86 Moral Philosophy: Ideas of Good and Evil, Right and Wrongchair, encased in glass, and to this day, is on display at the British
Museum.
Jeremy Bentham believed that man by nature was a pleasure
seeking animal. Man has two sovereign masters, pleasure and
pain, and the sum total of all our actions is directed to the seeking
of the one and the avoidance of the other. The very nature of man,
then, leads to the only ethical principle, the principle of utility.
He reasons that since pleasure and pain, our “sovereign masters”
must determine our actions, good becomes synonymous with
pleasure and evil with pain. Man by nature pursues pleasure.
Therefore, in seeking pleasure one must pursue the greatest
possible amount of it.
The principle of utility dictates, as an ethical principle, that
every man is morally obligated to promote the greatest good for
the greatest number. The greatest happiness principle, since
there is no ultimate principle of good or bad in the universe, is a
relative moral position. Good and bad, not being absolutes, are
determined by social factors. The measure of good and evil is the
effect of an act upon people now, or the bearing of an act upon
the future. Also, to act under the principle of utility will bring the
greatest good to the one acting.
Bentham created a system called “hedonistic calculus,” a
method of measuring pleasure and pain in an accurate manner in
order to make those judgments which will insure the greatest
amount of pleasure be derived from an act. So that each act will
produce pleasure and minimize pain, there are seven quantita
tive areas which are to be taken into account before acting:
1 ) Intensity: How intense will the pleasure resulting from this
act be?
2) Duration: How long will the pleasure last?
3) Certainty: How sure can we be that a particular action will
produce the expected pleasure?
4) Propinquity: How close, in time and space, is the pleasure
to realization?
5) Fecundity: What are the prospects for future pleasures
resulting from the immediate ones received?
6) Purity: How free from painful elements will the pleasure
be?
7) Extent: How many others will be able to share in the
pleasure produced?