Utilitarian ethics is an empirical theory which aims to measure the likely future consequences of an action (hence consequentialism) in terms of pleasure (hedonic utilitarians), or happiness.  These are intrinsic goods – everything else is relative to one of these two measures of goodness. So the good action is one that maximises pleasure over pain for the most people, or happiness over misery.

Bentham’s utilitarian ethics judges actions by the balance of pleasure over pain. Here is a brilliant summary of the logic of his book The Principles and Morals of Legislation. But do we really think it’s morally right to pop soma pleasure tablets (extract 1) or hook up to JC Smart’s pleasure machine?  Bentham believed pleasure could be measured by a seven-fold criteria he called the hedonic calculus, and even composed a little poem to help you and me remember it.

Mill’s view of happiness was much closer to the Aristotelean emphasis on character (see extract 7 on the menu above).  Mill disagreed with two aspects of Bentham’s theory: the first was the swinish failure to distinguish between higher and lower pleasures (“better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied”, he said).  So Mill distinguishes between higher intellectual pleasures of Socrates and the lower bodily pleasures of the pig or the fool.

Secondly, Mill was very aware of the criticism that utilitarianism tramples over individual rights. See, for example, the story of the Ones who Walk Away from Omelas (a supposed utilitarian paradise with echoes of the novel and film The Beach). He was keen to demonstrate that if the Government, to take a contemporary example, pursued a rendition policy, such that any terror suspect would be removed to Egypt for a painful torture, it would diminish society generally because we would all be nervous in case I was the next one on the plane.

So certain rules of justice needed to be put in place to guarantee a happy society. Mill is known as a weak rule utilitarian because although he argues for rules to guarantee a feeling of security, he nonetheless allows us to break rules when there is a strong act utilitarian case for it in these particular circumstances.

Peter Singer’s preference utilitarianism acknowledges that both happiness and pleasure are hard to define and measure – so why not take a vote on what you prefer?  Maximise people’s first preferences as far as possible and you escape the measurement problem – you just need to be able to count.  Article 1 explains in summary some of Singer’s views.  A more detailed critique is given by Mark Oppenheimer in Article 2.

Mill claimed his life was saved from a nervous breakdown in his twenties by reading Wordsworth, so I’ve included Wordsworth’s Happy Warrior to see if it would save your life (extract 6).

Can utilitarian ethics escape the two major criticisms, that it tramples over individual rights and that future consequences are impossible to predict?