Utilitarianism: a philosophy centered on happiness
Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham developed this philosophical theory.
Philosophers are sometimes criticized for theorizing too much about reality and the ideas we use to define it and paying too little attention to investigating the nature of what makes us truly happy.
This is a misguided accusation for two reasons. The first is that it is not the task of philosophers to study the habits that can contribute to making large groups of people happy; that is the role of scientists. The second is that there is at least one philosophical current that places happiness at the center of its field of interest. Its name is utilitarianism..
What is utilitarianism?
Closely related to hedonism, utilitarianism is a theory of the ethical branch of philosophy according to which morally good behaviors are those whose consequences produce happiness. Thus, there are two basic elements that define utilitarianism: its way of relating the good to the happiness of individuals and its consequentialism. consequentialism.
This last property means that, contrary to what happens with some philosophical doctrines that identify the good with the good intentions that someone has when acting, utilitarianism identifies the consequences of actions as the aspect that must be taken into account, utilitarianism identifies the consequences of actions as the aspect that must be examined when judging whether an action is good or bad..
Bentham's calculus of happiness
Examining the goodness or badness of actions by focusing on the intentions we have may seem easy when assessing the degree to which we are morally good or not. Ultimately, we need only ask ourselves whether our actions were intended to harm someone or rather to benefit someone.
From the perspective of utilitarianism, however, seeing whether we stick to right or wrong is not so easy, because we lose the clear reference that is our intentions, an area in which each of us are our only judges. We then need to develop a way to "measure" the happiness generated by our actions. This enterprise was undertaken in its most literal form by one of the fathers of utilitarianism, the English philosopher Jeremy BenthamBentham, who believed that utility can be evaluated quantitatively just as one does with any item that can be identified in time and space.
This hedonistic calculus was an effort to create a systematic way to objectively establish the level of happiness that our actions have as a consequence, and was therefore fully in line with the utilitarian philosophy. It included certain measures to weigh the duration and intensity of positive and pleasurable sensations experienced and to do the same for painful experiences. However, claims to objectify the level of happiness of an action can easily be questioned. After all, there is no single, unquestionable criterion about the degree of importance to be given to each "variable" of the level of happiness; some people will be more interested in the duration of these, others in their intensity, others in the degree of probability with which they will bring about more pleasant consequences, etc.
John Stuart Mill and utilitarianism
John Stuart Mill is considered one of the most influential thinkers in the theoretical development of liberalism, and was also an enthusiastic advocate of utilitarianism. Stuart Mill was concerned with solving a specific problem: the way in which the interests of the individual can clash with those of other people in the pursuit of happiness. Such conflicts can easily arise because happiness and the pleasure associated with it can only be experienced individually, and not socially, but at the same time human beings need to live in society in order to have certain guarantees of survival.
That is why Stuart Mill relates the concept of happiness to that of justice. It makes sense that he would do so, because justice can be understood as a system of maintaining a framework of healthy relationships in which each individual is guaranteed protection from certain attacks (converted into infractions) while still enjoying the freedom to pursue his own goals.
Types of happiness
If for Bentham happiness was basically a matter of quantity, John Stuart Mill established a qualitative difference between different types of happiness..
Thus, according to him, happiness of an intellectual nature is better than that based on the satisfaction produced by the stimulation of the senses. However, as psychologists and neuroscientists would later prove, it is not easy to delimit these two kinds of pleasure.
The principle of the greatest happiness
John Stuart Mill did something more for the utilitarianism with which he had come into contact through Bentham: he added definition to the type of happiness that should be pursued from this ethical approach. Thus, if until then it was understood that utilitarianism was the pursuit of happiness that is the result of the consequences of actions, Stuart Mill concretized the issue of who to experience this happiness: as many people as possible..
This idea is what is called the greatest happiness principleWe should act in such a way that our actions produce the greatest amount of happiness in the greatest number of people possible, an idea that is somewhat similar to the model of morality proposed decades earlier by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. Immanuel Kant.
Utilitarianism as a philosophy of life
Is utilitarianism useful as a philosophical reference through which to structure our way of life? The easy answer to this question is that discovering this depends on oneself and the degree of happiness that the implementation of this form of ethics generates in us.
However, there is one thing that can be conceded to utilitarianism as a generalizable philosophy; today there is a greater number of researchers willing to conduct studies on the life habits that are associated with happiness, which means that this philosophical theory can offer somewhat clearer guidelines for behavior than 100 years ago.
(Updated at Apr 13 / 2024)