These are the notes that I made for the seminar on Thursday.
Jeremy Bentham
He identified happiness with pleasure. Pleasure is the supreme spring of action and happiness is maximised the same way as pleasure is. Plato discussed the thesis that virtue consists in the correct choice of pain and pleasure. Aristotle distinguished between happiness and pleasure but refused to identify happiness with the pleasure of the senses. For Aristotle, happiness is the effect of all good things e.g. eating well = health.
Bentham also regarded pleasure as a sensation, pain and pleasure are what everybody feels to 'be such'. He said that the acquisition of wealth, kindness and giving to others gives us pleasure, not just just sex, drinking and eating. The relationship between an activity and its pleasure was one of cause and effect and the value of each pleasure is the same no matter how is was caused. So does Bentham mean that if I am for example walking along a riverbank and see 3 children drowning in the river, if I jump in to save the kids, I can only save 2 as by the time I take 2 of them to safety, the other one will have drowned. If I save child A and child B, I will most likely feel pleasure for saving the children, but the other child has died. Is Bentham really saying this? I'm going to feel pleasure after a child has died, am I? That sounds a bit off to me. Bentham was a strict utilitarian though.
This brings me to the difference between happiness and pleasure. Certain things give us pleasure but don't necessarily make us happy. For example giving to charity, when we give to charities we feel pleasure for helping a worthy cause but are we actually happy? Philanthropists probably don't feel happy because they are giving away large sums of money, but they must be feeling pleasure as they help out worthy causes. Some would argue that people only give to charity to boost their public profile and/or egos.
The quantification of pain and pleasure is very important for utilitarians. Bentham said that we must consider the fecundity and purity, an action is fecund if it is likely to produce a series of pleasures and pure if unlikely to produce a series of pains. 'Extension' is also an important consideration we must make, will our decision affect the wider society?
A number of criticisms have been made about utilitarianism. The first is that 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number' is ambiguous. Is 'number' males, females, plants? The second is should those following the greatest number principle limit who gains happiness? The third is how much happiness should be delivered? Finally, who is to decide how happy certain people feel when a decision is made? Other criticisms of utilitarianism include the consequences of an action can't be controlled, what will they be, will they occur when they are intended to occur and how can the causality be limited.
JS Mill
Mill said that it is foolish to deny that humans have higher faculties than animals. This means we can distinguish between different pleasures in terms of quality as well as quantity.
According to Mill, happiness doesn't just involve being content, but a sense if dignity. The 'greatest happiness' theory needs to be restated. Mill said that any action that promotes happiness is good/right. Everyone should seek happiness as an end goal to life. 'Means to an end' - the end is overall happiness, for example you work hard to get a uni degree, get a job related to the degree, the job pays well, you buy a nice house, you fill the house with nice things, those things make you happy. All the previous actions (the means) have led up to your overall happiness (the end).
Schopenhauer
He believed that the world of experience is an illusion and the true reality as as the thing in itself is the universal will. The root of the will is need and pain, we suffer until we are satisfied, but when we are satisfied we lack objects of desire and life becomes a burden. We can overcome this by intoxication, but we can't be in this state forever. To be intoxicated, we don't just drink lots of alcohol or take drugs, but immerse ourselves in art. The most pure form of art being music.
TB 2012.
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