Overview -

Jeremy Bentham's exposition of the theory then questioned by John Stuart Mill

Morality and religion link was challenged in 18th century 'enlightenment thinkers' and ? should we focus on the consequences of our actions rather than the actions themselves?

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory at the heart of all modern democracies

Classical Utilitarianism - Bentham was a lifelong advocate of legal, political, social and educational reform.

John Stuart Mill criticisms of JBs utilitarianism

Main features of utilitarianism - 3 major elements 1 Consequentialism - action is morally neutral and only has instrumental value

Actions being morally neutral - This is an important criticism of utilitarianism

Classical utilitarianism - act utilitarianism - is the original form of utilitarianism proposed by Bentham. Rule utilitarianism is a modern development of the theory. It relies on evidence from the consequences of past events to decide what an ethical rule should be.

Evaluating the consequences - importance of preferences - restate the principle of utility to say that we should max the satisfaction of preferences.

Utility and equality - 'each is to count for one, and no-one for more than one'. This equality aspect therefore

Equality beyond human beings - Peter Singer

Singer book 'Animal Liberation' - the popular prejudice against taking the interests of animals seriously, he argues, is a prejudice that has no sounder foundation than had the prejudice of white slave owners against black people. Just as we now denounce racism, he argues that we should also denounce speciesism.

The principle of equality does not necessarily mean that benefits and burdens are to be distributed equally. Max overall allows trade offs losses to some can be compensated by gains to others.

Cause for dissatisfaction with utilitarianism.