in the truth of his ideas. His interest is in their utility or usefulness. One of his important essays was on The Utility of Religion - in other words the usefulness of religion to society. In many ways Mill is both a philosopher and a sociologist - he is interested in what works for society more than the truth of his theories. Nevertheless he has some interests that point to a concern with "what it is to be human" and this is the closest he gets to an ontology.

Mill: awareness of feelings and the happiness of others

Mill rejected a basic principle held by Bentham when he said: "It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others." Mill's breakdown caused him to amend his original Benthamite position. "I never wavered in the conviction that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct, and the end of life. But I now thought that this end was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy... who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness ... The cultivation of the feelings becomes one of the cardinal points in my ethical and philosophical creed."

Mill rejected personal happiness as an aim and, indeed, said that if it became an aim it would not be achieved: "Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, exhaust themselves on that and, if otherwise fortunately circumstanced, you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe". Mill even has no difficulty in defining what it is to be human. This includes: "... the desire for perfection, the accusing or approving conscience, the sense of honour and dignity, the love of beauty, order, power as an instrument of good and the love of action."

Mill, therefore, unlike Bentham, accepted the idea of a common human nature that all people share - in this he has much in common with Aristotle and differed markedly from Bentham. Commitment to altruism was the key to human fulfilment, but this meant forgetting one's happiness and acting in the best interests of others.

Act utilitarianism vs rule utilitarianism

During the twentieth century many different versions of utilitarianism have been proposed. Some of the most well known can be described as "preference utilitarianism", which seeks to overcome the difficulty of defining pleasure by arguing that we should just seek to act in the interests (whatever they may be) of the majority. First amongst the preference utilitarians was RM Hare, who also proposed so-called "two-level utilitarianism"; that is, a compromise between the extremes of act utilitarianism (choosing the course of action that will generate the most pleasure) and rule utilitarianism (considering the consequences of consistently following a rule regarding what action to take) that were being discussed at the time he wrote.

Rule utilitarianism tries to simplify the decision-making process and protect against people misusing the felicific calculus to justify selfish decisions in the "heat of the moment" by adopting some rules, which though based on general utility, do not take account of the particular situation. For example, a country which respects the human rights to life and liberty is likely to be happier than one which permits the abuse of the weak.

Rule utilitarians would suggest following the rule "do not take human life"; strong rule utilitarians would always follow the rule; government-house utilitarians (e.g. Sidgwick) would usually follow it unless there emerged a pressing case not to, which would prompt a new specific rule to be formulated; weak-rule utilitarians would use the rule as a guide but would review it in the particular situation. Act utilitarians see that rules are not helpful as they take away from the point of utilitarianism, to be situationally relevant and not perpetuating taboos, dogma and unnecessary legalism.

According to Hare we should form rules to follow every day on the basis of the utilitarian maxim, but in more extreme situations we should try to rise above the situation and evaluate things on the specifics. Of course it is difficult to predict consequences and this can lead to partial and biased decisions being made, but Hare felt that when a particular higher-level calculation was being made, we should try and think of ourselves as an archangel, detached from selfish human concerns, to overcome this.

Joseph Fletcher, the author of Situation ethics, a groundbreaking and controversial book of the 1960s, made the case for calculating the best action in each situation and never allowing rules, however convenient, from getting in the way of individuals rationally evaluating a situation and being morally responsible for their chosen action. However, the responses to Fletcher from the Catholic and Anglican Churches made a point which is equally applicable to act utilitarianism as situation ethics - it places unreasonable expectations on individuals both in terms of their ability to predict the outcomes of specific actions and in terms of being able to think rationally and altruistically – i.e this approach is idealistic, impractical and wide open to abuse.

Bentham and Mill, act or rule utilitarians?

Some specifications ask candidates whether Bentham and Mill were rule or act utilitarians. Some textbooks even try to suggest that Bentham advocated act utilitarianism while Mill advocated rule utilitarianism. This discussion is somewhat anachronistic. In fact both Bentham and Mill were engaged in two discussions: one, how to reform the legal system, and two, how to make personal decisions. In the first case both advocated something close to a government-house approach and in the second something close to an act utilitarian approach, though Mill was much more aware than Bentham of the importance of maintaining rational principles and consistency in moral behaviour and so in practice his free choices would effectively have followed some "rules".

Negative utilitarianism

During the 1960s and 70s, negative utilitarianism (NU) was much discussed. This is a system which seeks to minimise pain, which is easier to define and measure than pleasure. NU was particularly associated with the writings of Karl Popper. By the last decade NU had been heavily criticised, perhaps most effectively by RN Smart, who suggested that the most virtuous act for the negative utilitarian would be to cause nuclear Armageddon, to ensure the end of the world and the quick termination of all future suffering. NU came to be associated with nihilism, but lived on in transhumanist and abolitionist philosophies, commonly adopted by geneticists and other scientists rather than by moral philosophers.

The transhumanist view of the future

Transhumanism is a broad association of thinkers across many different disciplines, from poetry to cosmology, medicine to particle physics, all of whom share the belief that it is right to seek to minimise human suffering by using science and technology to overcome the causes of suffering, i.e. physical limitations, boredom, depression, hard work etc. Research is being carried out on the "ethics" of fields from nanotechnology (creating clothing that never needs washing, micro-surgery to reverse aging) to computer games (creating permanent stimulation and virtual sensations to combat boredom and loneliness). The philosophers David Pearce and Nick Bostrom are most associated with this movement through their work with the James Martin 21st Century School [sic] at Oxford University.

Preference utilitarianism

Peter Singer is an Australian originally from Monash University in Melbourne - he is now professor of bio-ethics at Princeton in the US. His parents were Jewish and three of his relatives died in the Holocaust. He repudiates all religion and refused to have a bar mitzvah. Singer is passionately committed to the view that ethics must be about how life is lived: "There would be something incoherent about living a life where the conclusions you came to in ethics did not make any difference to your life. It would make it an academic exercise. The whole point about doing ethics is to think about the way to live. My life has a kind of harmony between my ideas and the way I live. It would be highly discordant if that was not the case."

Singer: some animals have equal value to humans

Singer is a preference utilitarian. They argue that the consequences to be promoted are those which satisfy the wishes or preferences of the maximum numbers of beings who have preferences. In other words, the more people get what they want, the better, from a moral point of view, the world is. The more people's desires are frustrated, the worse the world is. It is only morally right to frustrate the preferences of others if by so doing we enable more beings to satisfy their preferences. Actions should not be judged on their simple pain-and-pleasure outcomes, but on how they affect the interests, the preferences, of all beings involved. Singer asks an important additional question - "What sort of beings should we include in the sum of interests?" Singer argues that this question is not addressed by Christians - they assume that humans are more valuable than animals. Singer rejects this assumption.

Why should humans be valued more than animals? What is the intellectual basis for experimenting on animals rather than a person in a persistent vegetative state? Singer argues that humans have no inherent right to better treatment than animals - instead their ability to suffer and their rationality need to be evaluated. A dolphin or a chimpanzee may be more rational and be able to suffer more than a newborn baby. Beings that have rationality or self-consciousness are more important than mere sentient beings. If you had to choose to save a child or a dog, you should save the higher "person" - the child. For Singer, not all persons are humans, and some humans are definitely not persons. An adult chimpanzee can exhibit more self-consciousness, more personhood, than a newborn human infant. If the choice was between saving a newborn baby who had no family and a mature chimpanzee and could only save one of them, the chimp should be saved. "Killing them [babies], therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings. No infant - disabled or not - has as strong a claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities existing over time," (Practical Ethics). Singer has proposed a post-natal 28-day qualification period during which infants - non-persons at that stage - could be killed. Singer's approach is widely used - 90 per cent of women over 35 who have children have tests to determine whether they carry a Down's Syndrome child. Three out of four who are told they may have a Down's child will decide to abort. [check]

Singer puts forward arguments that, while rational, go against fundamental human intuitions. Perhaps most significantly, however, he does not take potential into account. A baby has the potential to become an adult human being and destroying this potential may be an evil act. On this basis, the value of beings should be measured by their potential - and a disabled baby may still have more potential than a dolphin.

The great attraction of Benthamite utilitarianism is that it seems to appeal to common sense in that most people think that happiness is the main aim in life and, in addition, it is often held to be measurable in financial terms.

What I want and what is best for me

For the great Greek philosophers, what it means to live a fulfilled human life cannot be measured, and what matters does not depend on funding or "measurable outcomes". Also, what many people want may not be what is in their best interests in terms of human fulfilment. G.E. Moore said "you cannot get an ought from an is" - the fact that many men enjoy watching football, having too much to drink on a Saturday night and looking at pornography does not mean that this is what they should desire - philosophy holds there is more to life than this.

The search for personal happiness may take people away from the importance of a search for meaning and understanding what a fulfilled human life should be life. The growing tide of utilitarianism, however, threatens to sweep aside ideals like justice, goodness, truth or, indeed, the distinctiveness and importance of each individual, so its influence and importance is likely to increase. Mill's approach is far more sophisticated than Bentham's because it recognises that fulfilling human potential is essential for ethics and that happiness is not something personally chosen but is directly linked to the common human nature that we all share.

Recently there has been a coming together of utilitarianism with virtue ethics through the work of Robert Merrihew Adams. Since 1976 Adams advocated "motive utilitarianism", i.e a utilitarianism which starts with the individual, demanding that they cultivate the character traits and skills which are likely to yield the greatest happiness for the greatest number. This utilitiarianism does not just focus on acts and consequences, but also considers the character and motivations, in this it shares a great deal with virtue ethics, a subject which Adams has also written on in the last couple of years.

Link to Catholic Social Teaching