Utilitarianism is a kind of identification or classification of moral actions. It is a consequentialist moral theory that judges whether an action is moral or immoral depending on the results it produces. It prescribes actions that result in happiness and neglection of pain. Utilitarianism describes happiness as a person’s ultimate goal. This theory will say that an action is morally right if it produces a result that in the happiness of the majority in a society or a group also called the principle of utility. Utilitarianism doesn’t give much of importance to the means, nor the intention, it is always the results that matter. In application, if a person is suffering from a moral dilemma of killing an evil individual to save the rest of the people in a community, utilitarianism will tilt in doing the killing to produce satisfaction and happiness for the majority. 

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill

As I’ve researched this matter, I learned that even these two persons are utilitarianists, their views are very distinct from each other. Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism does not define or classify the level of happiness a person could have. Instead, he is tilted into a quantitative angle that calculates the measure of pain and happiness and subtracts them to identify whether it is right or wrong. It is also called felicific calculus. On the contrary, John Stuart Mill considered the qualitative angle that utilitarianism has. He gave a distinction between the pleasures that require mental faculties that only educated humans could obtain and the pleasure that both animals and people could experience (bodily pleasures). He labeled it as higher and lower pleasure. For Mill, higher pleasures are more valuable than lower pleasure. In this idea, his famous quotation was born and said,” It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” 

The Differences between Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism

   According to what I’ve researched, this is one of the differences between Jeremy Bentham and John Mill as Mill continues to criticize and enhance Bentham’s idea of Utilitarianism. Bentham’s applies the principle of utility to any situation and individual meaning that it also permits abhorrent acts (Act Utilitarianism). On the other hand, Mill modified it and introduced rule utilitarianism that looks to potential rules of action. Rule utilitarianism allows us to refrain from acts that are potentially execrable. It says an action is right as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good. For example, killing a person intentionally to donate his/her organs to multiple in need disable a person is a form of act utilitarianism since it provided more happiness for the greatest number of people, but the rule utilitarianism will get in a way and will state that killing is wrong and will try to. For me, rule utilitarianism gives more consideration to means, stabilizes the morality of an action, and give much fairness in a decision.