Ethics and Happiness

The last four weeks we’ve spent time worrying about how we are allowed to treat zombies. This week we are going to turn our attention to the most important and influential historical idea that gives us a super-simple answer about what we are morally allowed to do in any possible situation. This views is called utilitarianism, and it says that the only morally permissible action is whatever brings about the most happiness - which utilitarians normally say is the greatest balance of pleasure over pain.

Utilitarianism helps a lot, because if Zombies don’t experience pain, then it settles the question of whether it matters, morally speaking, how we treat them. Likewise, if zombies DO feel pain, then that also settles the question. So utilitarianism would allow us to reduce the question of how to treat zombies to the question of whether they can feel pain.

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham is the writer who first introduced the word ‘utilitarianism’, and argued that it was the proper way to resolve moral questions and decide what laws should be passed. The somewhat gristly image on the right is his mummified head, which is in the collection of University College London, to whom he left it in his will. One of Bentham’s prominent advocates and disciples was James Mill, whose son John Stuart went on to become one of the most prominent and important thinkers in Britain in the 19th century.

John Stuart Mill

We will be reading a short book by John Stuart Mill called simply Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism was written by Mill with the intention of being a widely accessible tract to introduce people to the key ideas of utilitarianism, rather than as an academic treatise for only his educated peers to read. The views developed in this book are a little bit different from those of Jeremy Bentham, but Mill’s book is much shorter and easier to read.

As you read, try to answer for yourself whether you find Mill’s arguments convincing. We can’t apply it to the Zombie Apocalypse if it is not even the right theory for ordinary life, so try to test Mill’s views by asking yourself whether there could ever be a choice that is the right one to make even though it does not make people happiest.