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Utilitarianism: is a doctrine of ethics which takes the assumed greatest benefit for the greatest number of affected people as the moral aim. See also hedonism, good/the good, preference-utilitarianism, rule-utilitarianism, ethics, morality, deontology, consequentialism, benefit.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Jeremy Bentham on Utilitarianism - Dictionary of Arguments

Rothbard II 58
Utilitarism/VsBentham/Bentham/Rothbard: Jeremy Bentham's dubious contribution to personal utilitarian doctrine - in addition to being its best known propagator and popularizer - was to quantify and crudely reduce it still further. Trying to make the doctrine still more ‘scientific’, Bentham attempted to provide a ‘scientific’ standard for such emotions as happiness and unhappiness: quantities of pleasure and pain. All vague notions of happiness and desire, for Bentham, could be reduced to quantities of pleasure and pain: pleasure ‘good’, pain ‘bad’. Man, therefore, simply attempts to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. In that case, the individual - and the scientist observing him - can engage in a replicable ‘calculus of pleasure and pain’, what Bentham termed ‘the felicific calculus’ that can be churned out to yield the proper result in counselling action or non-action in any given situation. Every man, then, can engage in what
Rothbard II 59
neo-Benthamite economists nowadays call a ‘cost-benefit analysis’; in whatever situation, he can gauge the benefits - units of pleasure - weigh it against the costs - units of pain - and see which outweighs the other.
VsBentham: In a discussion which Professor John Plamenatz(1) aptly says ‘parodies reason’, Bentham tries to give objective ‘dimensions’ to pleasure and pain, so as to establish the scientific soundness of his felicific calculus. These dimensions, Bentham asserts, are sevenfold: intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity and extent. Bentham claims that, at least conceptually, all these qualities can be measured, and then multiplied together to yield the net resultant of pain or pleasure from any action.
VsBentham: Simply to state Bentham's theory of seven dimensions should be enough to demonstrate its sheer folly. These emotions or sensations are qualitative and not quantitative, and none of these ‘dimensions’ can be multiplied or weighted together.
PlamenatzVsBentham: the truth is that even an omniscient God could not make such calculations, for the very notion of them is impossible. The intensity of a pleasure cannot be measured against its duration, nor its duration against its certainty or uncertainty, nor this latter property against its propinquity or remoteness.(1)
John Daniel WildVsBentham: John Wild eloquently contrasts utilitarian personal ethics with the ethics of natural law: Utilitarian ethics makes no clear distinction between raw appetite or interest, and that deliberate or voluntary desire which is fused with practical reason. Value, or pleasure, or satisfaction is the object of any interest, no matter how incidental or
Rothbard II 60
distorted it may be. Qualitative distinctions are simply ignored, and the good is conceived in a purely quantitative manner as the maximum of pleasure or satisfaction. Reason has nothing to do with the eliciting of sound appetite. One desire is no more legitimate than another. Reason is the slave of passion. Its whole function is exhausted in working out schemes for the maximizing of such interests as happen to arise through chance or other irrational causes... As against this, the theory of natural law maintains that there is a sharp distinction between raw appetites and deliberate desires elicited with the cooperation of practical reason.
Social utilitarianism/Bentham/VsBentham/Rothbard: In extending utilitarianism from the personal to the social, Bentham and his followers incorporated all the fallacies of the former, and added many more besides. If each man tries to maximize pleasure (and minimize pain), then the social ethical rule, for the Benthamites, is to seek always ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’, in a social felicific calculus in which each man counts for one, no more and no less.
RothbardVsUtilitarianism/RothbardVsBentham: The first question is the powerful one of self-refutation: for if each man is necessarily governed by the rule of maximizing pleasure, then why in the world are these utilitarian philosophers doing something very different - that is,
Rothbard II 61
calling for an abstract social principle (‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’)? And why is their abstract moral principle - for that is what it is - legitimate while all others, such as natural rights, are to be brusquely dismissed as nonsense?
Ethics/Bentham/VsBentham/Rothbard: Finally, while utilitarianism falsely assumes that the moral or the ethical is a purely subjective given to each individual, it on the contrary assumes that these subjective desires can be added, subtracted, and weighed across the various individuals in society so as to result in a calculation of maximum social happiness. But how in the world can an objective or calculable ‘social utility’ or ‘social cost’ emerge out of purely subjective desires, especially since subjective desires or utilities are strictly ordinal, and cannot be compared or added or subtracted among more than one person? The truth, then, is the opposite of the core assumptions of utilitarianism. Moral principles, which utilitarianism claims to reject as mere subjective emotion, are intersubjective and can be used to persuade various persons; whereas utilities and costs are purely subjective to each individual and therefore cannot be compared or weighed between persons.

1. Plamenatz, J. 1958. The English Utilitarians. pp. 73-4
2. Wild, J. D. 1953. Plato's Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press

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Singer I 10
Utilitarianism/Bentham/P. Singer: Bentham thesis: "Everyone counts as one and nobody counts as more than one".
Cf. >Utilitarianism/Singer
, >Preference utilitarianism, >J. Bentham.

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Benth I
J. Bentham
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation Mineola, NY 2007

Rothbard II
Murray N. Rothbard
Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995

Rothbard III
Murray N. Rothbard
Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009

Rothbard IV
Murray N. Rothbard
The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988

Rothbard V
Murray N. Rothbard
Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977

SingerP I
Peter Singer
Practical Ethics (Third Edition) Cambridge 2011

SingerP II
P. Singer
The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically. New Haven 2015


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