Hume does not make entirely clear which of these two views he holds; but if he is to avoid breaching his own rule about not deducing an “ought” from an “is,” he cannot hold that a moral judgment can follow logically from a description of the feelings that an action gives to a particular group of spectators. From the mere existence of a feeling, one cannot draw the inference that one ought to obey it. For Hume to be consistent on this point—and consistent even with his central argument that moral judgments must move to action—the moral judgment must be based not on the fact that all people, or most people, or even the speaker, have a certain feeling; it must rather be based on the actual experience of the feeling by whoever accepts the judgment. This still leaves it open whether the feeling is common to all or limited to the person accepting the judgment, but it shows that, in either case, the “truth” of a judgment for any individual depends on whether that individual actually has the appropriate feeling. Is this “truth” at all? As will be seen below, contemporary philosophers with views broadly similar to Hume’s have suggested that moral judgments have a special kind of meaning not susceptible of truth or falsity in the ordinary way. The intuitionist response: Price and Reid
Powerful as they were, Hume’s arguments did not end the debate between the moral sense theorists and the intuitionists. They did, however, lead Richard Price (1723–91), Thomas Reid (1710–96), and later intuitionists to abandon the idea that moral truths can be established by some process of demonstrative reasoning akin to that used in mathematics. Instead, these proponents of intuitionism took the line that notions of right and wrong are simple, objective ideas that are directly perceived and not further analyzable into anything such as “fitness.” Knowledge of these ideas derives not from any moral sense based on feelings but rather from a faculty of reason or of the intellect that is capable of discerning truth. Since Hume, this has been the only plausible form of intuitionism. Yet, Price and Reid failed to explain adequately what the objective moral qualities are and how they are connected to human action. Utilitarianism
At this point the argument over whether morality is based on reason or on feelings was temporarily exhausted, and the focus of British ethics shifted from such questions about the nature of morality as a whole to an inquiry into which actions are right and which are wrong. Today, the distinction between these two types of inquiry would be expressed by saying that, whereas the 18th-century debate between intuitionism and the moral sense school dealt with questions of metaethics, 19th-century thinkers became chiefly concerned with questions of normative ethics. Metaethical positions concerning whether ethics is objective or subjective, for example, do not tell one what one ought to do. That task is the province of normative ethics. Paley
The impetus to the discussion of normative ethics was provided by the challenge of utilitarianism. The essential principle of utilitarianism was, as mentioned earlier, put forth by Hutcheson. Curiously, it was further developed by the widely read theologian William Paley (1743–1805), who provides a good example of the independence of metaethics and normative ethics. His position on the nature of morality was similar to that of Ockham and Luther—namely, he held that right and wrong are determined by the will of God. Yet, because he believed that God wills the happiness of his creatures, his normative ethics were utilitarian: whatever increases happiness is right; whatever diminishes it is wrong. Bentham
Notwithstanding these predecessors, Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) is properly considered the father of modern utilitarianism. It was he who made the utilitarian principle serve as the basis for a unified and comprehensive ethical system that applies, in theory at least, to every area of life. Never before had a complete, detailed system of ethics been so consistently constructed from a single fundamental ethical principle.
Jeremy Bentham.© Photos.com/Thinkstock
Bentham’s ethics began with the proposition that nature has placed human beings under two masters: pleasure and pain. Anything that seems good must be either directly pleasurable or thought to be a means to pleasure or to the avoidance of pain. Conversely, anything that seems bad must be either directly painful or thought to be a means to pain or to the deprivation of pleasure. From this Bentham argued that the words right and wrong can be meaningful only if they are used in accordance with the utilitarian principle, so that whatever increases the net surplus of pleasure over pain is right and whatever decreases it is wrong.
Bentham then considered how one is to weigh the consequences of an action and thereby decide whether it is right or wrong. One must, he says, take account of the pleasures and pains of everyone affected by the action, and this is to be done on an equal basis: “Each to count for one, and none for more than one.” (At a time when Britain had a major trade in slaves, this was a radical suggestion; and Bentham went farther still, explicitly extending consideration to nonhuman animals.) One must also consider how certain or uncertain the pleasures and pains are, their intensity, how long they last, and whether they tend to give rise to further feelings of the same or of the opposite kind.
Bentham did not allow for distinctions in the quality of pleasure or pain as such. Referring to a popular game, he affirmed that “quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry.” This led his opponents to characterize his philosophy as one fit for pigs. The charge is only half true. Bentham could have defended a taste for poetry on the grounds that, whereas one tires of mere games, the pleasures of a true appreciation of poetry have no limit; thus, the quantities of pleasure obtained by poetry are greater than those obtained by pushpin. All the same, one of the strengths of Bentham’s position is its honest bluntness, which it owes to his refusal to be fazed by the contrary opinions either of conventional morality or of refined society. He never thought that the aim of utilitarianism was to explain or to justify ordinary moral views; it was, rather, to reform them. Mill
John Stuart Mill (1806–73), Bentham’s successor as the leader of the utilitarians and the most influential British thinker of the 19th century, had some sympathy for the view that Bentham’s position was too narrow and crude. His essay “Utilitarianism” (1861) introduced several modifications, all aimed at a broader view of what is worthwhile in human existence and at implications less shocking to established moral convictions. Although his position was based on the maximization of happiness (and this is said to consist of pleasure and the absence of pain), he distinguished between pleasures that are higher and those that are lower in quality. This enabled him to say that it is “better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” The fool, he argued, would be of a different opinion only because he has not experienced both kinds of pleasures.
John Stuart Mill.London Stereoscopic Company/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Mill sought to show that utilitarianism is compatible with moral rules and principles relating to justice, honesty, and truthfulness by arguing that utilitarians should not attempt to calculate before each action whether that particular action will maximize utility. Instead, they should be guided by the fact that an action falls under a general principle (such as the principle that people should keep their promises), and adherence to that general principle tends to increase happiness. Only under special circumstances is it necessary to consider whether an exception may have to be made. Sidgwick