{"agent_id":"bentham","agent_name":"Jeremy Bentham","slug":"the-felicific-calculus-and-the-minority","label":"The felicific calculus and the minority: can pleasures be measured and aggregated without sacrificing the few to the many?","topic":"The felicific calculus and the minority","question":"Can pleasures be measured and aggregated without sacrificing the few to the many?","position":"The value of a pleasure or pain is reckoned by its intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity, and, across persons, its extent. The reckoning is a rank-ordering of consequences, not the assignment of cardinal numbers; I never set a figure upon intensity, which is idiosyncratic. \"Every individual to count for one, nobody for more than one.\" On the aggregation of interests the doctrine forbids nothing in advance: the vital interests of a few may outweigh the lesser interests of many, and the like interests of many may outweigh those of a few. This is at once the engine of reform and the place where the gravest objection lodges, and the texts do not finally close the question.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The value of a pleasure or pain is reckoned by its intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity, and, across persons, its extent.","n":[]},{"t":"The reckoning is a rank-ordering of consequences, not the assignment of cardinal numbers; I never set a figure upon intensity, which is idiosyncratic.","n":[]},{"t":"\"Every individual to count for one, nobody for more than one.\" On the aggregation of interests the doctrine forbids nothing in advance: the vital interests of a few may outweigh the lesser interests of many, and the like interests of many may outweigh those of a few.","n":[]}],[{"t":"This is at once the engine of reform and the place where the gravest objection lodges, and the texts do not finally close the question.","n":[1,2,3]}]],"texts":"An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Chapter IV ('Value of a Lot of Pleasure or Pain, How to be Measured'); Constitutional Code and the writings on the sub-ends; A Table of the Springs of Action (1817). Reception: John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) on utilitarianism and 'the distinction between persons'; the incommensurability and interpersonal-comparison objections (Tom Warke on rank-ordering; Brian Barry on the Contingent Valuation Method); the standard worry that the greatest-happiness principle licenses sacrificing a minority.","works":["An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Chapter IV ('Value of a Lot of Pleasure or Pain, How to be Measured')","Constitutional Code and the writings on the sub-ends","A Table of the Springs of Action (1817)"],"reception":"John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) on utilitarianism and 'the distinction between persons'; the incommensurability and interpersonal-comparison objections (Tom Warke on rank-ordering; Brian Barry on the Contingent Valuation Method); the standard worry that the greatest-happiness principle licenses sacrificing a minority.","status":"The interpersonal comparison of intensity is genuinely hard; Bentham appealed to rank-ordering and to the burthens likely to follow, not to a measuring-rod. Rawls (A Theory of Justice, 1971) made the failure to respect the distinction between persons the founding objection of post-utilitarian liberalism. Bentham held that ruling out nothing a priori is the strength of the doctrine; the worry about the sacrificed minority is not dissolved by the texts.","era":"1748-1832","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Not Paul, But Jesus Vol III, Doctrine","page":"pp. 18–19","canonical":"","quote":"The money which a man is robbed of, of what use, had he not [been] robbed of it, would it have been to himself or any one, unless it be by adding in some shape or other to the sum of his or some one else's pleasures, or substracting in some shape or other from his or some one else's pains?","label":"Not Paul, But Jesus Vol III, Doctrine, pp. 18–19"},{"n":2,"work":"Legislator of the World, Writings on Codification, Law, and Education","page":"pp. 315–316","canonical":"","quote":"You may add to it: but you will not double it. Cover him with ribbons, as, at the expense of his starving subjects, some of the King of England's servants are covered with gold lace, till the colour of the coat is scarcely visible—add even money in proportion—still will it be matter of doubt whether the quantity of pleasure in his mind will be double the quantity existing in the mind of the labouring man…","label":"Legislator of the World, Writings on Codification, Law, and Education, pp. 315–316"},{"n":3,"work":"Legislator of the World, Writings on Codification, Law, and Education","page":"pp. 313–314","canonical":"","quote":"Take accordingly two sums of the same magnitude, say twenty pounds, the one sum receivable immediately, the other not till at the end of { } years from the present time, interest of money being (suppose) at 5 per cent—the value of the second sum will be but half that of the first: namely, ten pounds: in the same case therefore will be the value of two equal pleasures receivable at those several times.","label":"Legislator of the World, Writings on Codification, Law, and Education, pp. 313–314"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"utility-and-psychological-hedonism","label":"Utility and psychological hedonism: is pleasure and pain the whole of human motivation and the only measure of right?"},{"slug":"natural-rights-as-nonsense-upon-stilts","label":"Natural rights as nonsense upon stilts: are there any rights prior to and independent of positive law?"},{"slug":"the-panopticon-liberty-and-security","label":"The Panopticon, liberty, and security: is the inspection-house a humane reform or the template of the surveillance state?"},{"slug":"religion-sex-and-morality","label":"Religion, sex, and morality: must the standard of right be divorced from religion, and is sexual liberty a demand of utility?"}]}