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Since human beings are free, our behavior is not predetermined.

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We can freely decide what to do.

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Of course, there can be some conditionings that influence our behavior,

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but they don't determine what we do.

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Do you understand the difference between determination and influence or conditioning?

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A determination means that there are strict causes that explain how things must, by necessity, happen.

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For example, if you drop a ball, it will fall down because gravity is forcing it to go down.

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So, the ball is determined to fall because of the law of gravity.

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But human beings are not determined like that.

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They are conditioned because factors that affect us can influence our behavior,

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but we have always the possibility to choose, to decide, because we are moral beings.

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Of course, this ability to decide can create a lot of conflicts with other people,

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and that's one of the reasons that makes it necessary to have norms, rules, that organize our coexistence.

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Now, a big question is how should we make these rules?

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What is the best way to decide how to behave in society, to make the law, or to decide what is right or wrong?

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There are many different ways to answer to this complicated question.

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Today, we will explore one of them, which is a consequentialist theory.

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A consequentialist theory is a theory that puts a great emphasis on the consequences of our actions.

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A consequentialist would say that our norms, our rules of behavior, should be done taking into account the consequences of what you do.

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There are different consequentialist theories, so we will focus on one very special and important one, called utilitarianism.

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Utilitarianism is a philosophical ethical theory that was created in England in the 19th century by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

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This theory says that our norms should be done trying to make as many people happy as possible.

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So, not all rules are okay. A rule is ethical, acceptable, adequate, if it creates a lot of happiness, and it is wrong, immoral, if it makes people suffer.

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This theory is similar to the one proposed in ancient times by Epicurus.

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Maybe you remember what Epicurus said. He was a hedonist. He thought that the basic goal in life was to achieve pleasure.

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So, he thought that good actions are those that produce pleasure, and bad actions are those that produce pain.

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Utilitarianism is also a hedonistic theory because they think that happiness consists in pleasure, in avoiding suffering, in avoiding pain.

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The difference between utilitarianism and Epicureanism is that utilitarianism takes into account the global amount of happiness, not just my happiness, but the total happiness of everybody.

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All my actions influence other people. So, when we make the rules, we should think what people are going to do and how their actions are going to affect others.

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And we should make a calculation. How this law, how this norm, how this behavior is going to affect other people?

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How many people are going to be happy with that? How many people are going to suffer and be unhappy with that?

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Let's make a calculation. The right thing to do will be the one that produces the greatest global happiness and the minimum amount of suffering, of pain.

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This happiness, this social happiness, is called utility. And that's why the theory is called utilitarianism.

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So, we could say that utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory that tries to maximize utility, meaning that tries to make as many people happy as possible.

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When John Stuart Mill published his ideas, some people criticized utilitarianism because they thought that this would make us live like animals.

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Animals also like pleasure. They like to eat, they like to sleep, they like to reproduce.

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What is Mill telling us? Is he inviting us to live like pigs?

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Of course not. And to explain why this is not the case, John Stuart Mill made a very important difference between pleasures.

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For Mill, not all the pleasures are equal. Some are more important than others.

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And human beings can enjoy not only food and drink and sleep, they can also enjoy friendship and culture and art and music.

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Those pleasures are relevant. And Mill thought that in the calculation of utility, we should not only take into account the quantity of pleasures, but also the quality.

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So, it is important to know how important, how relevant, how good the pleasure is.

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What do you think about utilitarianism? Do you think that this could be a good way to decide which rules are good for our society?

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Thank you.