Consequences vs duty

This unit contrasts two towering ethical theories:

• Bentham's utilitarianism — teleological: the right act produces the best consequences (most happiness).
• Kant's deontology — a priori and duty-based: an act is right if it accords with reason and duty, whatever the consequences.

Bentham: the principle of utility

Jeremy Bentham was a hedonist: pleasure is the only intrinsic good, pain the only evil. His principle of utility (the "greatest happiness principle") says the right action is the one that produces the greatest good for the greatest number.

This is act utilitarianism: each act is judged individually by its likely consequences.

The hedonic calculus

To measure pleasure and pain Bentham offers the hedonic (felicific) calculus — seven factors:

• Intensity — how strong?
• Duration — how long?
• Certainty — how likely?
• Propinquity — how soon (nearness)?
• Fecundity — will it lead to more pleasure?
• Purity — free from following pain?
• Extent — how many are affected?

Challenge: Bentham counts only the quantity of pleasure — "pushpin is as good as poetry". J. S. Mill later distinguished higher and lower pleasures in response.

Whose calculus?

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strengths: democratic (everyone counts equally), rational, secular, flexible; focuses on real welfare.
• Weaknesses: consequences are hard to predict; it can justify punishing the innocent or the "tyranny of the majority"; it ignores justice, rights and special obligations; measuring pleasure is difficult.

Kant: the good will and duty

Immanuel Kant grounds morality in reason, not feeling or consequences. "Nothing can be called good without qualification except a good will" — a will that acts from duty, not inclination.

He distinguishes:

• Hypothetical imperatives — "if you want X, do Y" (means to an end).
• The categorical imperative — an unconditional command of reason, binding on all rational beings.

The categorical imperative

Kant gives several formulations of the one categorical imperative:

• Universal law: "Act only on that maxim you can will to become a universal law." A maxim that contradicts itself when universalised (e.g. lying promises) is forbidden.
• Humanity as an end: treat people "never merely as a means, but always also as an end".
• Kingdom of ends: act as a law-making member of a community of rational ends.

Kant also argues morality requires the summum bonum (the union of virtue and happiness), which grounds postulates of freedom, immortality and God.

Which formulation?

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strengths: upholds human dignity and rights; gives clear, consistent, universal rules; keeps morality rational and impartial.
• Weaknesses: too rigid — Kant seems to forbid lying even to a would-be murderer (the "inquiring murderer"); it can generate clashing duties; and it may neglect consequences and compassion.

Teleological or deontological?

Sort each idea by thinker

Tap a claim, then drop it under the thinker it belongs to.

Match the concept

Tap a description, then the term it belongs to.

The big ideas to hold together

You can now explain, apply and evaluate both Bentham and Kant, and contrast teleological with deontological ethics. Press Finish to see your score.