Analysis Of Bentham's Hedonic Calculus

The fundamental problem with the greatest happiness for the greatest number, is that it eradicates genuine people and turns them simply into numbers. This is shown explicitly in Bentham’s hedonic calculus, which turns ethics into a calculation. The issue with this is that it can deem blatantly immoral acts as “the right thing to do”. Following this philosophy, we can easily justify, injustices and the violation of rights such as gang rape, murder or the general suffering of others in order to provide the masses with pleasure. However, this is assuming Bentham’s hedonistic views, that happiness is pleasure, an idea that has since been disputed by philosophers such as Mill. If we are to abide by Bentham’s thesis that morality is best described …show more content…
In The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, Ursula Le Guin describes an absolute utopia for all of the citizens who dwell in Omelas. However, in return for this utopia, there is a young child locked away in a basement. From a consequentialist perspective, this situation is entirely moral, as the pleasure gained from the citizen far out weighs the suffering of the child. Nevertheless, can this be considered right? Or better yet, moral? Of course it cannot. Kant argues that there are two types of imperatives, hypothetical and categorical, the categorical being the only that can be deemed moral. Here, he instates universal laws, the most relevant of which is that we should “act so as to treat people always as ends in themselves, never as mere means”. In using outcome as a basis for morality, we overlook basic moral principles that should not be ignored. This is not only evident in thought experiments, but also in real life situations. If we derive morality from the greatest pleasure for the greatest number, we can justify gang rape, in spite of this being a direct violation of human rights and property. However, Mill began to rectify this issue with utilitarianism claiming “to have a right, then, is, I conceive, to have something which society ought to defend me in the possession of… [for] no other reason than general utility.” Here, lies the distinction between act-utilitarianism (justifying the gang rape) and rule-utilitarianism. If we apply rule-utilitarianism, the rape is no longer justifiable, as in a society where there are several rapes a day would likely provide less happiness for the majority than a society which did