Act-utilitarianism
The act-utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham takes into account the total amount of happiness for all people, not average pleasure. Happiness is interpreted as pleasure, and all pleasures, in themselves, are equally good. For Bentham, unlike for Mill, intellectual pleasures are no better than bodily pleasures. In itself, the pleasure of wallowing in mud is no better than the pleasure some people get from doing a difficult proof in logic. This sounds like an animalistic morality, but this inference leaves out the complexity of Bentham's position.
In the following paragraph we look at Jemery Bentham’s way of calculating the sum of happiness. It is his hedonistic calculation. (Did we ‘hedonism’?)
Bentham recognizes that pleasures are complex; they differ in ways that end up making some pleasures, if effect, better than others. Although one type of pleasure is no better than another in itself, a longer-lasting pleasure is better than a shorter pleasure because it produces more pleasure; so the duration of a pleasure must be considered. A pleasure we experience soon is better than a pleasure experienced later; this is called the propinquity of a pleasure. Bentham claims that a fruitful pleasure, one that leads to other pleasures, is better than a pleasure that goes nowhere. Bentham continues: An intense pleasure is better than a dull pleasure. A more certain pleasure, one that we can reliably expect, should have a greater impact on our calculations about what to do than an uncertain one. A pure pleasure, one that is not mixed with pain, is better than a pleasure that is tainted with pain. For example, the pleasure many get from jogging is sometimes mixed with significant pain. (I don’t jog any more.) Added to all of this, the absence of pain counts as pleasure.
Now we can argue that the pleasure of solving a logic proof is a better pleasure if it satisfies Bentham's standards. We are made more skillful by logic, and so we can enjoy a new set of experiences that those less skillful cannot enjoy. It is a reliable pleasure and one that usually is long-lived. It does come mixed with some pain, the hard work to learn how to do the proof and the struggle to solve it, though the pain is usually not intense. All in all, the negative features of doing logic may be compensated by its long-run, positive, happiness-producing qualities. And these may produce, for many people so inclined, more than enough happiness to outpace the happiness from a low-level physical pleasure. (Don’t send any logic problems.)
Bentham proposes a calculus of utility. To decide which actions to do, we add up all the pleasure and pain each possible action is expected to produce. We must be careful to evaluate all the aspects of pleasure: intensity, fruitfulness, duration, certainty, propinquity, and purity. After we consider all the totals, we should do the action that produces the most happiness.
Think about the number of variables Bentham wants us to consider, and the possible conflicts among them. Pleasure A may be more intense than B, but short lived while B lasts longer. Add in all the other features we should consider, such as propinquity. Don’t forget that one action may affect many people, all with lots of calculations. This can get out of control. Rather, is it ever under control?
Mill objects to Bentham's procedure. Some pleasures, Mill thought, are more admirable than others. The pleasure from doing mathematical proofs is a more admirable pleasure, in itself, than the pleasure we may get from eating a good meal. Furthermore, some actions so fundamentally disrupt pleasure, like injustice and censorship, that they are virtually always forbidden. Under his view, injustice is a name we assign to those actions that upset people's lives in basic ways. These are forbidden in a strict way by most theories because they involve such a serious amount of pain and a consistent forfeit of pleasure; typically, no calculation is needed to condemn acts of injustice.
Mill's reaction to injustice and censorship helps to show one of the advantages claimed for the utilitarian theory, that it can account for or explain the values supported in other theories. If a deontologist claims that it is always immoral to violate justice, the utilitarian claims that this is a good insight because justice does promote happiness, but the insight is carried to an extreme. The deontologist properly claims that violating justice or freedom is a serious offense. It virtually always causes a loss of utility, but by making this a strict moral requirement, one without exception, the deontologist loses sight of the base of the concern, that injustice typically robs us of happiness. Or so utilitarians say. Utilitarians thus believe that deontologists are mistaken because they end up making justice more crucial in human life than happiness. Keeping happiness in mind, the utilitarian believes that we can explain our typical objection to injustice without making the objection into an absolute requirement.
Let’s turn to the next section to look more closely at the strengths and weakness of act-utilitarianism.