Philosophy Of Jeremy Bentham Essay Example For Students

Philosophy Of Jeremy Bentham Essay Over time, the actions of mankind have been the victim of two vague labels, right and wrong. The criteria for these labels are not clearly defined, but they still seem to be the standard by which the actions of man are judged. There are some people that abide by a deontological view when it comes to judging the nature of actions; the deontological view holds that it is a persons intention that makes an action right or wrong. On the other hand there is the teleological view which holds that it is the result of an action is what makes that act right or wrong. In this essay I will be dealing with utilitarianism, a philosophical principle that holds a teleological view when it comes the nature of actions. To solely discuss utilitarianism is much too broad of topic and must be broken down, so I will discuss specifically quantitative utilitarianism as presented by Jeremy Bentham. In this essay I will present the argument of Bentham supporting his respective form of utilitarianism and I will give my critique of this argument along the way. Before the main discussion of the Benthams utilitarianism gets underway, lets first establish what utilitarianism is. As stated in the introduction, utilitarianism is a teleological philosophy that is primarily concerned with the results of an action when determining the nature of that act. Utilitarianism operates primarily under the greater happiness principal, in other words, utilitarians believe that one should only act in such a way that the results of that act should produce the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest for the greatest number of people. It is due to this view that utilitarianism is often criticized for being too hedonistic because it places the moral value of an act only on how much that act effects happiness. The teleological nature of utilitarianism also can serve as a problem because it pays no attention to the intention an action and can make acts of an immoral nature justifiably right. I will use the example that a professor of mine used in which a man tries to snatch an old ladys purse and in his struggle to do so he pulls her out of the way of a speeding vehicle thus saving her life. This act, although it started with mischievous intent, ended with a life being saved and surely produced the greatest amount of happiness for the old lady. In the utilitarian eye this act is morally acceptable and right due to the fact that happiness was produced. Jeremy Bentham was a utilitarian philosopher with his own version of this particular of this teleological view called Quantitative Utilitarianism. Benthams utilitarianism argument starts by giving his principle of utility which judges all actions based on its tendency to promote or diminish happiness of whoever is involved, be it a community or an individual. According to Bentham, an action is right if, it increases happiness and decreases suffering and is wrong it does not. Also included in his view of utilitarianism is a way to calculate the general tendency of any act and its affect on a community. The calculation is based on the seven circumstances of the act, which are: its intensity, its duration, its certainty or uncertainty, its propinquity or remoteness, its fecundity (tendency to be followed by sensations of like kind), its purity (tendency not to be followed by sensations of unlike kind), and its extent (number of people affected). With these circumstances in order, one can start to calculate the nature of the act and according to Bentham after the completion of the process, one can make an accurate assessment of the true nature of the act. Here is where my critique of Benthams Quantitative Utilitarianism comes into the picture. Essay about The Pros and Cons of Social Surveys in Sociological Research Essay There are too many things that need to be done in order to come to the final conclusion and on top of that, the process instructs you to repeat however many times necessary. Secondly, the terms fecundity and purity seem like the same thing. I can not see the difference between taking into account the chance of something being followed by something else of same nature and taking into account the chance of something not being followed by something of opposite nature. If I am trying to estimate the chances a pleasurable sensation has of being followed by another pleasurable sensation, is that not the same as trying to estimate the chances a pleasurable sensation has of not being followed by a painful sensation. In both scenarios I am trying to see if the original pleasurable sensation will be followed by another pleasurable sensation. Thirdly, the problem of again rises about value. In the first case, the value for interests went unspecified, now in this case it is the value of pleasure and plain. Throughout Benthams explaining of how to calculate how an act affects a communitys interest, he once again fails to give some kind of value for pleasure and pain. We are instructed to take every pleasure and every pain into account and them sum up all the values in order to get a balance, but there is no value. Bentham also repeats the mistake of treating abstract concepts as concrete concepts. Just like individual interests, pleasure and pain are relative. The ways that pleasure and pain affect people vary and what is pleasurable for one person may not be pleasurable for another. Another problem with this method has to do with the end product of the account process. Bentham says that after all of the values of pleasure and pain are summed up, if the balance is on the side of pleasure the act as a whole has a good tendency, as the same for pain. But what if there is no side that the balance lay on? Hypothetically speaking, if there were a community of 200 people and after all of the values of pleasure and pain were added up and the results were split down the middle, what tendency would the act have? In order to even start to answer this there would have to be some sort of value for the pleasure and pain. The values would also have to differ in order to get a definite end result, certain pains and pleasures would have to weigh more than others, but thats Qualitative Utilitarianism. As for Bentham and Quantitative Utilitarianism this is all I have to say, its all that I could muster. In conclusion, Benthams essay does read well. He is very precise in keeping his argument consistent. If there were some kind of way to give things like pleasure and pain definite values, then his quantitative method would be that which all other methods would go by. But things of that nature vary too much and too often to even try to try.