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EV 3ESO - 06 Utilitarianism - Contenido educativo
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Utilitarianism is the ethical theory created by J.S. Mill. Do you know what it is about?
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, 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. They are conditioned because factors that affect
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us can influence our behavior but we have always the possibility to choose to decide because we
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are moral beings. 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,
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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.
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A rule is ethical, acceptable, adequate if it creates a lot of happiness,
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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.
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He was a hedonist.
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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
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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
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in avoiding suffering in avoiding pain the difference between utilitarianism and epicureanism
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is that utilitarianism takes into account the global amount of happiness not just my happiness
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but the total happiness of everybody.
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All my actions influence other people.
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So when we make the rules,
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we should think what people are going to do
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and how their actions are going to affect others.
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And we should make a calculation.
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How this law, how this norm, how this behavior
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is going to affect other people.
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How many people are going to be happy with that?
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How many people are going to suffer and be unhappy with that?
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Let's make a calculation.
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the right thing to do will be the one that produces the greatest global happiness
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and the minimum amount of suffering, of pain.
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This happiness, this social happiness, is called utility,
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and that's why the theory is called utilitarianism.
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So, we could say that utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory
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that tries to maximize utility,
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meaning that tries to make as many people happy as possible.
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When John Stuart Mill published his ideas,
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some people criticized utilitarianism
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because they thought that this would make us live like animals.
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Animals also like pleasure.
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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? Of course not. And to explain
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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. And human beings
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can enjoy not only food and drink and sleep, they can also enjoy friendship and culture and art and
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music. Those pleasures are relevant, and Mill thought that in the calculation of utility we
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should not only take into account the quantity of pleasures, but also the quality. So it is
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important to know how important, how relevant, how good the pleasure is. What do you think about
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utilitarianism? Do you think that this could be a good way to decide which rules are good for our
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society?
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- Idioma/s:
- Autor/es:
- César Prestel
- Subido por:
- César Pedro P.
- Licencia:
- Reconocimiento - No comercial - Compartir igual
- Visualizaciones:
- 107
- Fecha:
- 5 de octubre de 2020 - 19:58
- Visibilidad:
- Público
- Centro:
- IES CERVANTES
- Duración:
- 06′ 11″
- Relación de aspecto:
- 1.78:1
- Resolución:
- 1280x720 píxeles
- Tamaño:
- 356.75 MBytes