PP110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Jeremy Bentham, Sentience, Consequentialism
Document Summary
Utilitarianism: bentham and mill, killing & letting die, criticisms, act v. rule, jeremy bentham: 1748-1832. A) sentience is our most morally important attribute. Ability to have sensations through the 5 senses, pain and pleasure, emotions. Bentham says the most important thing is whether or not a being can suffer (then it can have interests) The ability to reason is not the most important thing. Animals and human are then on an equal moral standing. Until then the belief was that their pain did not matter. Idea of animals that differ being complicated machines created by god". B) pleasures and pains can be quantified. Pains and pleasures have qualities that are measurable by intensity, duration, fecundity and purity (ferundity = if it gives rise to other pleasures) Pleasures need to be compared by a common metric. Psychologist named thorndike asked people how much they would need to be paid to undergo various situations.
