Table of Contents |
To begin with, recall that utilitarianism is the name given to any ethical theory that says something is good if it brings about utility overall. This is referred to as the utility principle. The utility principle can be used in different ways, and the kind of utilitarian you are depends on how you use this principle.
It might seem natural for a utilitarian to be hedonic. That’s because, if you set out to increase happiness, you probably assume that all things can be measured in terms of happiness.
EXAMPLE
If you’re a utilitarian trying to decide whether to go out with friends or stay in studying tonight, your job is going to be a lot easier if you can measure them along the same scale—say, the scale of how much pleasure they bring.But an idealist utilitarian will say that these things can’t be so easily compared. That’s because studying provides a different kind of utility than the pleasure that comes from going out with friends. The same could be said of, for instance, the type of pleasure that comes from having a meaningful conversation with a friend, and the type of pleasure that comes from the comfort of a good bed.
But this doesn’t mean that only things that are exactly the same can be compared on the same scale.
EXAMPLE
Getting a massage and eating ice cream are different, but they are directly comparable because they both bring sensual pleasure.Both the hedonic and idealist utilitarian can agree on an evaluation in this instance. If getting a massage brings about greater happiness, they will both say that you should get a massage. But things get a little more complicated when we try to take other kinds of utility into account.
The idealist utilitarian says that there are some goods that are of higher value than others.
EXAMPLE
The good that comes from pursuing truth for its own sake is a higher pleasure, whereas the good that comes from enjoying tasty food is a lower pleasure.Pursuing truth doesn’t have the same enjoyment that we get immediately from eating good food. For this reason, a hedonic utilitarian may choose the latter over the former. However, the idealist utilitarian sees the value in knowledge above and beyond the sensations we get from it.
IN CONTEXT
Imagine you’re staying in tonight and deciding which movie you want to watch. You feel like watching something easy and comforting, so you’re tempted by that comedy you’ve seen a dozen or more times before.
Still, you can’t help thinking that you really should watch that difficult foreign movie that’s supposed to be intellectually challenging and rewarding. You might have more fun watching the comedy, but the intellectual stimulation from this other movie is of a higher type.
This last example shows that two things might seem the same (i.e., two movies), but they can still belong to very different scales of utility (i.e., lower or higher pleasures): One is closer to mere entertainment while the other is closer to an artistic or aesthetic experience.
