UTILITARIANISM

Relativistic Hedonistic Teleological Consequentialist The principle of utility Quantitative

Last week

◦ A women is in the early stages of pregnancy and has a skiing trip booked with 5 friends. She has been looking forward to this for a long time and not going to ski would cause her great unhappiness. Her partner does not know about the pregnancy nor do his parents but her parents do. She has requested an abortion ◦ Based on the principle of utility what would you do and what would you have to consider in your judgement?

Health or Wealth

◦ The info you have is all that there is and it is what you must base your decision on ◦ There is no going back ◦ The money is for all 3 rounds ◦ Use the following to help you; ◦ How long will the happiness/pleasure last?

◦ How soon is it going to occur?

◦ How free from pain is it?

◦ To what extent will it lead to other pleasures?

◦ How powerful is the pleasure?

◦ What is the probability of the pleasure occurring?

◦ How many people are effected?

Act Utilitarianism

◦ In act-utilitarianism, you are required to promote those acts which will result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people. ◦ It is different each time and there are no set rules beyond the principle of utility

The Hedonic Calculus

Duration (how long it lasts) Remoteness (how soon is it going to occur?).

Purity (how free from pain is it) Richness (to what extent it will lead to other pleasures) Intensity (how powerful is it) Certainty (probability of experience occurring).

Extent (how many people are affected).

Lets try the calculus

◦ You are a doctor at a top hospital. You have six gravely ill patients, five of whom are in urgent need of organ transplants. You can’t help them, though, because there are no available organs that can be used to save their lives. The sixth patient, however, will die without a particular medicine. If s/he dies, you will be able to save the other five patients by using the organs of patient 6, who is an organ donor. What do you do? ◦ You and your son are prisoners at a concentration camp. You son tried to escape but was recaptured and sentenced to hang at the gallows. To send a message to all others who may try to escape, the guard orders you to pull the chair out from under your son; if you refuse, the guard will kill your son and another innocent person in the camp. What do you do?

Evaluation

Write up the calculus with explanations and a running example

Final Test

◦ Relativistic ◦ Hedonistic ◦ Teleological ◦ Consequentialist ◦ The principle of utility ◦ Quantitative ◦ What are the 7 sections of the hedonic calculus?

◦ What does each section mean?