Individual Sacrifice and the Greatest Happiness: Bentham on Utility and Rights
This article considers Bentham's response to the criticism of utilitarianism that it allows for and may even require the sacrifice of some members of society in order to increase overall happiness. It begins with the contrast between the principle of utility and the contrasting principle of sympathy and antipathy to show that Bentham regarded the main achievement of his principle as overcoming the subjectivity he found in all other philosophical theories. This subjectivism, especially prevalent in theories of rights, might well lead to the sacrifice of the individual. The principle of utility was presented as an ‘objective’ theory that avoided the difficulties of other moral and political theories. The article also considers the importance of universally applicable ends, such as security and equality, as part of the principle of utility, and especially Bentham's view of maximizing pleasure as being a distributive rather than an aggregative idea. The article concludes by criticizing H. L. A. Hart's interpretation of the role of equality and rights in Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and argues that Mill's doctrine of moral rights builds on foundations originally established by Bentham, foundations which would preclude the sacrifice of individuals.
Utilitarianism and the Punishment of the Innocent: The Origins of a False Doctrine
This paper examines the commonplace assertion that utilitarianism allows for and even, at times, requires the punishment of the innocent. It traces the origins of this doctrine to the writings of the British Idealists and the subsequent development of what is called the post-utilitarian paradigm which posits various justifications for punishment such as retribution, deterrence and reform, finds all of them inadequate, and then, with the addition of other ideas, reconciles them. The idea of deterrence is falsely depicted as the utilitarian contribution to the theory of punishment, while deterrence in fact is one of several elements in the utilitarian theory. The mistake comes from ignoring the pain-pleasure dimension of Benthamite utilitarianism and from regarding the principle of utility itself as the sole criterion of action in a ‘top-down’ fashion.
The Disutility of Act-Utilitarianism
"The principle of utility, (I have heard it said) is a dangerous principle: it is dangerous on certain occasions to consult it." This is as much as to say, what ? that it is not consonant with utility to consult utility: in short, that it is not consulting it, to consult it. In these words Jeremy Bentham dismisses an attack on the principle of utility by Alexander Wedderburn, then Attorney or Solicitor General, later Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Chancellor of England under the successive titles of Lord Loughborough and Earl of Rosslyn. But Bentham admits that the principle is indeed a dangerous one to the interest of anyone like Alexander Wedderburn and to any government that has for its object the greatest happiness of some small number of privileged individuals. In a Government which had for its end in view the greatest happiness of the greatest number, Alexander Wedderburn might have been Attorney General and then Chancellor: but he would not have been Attorney General with ?15,000 a year, nor Chancellor, with a peerage, with a veto upon all justice, with ?25,000 a year, and with 500 sinecures at his disposal, under the name of Ecclesiastical Benefices, besides et caeteras (Principles of Morals and Legislation, Ch. I, ? 13, footnote). Regrettably, such brisk treatment for the critics of utility is no longer in order : the view that utilitarianism may itself have disutility is put forward soberly today by philosophers who cannot be suspected of defending sinister interests and who are not likely to enjoy even nominal incomes, after two centuries of inflation, as large as Alexander Wedderburn's.1 Though we cannot impugn the motives of such men as Warnock and Hodgson, it remains true that what they say is paradoxical. How could it