Hedonism and Benthams Principle of Utility and Theories - Essay Example

Philosophy Essay Utilitarianism Introduction Resolutely, utilitarianism is one of the consequentialists’ ethical theories used to judge actions according to their anticipated results, hence making it partially a teleological theory; moreover, utilitarians evaluate acts by means of the utilitarian principles that link the rightness and wrongness of acts to the balance of positive utility (good consequences) over negative utility (bad consequences). There are different ways to evaluate an act from a utilitarian perspective focusing on happiness or pleasure and unhappiness or pain as consequences when applying the classical version of the utilitarian principle, and taking into account a broader range of benefits and harms as part of analyzing the consequences based on the contemporary version of a principle. Decisively, this essay is an utter evaluation of Bentham’s theory Act Utilitarianism considering factors such as the value theories, hedonism, and the act and rule forms of Utilitarianism Jeremy Bentham, a democratic reformer, focused on rights for the majority rather than the few; significantly, his writings were the origin of the classical statement of the theory of utilitarianism. Through research, Bentham came up with the conclusion that people naturally seek to avoid pain arguing that good is that which equals the greatest pleasure and the least amount of pain for the greatest number of beings; therefore, a right moral decision is one that produces the greatest pleasure for a great number of people. The process of evaluating the theory entails identifying the consequences of the act by taking into account the consequences for everyone else affected by the act (both positive and negative consequences, short and long-term consequences). After this, the analysis proceeds with comparing the consequences of the act to the consequences of alternative acts; and finally making a judgment about the ethical rightness/wrongness of the act based on the consequences identified and their comparison. For instance, the act is only right if its product is the best balance of positive over negative consequences on everyone that it affects i.e. when it maximizes utility or results to the best overall consequences then the act is right. 2.0 Hedonism and Bentham’s Principle of Utility and Theories (An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation) Generally, most people understand pleasure as an all pleasing sensation or experience of contentment, gratification, exhilaration among other aspects; as for pain, it can be an ache, annoyance, apprehensiveness, anguish and many other feelings. However, the quest remains on the sort of entity that ‘pain’ or ‘pleasure’ is; there are many theories and philosophies that try to explain and elaborate more on the nature of pleasure and displeasure but are not quite clear on a firm basis. Hedonism core values suggest that the only intrinsically good thing is pleasure and the only thing intrinsically bad is pain; typically, some things can be extrinsically good if they lead to pleasure or help avoid pain, and other things can be extrinsically bad if their result is pain or they prevent pleasure. On as hedonism basis, pleasure and pain come in episodes that consist of particular experiences a particular person had for a particular length of time; moreover, each episode has a determinate amount of intrinsic goodness or badness. Reflectively, Bentham is an outright psychological hedonist per his claim that discomfort and desire define people’s actions; more aspects that strengthen his hedonism include his work on determining people’s acts. Upon focusing on hedonism as a value theory, there is a lot in the argument that only preference or disapproval inspires people; simply, this hedonism obligingly consents that a section of hedonic incentives of people fail to control their deed, and that one’s hedonically defined deeds actually fail in getting them the pleasure. I believe in Bentham’s argument on motivation, in relation to hedonism, that people are always inspired to exploit to the maximum what they see as their own good; moreover, everyone accepts that their good is their utmost or necessary stability of preference over discontentment. Even though this argument bases on a motivational egoist perspective, it supports the claim utterly and inductively. However, there are controversies from people who disagree through claims that motivational vanity is at finest debatable. Frequently preference stimulates people in the aspect where accounting for every situation bases on the notion that the more incorporated the interpretation, the better, making hedonism the most amalgamated account; nonetheless, this notion shows that in the confederacy esteem, it is the greatest interpretation of a person’s incentive to act. Association or unification is among the best features for arguments of the internal drive to acquire. This argument clearly puts it out that there is no other feature that hedonism can score even from different perspectives and angles; moreover, the argument establishes the complete credibility of impetus hedonism and the opinion that it stands out as the most reasonable of all motivation philosophies. There are parallel arguments that arguably portray that people are sometimes stirred to develop themselves, to endure, to be present, live with truthfulness and so forth, claiming that every situation can be expressed using these and other terms; unfortunately, this rival views lack the unified feature like the motivational hedonism. From another perspective, motivational hedonism is a daily veracity under the concept that when someone is motivated, his or her goal is having a great equilibrium of desire over discomfort; however, there lies a bigger problem in this argument as it also depicts that impetus hedonism is not a genuineness based on a daily definition. The capability of most hedonists to tell stories as to people’s motives in itself does not generate any reason to consider such narratives; however, Bentham’s claims, understanding and expressions change the rules of the game. Commonly, one can use Bentham’s version of utilitarianism to decide on the right course of action by seeing if the action provides pleasure and happiness for the greatest number of people not just the individual doing the action; additionally, he also uses the hedonic calculus to aid in one’s decision of making the right choice and doing the right action. From this, I can only perceive that the best utilitarianism to favor is the Rule Utilitarian since it proposes that a person thinks before acting and if the outcome is most probably going to be positive then they decide it is good to follow. Tactlessly, the act utilitarian does not consider a generalization of the act but only regards it as single action with a sole outcome hence requiring them to weigh keenly on the possible consequences every time they act. From the analysis, both psychological and ethical hedonism to a particular extent require philosophical attention; however, they both have vast significances especially in utilitarian and egoist traditions of ethical thought, and in empiricist and scientific naturalist philosophical traditions. As for the form of utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism is the belief that the moral correctness of an action depends on the precision of the rules that allow it to achieve the greatest good unlike the act utilitarianism that works under the notion that an action becomes morally right when it produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Technically, it is not advisable following the act utilitarianism since it literally assumes the consequential part of the action. Remarkably, as much as a person’s value of discomfort or pleasure evaluation takes place under some factors such as intensity, duration, certainty or uncertainty among others for the purpose of general consideration; some aspects matter to the person themselves more. These factors however need to undergo evaluation before the core action so that one can be able to determine the nature of the consequences; whether it will cause pain or pleasure. Read More