Question

Recall a moment when you acted as a utilitarian. Calculate the net benefit that you brought with your action by applying J. S. Mill's Principle of Utility and J.Bentham's Felicific Calculus. You will find these under Course Materials

Answer 1

Note* This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily.

J.S. Mill describes the principle of utility as an action that adds pleasure and subtracts pain to oneself and others involved in that particular circumstance.

J. Bentham’s Felicific Calculus helps calculate utilitarianism by turning elements into variables in order to get an empirical value.

Let us assume, that you have heard about a new children’s hospital in your locality. When you find that most of the children there are fighting deadly ailments, you empathise and decided to volunteer there. When you get there, you play games with the children, bring them some cake and have a lot of fun. This makes you feel a lot better. Also, you find out from the doctors there that some of those kinds needed encouragement and a happy milieu to help them fight their diseases. The doctors acknowledge that you helped them with that.

Therefore you find out that, not only were you happy with your actions but also, helped ameliorate the infirmities of the children by making them happy.

Based on that illustration, fill out the following:

1.     Intensity: How strong is the pleasure?

2.     Duration: How long will the pleasure last?

3.     Certainty or uncertainty: How likely or unlikely is it that the pleasure will occur?

4.     Propinquity or remoteness: How soon will the pleasure occur?

5.     Fecundity: The probability that the action will be followed by sensations of the same kind.

6.     Purity: The probability that it will not be followed by sensations of the opposite kind.

7.     Extent: How many people will be affected?

(J.Bentham’s official measurement model)

When you have answered the questions above and added the scores, you can determine the unit of utility from your actions. (Scores are mostly in hedons and dolors. You can simply count on a scale of 1-10 out of the maximum score of 70)