Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? (Episode 2)

Part 01: "PUTTING A PRICE TAG ON LIFE”

Analysis of Utilitarianism

  1. What are the two major criticisms of Utilitarianism?

  2. What is a community (according to Bentham)?

  3. Can we make a purely quantitative analysis of “happiness”? Compare the utilitarian concept of “happiness” versus that of the Greeks (i.e., eudaimonia)

  4. Should we always give more weight to the happiness of a majority, even if the majority is cruel or ignoble? Is it right that the individual/minority should give up his/her rights in the name of the majority?

Cost-benefit analysis (utility)

  1. Is it possible to sum up and compare all values using a common measure like money (i.e., Thorndike study 1930s)?

  2. Can we put a monetary value on (human) life? Use examples... (i.e., (life, liability) insurance, the “Ford Pinto case,” cell phone deaths – saving time…)



PART TWO: “HOW TO MEASURE PLEASURE”

  1. Versus the first argument against Utilitarianism, Sendal asks the following: A terrorism suspect has impending info about terrorist attack, is it permissible to torture him to get the info? Or is there a moral imperative to protect individual human rights against this?



  1. What is the “Pleasure Principle” of Bentham?

J.S. Mill (b. 1806), a utilitarian philosopher who attempts to “humanize” utilitarianism against the objections raised by critics of the doctrine, argues that seeking the greatest good for the greatest number is compatible with protecting individual rights, and that utilitarianism can make room for a distinction between higher and lower pleasures. Mill’s idea is that the higher pleasure is always the pleasure preferred by a “well-informed” and educated, cultivated majority.

  1. Can pleasures be qualitative (higher “good” vs. lower “bad”), i.e., measured by majority preference? Is “education” required? (Mill: “It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.”)



  1. Are just standards, only just because they are favored by the majority?