{"id":694,"date":"2025-03-13T18:56:37","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T18:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/chapter\/8-2-two-types-of-utilitarianism\/"},"modified":"2025-03-24T15:59:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T15:59:00","slug":"8-2-two-types-of-utilitarianism","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/chapter\/8-2-two-types-of-utilitarianism\/","title":{"raw":"8.2 Two Types of Utilitarianism","rendered":"8.2 Two Types of Utilitarianism"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n

Bentham and Mill, as we will see in the excerpts below, had different approaches to how to make utilitarian calculations. For Bentham, each choice should be weighed individually for its likely consequences. This act utilitarianism<\/strong> focused on individual actions and said that we should apply the principle of utility in order to evaluate them. Therefore, act Utilitarians argue that among possible actions, the action that produces the most utility would be the morally right action.<\/p>\r\n

But this may seem impossible to do in practice since, for everything that we might do that has a potential effect on other people, we would thus be morally required to examine its consequences and pick the one with the best outcome. Mill\u2019s rule utilitarianism<\/strong> responds to this problem by focusing on general types of actions and determining whether they typically lead to good or bad results. This, for them, is the meaning of commonly held moral rules: they are generalizations of the typical consequences of our actions. For example, if stealing typically leads to bad consequences, stealing, in general, would be considered by a rule utilitarian to be wrong.<\/p>\r\n

Hence rule utilitarians claim to be able to reinterpret talk of rights, justice, and fair treatment in terms of the principle of utility by claiming that the rationale behind any such rules is really that these rules generally lead to greater welfare for all concerned. We may wonder whether utilitarianism, in general, is capable of even addressing the notion that people have rights and deserve to be treated justly and fairly because in critical situations the rights and well-being of persons can be sacrificed as long as this seems to lead to an increase overall utility.<\/p>\r\n

For example, in a variation of the famous \u201ctrolley problem,\u201d<\/p>\r\n

imagine that you and an overweight stranger are standing next to each other on a footbridge above a rail track. You discover that there is a runaway trolley rolling down the track and the trolley is about to kill five people who cannot get off of the track quickly enough to avoid the accident. Being willing to sacrifice yourself to save the five persons, you consider jumping off the bridge, in front of the trolley\u2026but you realize that you are far too light to stop the trolley\u2026. The only way you can stop the trolley from killing five people is by pushing this large stranger off the footbridge, in front of the trolley. If you push the stranger off, he will be killed, but you will save the other five.<\/p>\r\n

Utilitarianism, especially act utilitarianism, seems to suggest that the life of the overweight stranger should be sacrificed regardless of any purported right to life he may have. A rule utilitarian, however, may respond that since in general killing innocent people to save others is not what typically leads to the best outcomes, we should be very wary of making a decision to do so in this case. This is especially true in this scenario since everything rests on our calculation of what might possibly stop the trolley, while in fact there is really far too much uncertainty in the outcome to warrant such a serious decision. If nothing else, the emphasis placed on general principles by rule Utilitarians can serve as a warning not to take too lightly the notion that the ends might justify the means.<\/p>\r\n

Whether or not this response is adequate is something that has been extensively debated with reference to this famous example as well as countless variations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"

\n

Bentham and Mill, as we will see in the excerpts below, had different approaches to how to make utilitarian calculations. For Bentham, each choice should be weighed individually for its likely consequences. This act utilitarianism<\/strong> focused on individual actions and said that we should apply the principle of utility in order to evaluate them. Therefore, act Utilitarians argue that among possible actions, the action that produces the most utility would be the morally right action.<\/p>\n

But this may seem impossible to do in practice since, for everything that we might do that has a potential effect on other people, we would thus be morally required to examine its consequences and pick the one with the best outcome. Mill\u2019s rule utilitarianism<\/strong> responds to this problem by focusing on general types of actions and determining whether they typically lead to good or bad results. This, for them, is the meaning of commonly held moral rules: they are generalizations of the typical consequences of our actions. For example, if stealing typically leads to bad consequences, stealing, in general, would be considered by a rule utilitarian to be wrong.<\/p>\n

Hence rule utilitarians claim to be able to reinterpret talk of rights, justice, and fair treatment in terms of the principle of utility by claiming that the rationale behind any such rules is really that these rules generally lead to greater welfare for all concerned. We may wonder whether utilitarianism, in general, is capable of even addressing the notion that people have rights and deserve to be treated justly and fairly because in critical situations the rights and well-being of persons can be sacrificed as long as this seems to lead to an increase overall utility.<\/p>\n

For example, in a variation of the famous \u201ctrolley problem,\u201d<\/p>\n

imagine that you and an overweight stranger are standing next to each other on a footbridge above a rail track. You discover that there is a runaway trolley rolling down the track and the trolley is about to kill five people who cannot get off of the track quickly enough to avoid the accident. Being willing to sacrifice yourself to save the five persons, you consider jumping off the bridge, in front of the trolley\u2026but you realize that you are far too light to stop the trolley\u2026. The only way you can stop the trolley from killing five people is by pushing this large stranger off the footbridge, in front of the trolley. If you push the stranger off, he will be killed, but you will save the other five.<\/p>\n

Utilitarianism, especially act utilitarianism, seems to suggest that the life of the overweight stranger should be sacrificed regardless of any purported right to life he may have. A rule utilitarian, however, may respond that since in general killing innocent people to save others is not what typically leads to the best outcomes, we should be very wary of making a decision to do so in this case. This is especially true in this scenario since everything rests on our calculation of what might possibly stop the trolley, while in fact there is really far too much uncertainty in the outcome to warrant such a serious decision. If nothing else, the emphasis placed on general principles by rule Utilitarians can serve as a warning not to take too lightly the notion that the ends might justify the means.<\/p>\n

Whether or not this response is adequate is something that has been extensively debated with reference to this famous example as well as countless variations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"menu_order":27,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-694","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":917,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1160,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/694\/revisions\/1160"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/917"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/694\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppscphi1012ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}