Ethics Discussion Project: Applying Utilitarianism

Each group will return to the same case they considered last time. First, examine your case from the point of view of ‘act-utilitarianism’. That is:

1. List what you think are the two or three most plausible options for action in this situation.

2. Make a list of the people or groups of people who are affected by this decision.

3. For each person (or group) and for each possible action, try to decide how well (or how badly) that person or group would fare. What effect would each possible action have on that person’s happiness? Try to actually assign a quantitative estimate of this. Remember to take into account:

a. How many people are in the group you are considering (if it is more than one)

b. How much each person (or the average group member) will be affected

c. If there is some significant degree of uncertainty about how things will go, then estimate the probability of the different outcomes, and adjust your figures accordingly.

4. Add up the numbers to determine which action best promotes ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

5. Discuss whether this procedure seems to be a sensible one for determining what it is right to do.

6. In the circumstances of your case, does it seem reasonable to you to demand, as utilitarianism does, that a person trying to decide what course of action is best should give no greater weight to his or her own interests than to the interests of anyone else who is affected by the decision? That is, does the utilitarian insistence on counting everyone's interests equally seem reasonable in your case?

Now consider how J. S. Mill’s version of utilitarianism would apply to your case. That is:

7. Is there some way to bring the distinction between higher and lower pleasures into a consideration of your case?

8. Mill says that, most of the time, we can decide what to do, not by directly applying the principle of utility, but instead by applying ‘secondary principles’ – which seem to be the familiar rules of common-sense morality. Would some such rules apply in your case? Would they give a clear answer as to what to do?

9. Mill also says that sometimes more than one of those familiar principles applies, and we then have a difficulty, a moral dilemma. In such cases, he suggests, the principle of utility can serve as a ‘court of appeal’ – a way of settling the dispute between secondary principles. Would this be helpful in your case?