The Utility Principle

Religious Studies: OCR A Level, topic 2.4.1

Utilitarianism and the Utility Principle

Utilitarianism is the philosophical theory that analyses whether or not an action gives the greatest happiness to the largest amount of people.

Utilitarianism is a teleological theory, which means it is focused upon the end goal, the result, as opposed to the moral theory.
It is also a consequentialist theory and focuses on the outcomes of a moral judgement.

Jeremy Bentham was the leading philosopher in Utilitarianism and he promoted the utility principle as the best way to make a decision for the majority.
Bentham focused on the idea of ‘pleasure’ as opposed to happiness.
So, his theory, when applied to decision-making, was not about considering how happy the greatest amount of people were; it was about how much pleasure they would receive from an action.

The utility principle argues that an action is correct if it promotes happiness and wrong if it creates pain.
The definition of utility is usefulness. So the utility principle analyses the usefulness of the actions.
The utility principle is applied to potential decisions and is used to decide whether this action will produce the largest amount of pleasure for the largest amount of people. If it does, it is the correct action to take. If it does not, then an alternative should be found.

The hedonic calculus is a method of applying the utility principle to potential decisions and working out which action will produce the most pleasure.
The hedonic calculus asks seven questions about the potential action. This then concludes how much pleasure and how much pain would result from this action.