7: Bentham and Utilitarianism

Bentham thought that sanctions affect our behavior by imposing physical consequences on our choices, by binding our actions to public opinion and scrutiny, and by entailing fear of punishment and the law. What kind of sanction have I left out?

c. Religious c. Bentham says that in addition to the physical, moral, and political/legal sanctions mentioned here, there are also religious sanctions which affect our behavior through eliciting concern for our mortality and soul.

All of the following are criticisms of Bentham's ethics except:

c. The hedonistic calculus does not offer a framework to help resolve ethical dilemmas.

Bentham thought that our decisions about how to assign numeric values to our options in the hedonistic calculus ought to be informed by consideration of all of the following except:

a. Quality

The utilitarian view of punishment is backward-looking, inasmuch as it seeks retribution for past misdeeds and does not focus on future behavior.

False

There is a standardized way to assign number values to our options using the hedonistic calculus.

False

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory which focuses on following principles or rules, and not on the consequences of behavior.

False

According to Bentham, the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are primary sources of motivation for all people.

True

Bentham commits an is/ought fallacy when he defends the idea that we ought to pursue our pleasure simply because we often do pursue our own pleasure.

True

Bentham developed the hedonistic calculus because he hoped that ethical problems could be approached objectively in the spirit of science.

True

Jeremy Bentham was a liberal thinker and politician of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who is best known for articulating the consequentialist ethics called utilitarianism.

True

The hedonistic calculus is designed to help us determine which act of those available to us has the greatest utility.

True

The hedonistic calculus is useful to the extent that our knowledge of the present circumstances is complete, and our ability to predict the future is accurate.

True

Utilitarianism asserts that human happiness is the most desirable consequence we can bring about.

True

Utilitarianism gets its name from the idea that certain acts have more utility over others in augmenting or diminishing human happiness.

True