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Please Address all those parts of Bentham, Mill and kant: 1) Bentham Principles? Utilitarianism? hedonistic calculus? Criticisms? 2) Mill Utilitarianism? Higher VS Lower...

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Psychology

Please Address all those parts of Bentham, Mill and kant:

1) Bentham

Principles?

Utilitarianism?

hedonistic calculus?

Criticisms?

2) Mill

Utilitarianism?

Higher VS Lower Pleasures?

Arguments for preferring higher to lower pleasures?

Criticisms?

3) Kant

Ground work

Good Will?

Acting for duty’s sake?

Answer & Explanation Solved by verified expert
3.7 Ratings (282 Votes)
Benthams Utilitarian Calculus Bentham presents his theory of utility in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation 1789 which he wrote as a kind of moral guidebook for legislators as they make public policy Although the bulk of this work focuses on issues of criminal conduct the opening chapters systematically describe how utility is the ultimate moral standard for all actions Bentham states his principle of utility here By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question or what is the same thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness I say of every action whatsoever and therefore not only of every action of a private individual but of every measure of government Principles of Morals and Legislation 1789 12 Two features of Benthams theory make it especially unique First Bentham offers a barebones moral theory consisting of only one factor the pleasing or painful consequences of actions Although earlier theorists put forward the basic elements of utilitarianism they also incorporated nonutilitarian doctrines into their moral theories Some of these extraneous doctrines are that morality is ultimately founded on the will of God that sympathy is needed to counterbalance human selfishness that virtues underlie our moral actions that we rationally intuit our duty and that we judge conduct through a moral sense For Bentham some of these doctrines are nonsensical and the rest are irrelevant His rejection of these more traditional elements of moral theory gave utilitarianism the reputation of being Godless impersonal skeptical and relativistic The second and most important feature of Benthams theory is his method for precisely quantifying pleasures and pains better known as the utilitarian calculus He argues that the complete range of pleasing and painful consequences of actions can be quantified according to seven criteria 1 intensity 2 duration 3 certainty 4 remoteness that is the immediacy of the pleasure or pain 5 fecundity that is whether similar pleasures or pains will follow 6 purity that is whether the pleasure is mixed with pain and 7 extent that is the number of people affected In a footnote to a later edition of the Principles Bentham summarizes these criteria in a rhyme which he says might assist us in lodging more effectually in the memory these points Intense long certain speedy fruitful pure Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure Such pleasures seek if private by thy end If it be public wide let them extend Such pains avoid whichever by they view If pains must come let them extend to few Principles of Morals and Legislation 42 Bentham is very explicit about how the calculus works For example if we wanted to determine the morality of executing Karla Faye Tucker we would first calculate one at a time all of the pleasure and pain that she personally would receive from the execution One specific pleasurepain that she would experience would involve her contemplating her own death As she sat in her cell and thought about the fact that she would soon die she undoubtedly had a strong painful experience of dread According to Benthams calculus we need to construct a pleasurepain chart that takes into account the first four criteria listed previously We also need to assign numerical values to these factors perhaps on a scale of 1 to 10 In Tuckers case we might get these figures Pleasure Pain Intensity 0 10 Duration 0 2 Certainty 0 10 Immediacy 0 10 Concerning the intensity of her pleasurepain we may presume that Tucker derived no pleasure from the events immediately surrounding her death and she experienced very intense emotional pain at the prospect of losing her life The duration of the emotional pain would have been relatively brief but also certain and immediate After we chart out the first four factors we then consider the other three factors separately Benthams purity factor involves whether an act produces both pain and pleasure Weve already taken this into account in our chart by noting that Tucker experienced only pain and no pleasure The fecundity factor involves any similar longterm residual pleasures and pains that might result from an action Since Tuckers execution was carried out successfully there were no residual pleasures and pains for her However if her execution had been botched on its first attempt and she had to go through the process again a month later then we would need to devise another pleasurepain chart for the new execution Our chart quantifies only the psychological anguish that Tucker experienced when contemplating her own death However there were other distinct pleasures and pains that she experienced regarding her execution For example she would have been distressed at being permanently separated from her family and frustrated with the criminal justice system For each of these additional pains or pleasures we need additional pleasurepain charts Finally Benthams extent factor involves all the pleasures and pains experienced by other people So once we fully account for Tuckers pleasures and pains we then construct similar pleasurepain charts for each pleasure and pain experienced by each person affected by Tuckers execution This includes the pleasures experienced by people who wanted Tucker dead such as the victims relatives and those who commiserated with the relatives But it also includes the pains experienced by those who wanted her alive such as Tuckers own relatives and even those like the Pope who oppose capital punishment and are pained by another execution At this stage thousands and perhaps millions of pleasurepain charts would be involved We then take the combined pleasure score from all charts and compare it to the combined pain score from all charts If the pleasure column has the higher score then executing Tucker is moral But if the pain column has the higher score then the execution is immoral When Benthams Principles first appeared two book reviewers attacked the work for the excessive detail throughout his entire discussion The Analytical Review charged that perhaps the love of discrimination has been sometimes carried too far and been productive of divisions and subdivisions of little use to a legislator Vol 5 1789 The Critical Review commented more strongly that long and intricate discussions end in trifling conclusions affected refinement sometimes stands in the place of useful distinctions and the parade of system is so highly labored as frequently to disgust Vol 681789 Bentham was well aware of this overall problem with the Principles and for that reason he delayed its publication for nine years The problem with his utilitarian calculus in particular is that it imposes a precision on a subject that does not allow for it Working through even a single example shows that it is virtually impossible to do a complete utilitarian calculus and this constitutes the strongest argument against it In spite of the problems with Benthams theory his view of utilitarianism gained a following By the midnineteenth century his name was so strongly linked with utilitarianism that one commentator felt compelled to remind people that Bentham did not invent the doctrine Simon Laurie On the Philosophy of Ethics 1866 The next great step in the development of utilitarianism came with British philosopher John Stuart Mill 18061873 MILLS UTILITARIANISM Bentham was John Stuart Mills godfather and teacher and the young Mill was strongly influenced by his mentors account of utilitarianism In early adulthood Mill suffered an emotional breakdown which he attributed to his heavily analytic education When Bentham died shortly thereafter Mill felt free to reevaluate the ideas of his upbringing Mills early writings show a growing disenchantment with Benthams overly    See Answer
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