Bentham's Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is the consequentialist ‘ethical theory by which actions are judged according to their anticipated results’, hence utilitarianism is a teleological theory. The classical statement of the theory of utilitarianism began in the writings of Jeremy Bentham who was a democratic reformer and focussed on rights for the majority rather than the few.

Firstly, through research, Bentham concluded that people would naturally seek to avoid pain, thus he argued that good is that which equals the greatest pleasure and the least amount of pain for the greatest number of beings. Therefore, a right moral decision would be one that produced the greatest pleasure for a great number of people, and this is what makes Bentham’s theory Act Utilitarianism.

Interestingly, the idea that good is defined in the terms of pleasure makes utilitarianism of hedonistic theory too. Bentham proposed that we should tally the pleasure and pain which results from our action to determine of the action is morally right. According to Bentham, pleasure and pain are the only consequences in determining whether our conduct is moral.

Moreover, Bentham created the hedonic calculus to measure pain and pleasure sand this hedonic calculus was based on ancient hedonism. For Bentham, the most moral acts are those that maximise pleasure and minimise pain. Also, he believed that the hedonic calculus helped us choose the right or wrong thing to do as it calculated how pleasurable the consequence of the action was by measuring its length, intensity, certainty, remoteness, secureness , the chance of success, and most importantly, its extent. The hedonic calculus gave Bentham a method of testing whether an action was good or not, and he believed that whatever is good or bad can be measured in a quantitive way.

In short, Bentham’s version of utilitarianism may be used to decide on the right course of action by seeing if the action provides pleasure and happiness for the greatest number of people, not just the individual doing the action. He also uses the hedonic calculus to aid in one’s decision of making the right choice and doing the right action.