Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarian Theory

How to get happiness? This is a question that throughout history has been addressed by many philosophers. Yet few have made this question central to his theories.

Jeremy Bentham, on the other hand, not only did he prioritize this theme when writing his works; in fact, he even tried to create a formula close to mathematics to try to predict what is and what is not something that will bring happiness.

Next we will give a brief review of the utilitarian theory of Jeremy Bentham, one of the UK's most influential thinkers and the father of a philosophical stream known as utilitarianism.

• Related article: "Utilitarianism: a philosophy centered on happiness"

Who was Jeremy Bentham?

Jeremy Bentham was born in London in 1748, into a wealthy family. Like many of those who would become great thinkers, Bentham showed signs of great intelligence from a young age, and at just three years old he began to study Latin. At the age of twelve he entered university to study law, although later on he would abhor this field.

Throughout his life, Jeremy Bentham reaped many friendships and enmities, and came to be publicly in favor of the French Revolution. His works and thoughts served to inspire many other philosophers, including John Stuart Mill, the which would adapt Bentham's utilitarianism following criteria based in general should be concentrated on what pragmatic.

• You may be interested; "The utilitarian theory of John Stuart Mill"

Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarian Theory: Its Foundations

Below you can find a condensed version of Jeremy Bentham's theory regarding utilitarianism and his concept of happiness.

1. The objective of ethics must be the common good

For Bentham, philosophy and humanity must focus on offer solutions to the question of how to obtain happiness, since everything in life can be reduced to that end: neither reproduction, nor the defense of religion nor any other similar objective can come to the fore.

2. The maximum good for the maximum number of people

This is derived from the previous point. Since the human being lives in society, the conquest of happiness must guide everything else. But this conquest cannot be one alone, but must be shared, just as we share with others everything that by default is not private property.

3. Pleasure can be measured

Jeremy Bentham wanted to develop a method to measure pleasure, raw material of happiness. In this way, since happiness is a shared aspect, and not a private one, society would benefit from share a formula to detect where is what you need and what to do to get it in each case. The result is the so-called happy calculation, which, of course, is totally out of date, since to use it before we would have to use its categories to fit into them life experiences that are normally ambiguous.

4. The problem of impositions

It is very good to ask that everyone be happy, but in practice it is very possible that there are conflicts of interest. How to resolve these disputes? For Bentham, it was important to look at whether what we do violates the freedom of others and, if so, avoid falling into it.

This is a principle that con time it was adopted by John Stuart Mill, very influenced by Bentham, and that summarizes a liberal way of seeing things (and even an individualistic ideology.

Thus, in principle, almost everything is allowed, except what threatens the integrity of others. This is the central aspect of the ideas of this philosophical current, very much in vogue even lately.

Criticism of this philosophy

Utilitarianism, both from Jeremy Bentham and from authors who adopted this perspective after him, he has been criticized for being a type of thinking ad hoc, that is to say, that it starts from the conceptual categories that already exist and tries to justify certain methods over others, assuming that the question to which they answer is appropriate and correct.

For example: Is it appropriate to exploit your own image to get money? If we have previously identified the fact of making money as one of the main sources of happiness, the answer to the previous question depends on whether this strategy is effective in get that; utilitarianism does not make us question the starting point.