Happiness Classic and Contemporary Readings in Philosophy

 

Philosophy 302: Ethics
The Hedonistic Calculus

Abstract:  A modified hedonistic calculus is sketched along the lines starting time proposed by Bentham and Mill.  The major trouble encountered is the quantification of pleasance.

I. Bentham's method of estimating pleasures and pains can exist practical to egocentric hedonism. With the add-on of the utilitarian cistron "extent" of pleasance, the hedonism can exist extended to any number of persons.

1. Utilitarianism is the moral theory that an action is morally right if and merely if it is productive of the most utility (happiness, pleasance) for the greatest number of persons.  Bentham believed the right act is the human activity which of all those open to the agent, volition actually or probably produce the greatest amount of pleasure in the globe-at-big. Pleasure and pain course the basis of the standard of right and wrong.
2. Bentham lists benefit, advantage, good, or happiness as suitable paraphrases of pleasure. The good of the community is simply the sum of the pleasures of the individuals who etch it.
3. The main problem for the calculus is calculating the interpersonal utility comparison using central utility measurement rather than ordinal measurement.
4. John Stuart Mill's addition of the quality of pleasures later on ( in terms of higher and lower pleasures) is neglected for the moment since his distinction is patently qualitative rather than quantitative.

II. The Modified Hedonistic Calculus:

1. The major factors of sensations of pleasure and pain resulting from an activeness as outlined by Bentham are summarized past these variables.

   The first four variables (intensity, duration, certainty, and propinquity) testify the value of the pleasance or the pain "considered past itself."  This phrase implies Bentham did not see pleasure and pain as polar concepts or contraries.

   The next two variables (fecundity and purity) are properties of the event or action produced by the pleasance or hurting-—not properties of the pleasure or pain, itself..

1. Intensity (I)--How intense is the pleasance or pain?


2. Elapsing (D)--How long does does the pleasure of pain last?


3. Certainty (C)--What is the probability that the pleasance or pain volition occur?


4. Propinquity (nearness or remoteness) (Northward)--How far off in the future is the pleasure or pain?


5. Fecundity (F)--What is the probability that the pleasance will lead to other pleasures?


6. Purity (P)--What is the probability that the pain will lead to other pains?


7. Extent (E)--How many persons are affected by the pleasure?
2. How are the individual factors to exist quantified or measured?
1. Intensity (I)--Bentham apparently thought intensity would vary from nix to infinity, but psychological data indicates an upper threshold of pleasure; hence, nosotros can use an ordinal relation from 0 to x. Pain could be measured in the aforementioned manner, where for both pleasance and pain, 0 represents indifference.

   E.g.

   ,  a gimmicky approach in the psychophysics of pain is reported by Price, et al.: "Someone who is having pain is asked to match the perceived intensity of the pain to a scale. This can be done in a variety of ways. For example, i can match words or numbers to pain intensity, or match an intensity of experimental pain to that of clinical pain, or use more than than one of these procedures. … The clinician or investigator … provides the scaling procedures, records the reported values, and uses a measurement method that has been chosen to exist reliable and valid." Donald C. Toll, et al. "Psychophysical Approaches to Measurement of the Dimensions and Stages of Pain" in Dennis C. Turk and Ronald Melzack, Handbook of Pain Assessment (New York: Guilford Printing, 2001) 54.
2. Elapsing (D)--We tin can utilize increments of time: seconds, minutes, and then along. The time interval from the perceived beginning of the pleasure until the end of the pleasure in question.
3. Certainty (C)--The assigned probability tin exist fatigued from records of out past experience and records from persons like to united states. What proportion of times has the pleasure followed actions of the kind nether consideration? Eastward.thousand., as the Epicureans noted, many farthermost pleasures are not likely to be followed by other pleasures.
4. Propinquity (nearness or remoteness) (N)--We can prepare a time to come indifference curve based on a "store of satisfaction" such every bit money (q. five., below).  Propinquity of pleasure depends upon how long one must await for the pleasance to occur.
   
   Homework Assignment: How does the propinquity factor office in the modified hedonistic calculus? Specifically how does an individual's propinquity indifference curve yield an guess weighting for a general equation of hedonism? (See below 3, D).
5. Fecundity (F)--The probability that the pleasure or hurting volition lead to other pleasure or pain of the same kind tin can be drawn from records of our ain past feel and the past feel of others like us.
6. Purity (P)--Bentham writes, "Of the value of each pain which appears to exist produced by it after the showtime. This constitutes the fecundity of the start pain, and the impurity of the start pleasure"
7. Extent (E)--The total amount of utility or pleasure can be had past summing  a similar adding for every other person who is affected by the activity in question.

Three.  How can the general equation be set up?

1. In setting up the calculus, we demand to make a number of assumptions about preferences and satisfaction in lodge to insure consistency. Initially, the following assumptions or principles seem reasonable to presume when faced with choices apropos pleasure and hurting ...
1. We can decide when nosotros adopt i thing to another or whether nosotros are indifferent.
2. Our preferences are transitive. (If I prefer activity A over action B, and activity B over activity C, then I prefer activity A over activity C.)
3. An egoistic hedonist prefers more pleasure to less pleasance and less hurting to more pain.
2. The magnitude of a pleasure (the production of the dimension of pleasure) is the elapsing multiplied past the intensity of the pleasance. (Try working out specific examples for (one) studying, (2) sleeping late, (3) going to a pocket-size party.)

D  ×   I

3. The certainty is a factor of probability that the pleasure will occur. The expected pleasure value equals the probability multiplied by the magnitude of the pleasance.

P  ×  M

4. How do nosotros get a weighting for the propinquity? I.east., the nearness or remoteness of the pleasure? How can we quantify our feelings about pleasures in the future? 1 possibility is to set up a future indifference curve based on a "store of satisfaction," i.due east., coin.
1. Ask yourself the following questions: Would you rather receive $1 in ane week or $10 in one month?
1. If yous prefer $10 in 1 month, then enquire yourself almost $9, $8, and so forth, until you are indifferent about when you receive the money.


2. If yous would prefer $1 in one week to $10 in ane month, then enquire yourself nearly $11 in one month, $12, $13, and and so along until yous are indifferent virtually whether you receive the money in one calendar week or one month.


3. Inquire the similar question nigh whether you prefer $1 in ane week to 10 dollars in six months. Continue the questioning for i year, five years, ten years, twenty years.
2. When you lot are finished, you should have a set of amounts of money corresponding to the various time periods. Each item numbered below represents 1 student'south values:

Question	Time	Amount in Dollars
1.	one week	1
2.	one calendar month	x
3.	half dozen months	44
4.	one year	110
5.	5 years	700
6.	ten years	5,000
7.	twenty years	12,000

3. The pupil is indifferent virtually questions 1 through 7.  That is, The student is unable to make up one's mind which one of these is preferred. Apparently, your list will differ in the amounts in dollars, and y'all should also be indifferent nearly the values you lot adopt.
4. Later you take finished a chart like the one in 2 above, plot these values on a sheet of graph newspaper. (Note the nonlinear scales.)



5. The graph is your proximity indifference curve. How can the information in this graph be used in the full general equation on which we are working?  Let's use the gradient of the bend at the same time period under consideration? (Annotation the similarity to marginal utility of interest rates in economic science.)
5. The fecundity of the activity for that individual could be determined by the summation of the mensurate of the sensations of pleasure and hurting for that individual which follow the initial sensation of pleasance and pain.
6. The purity of the sensation of pleasure and hurting resulting from the action would exist the summation of the measures from the complex of individual pleasures and pains resulting from the action. This factor might exist expresses as a ratio of pleasure to pain.  Since pleasure is scaled from 0 to x and hurting is scaled from 0 to -10 a positive ratio would represent an amass purity value in the pleasure range, and a negative ratio would represent a purity value in the negative range.  Information technology's quite possible that empirical measurements of pain and pleasure would result in a logarithmic relation rather than a scalar one.
7. The factor of the extent is employed by repeating the above calculation for each person affected past the original action in question. The result would be the sum of the results of the each calculation with respect to the number of the individuals in the customs under examination.

   (If we were to assume deterministic natural laws, then in that location would have to be a calculation not only for each person who is alive at the time of the action but as well for every person who will alive in the future—a adding that could simply be vaguely estimated.)

IV. What would the last equation wait similar? Add together to and develop the following first suggestion;

{ Due north [ C (I × D) ]  +   N_f  [ C_f ( I_f  × D_f ) ] }

where the subscript " _f " indicates future assignments.  How is the purity cistron to be assessed?& How do nosotros assess extent?

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Recommended Sources

On this site:

"Happiness the Greatest Good": Edited reading from Jeremy Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation in Introduction to Ethical Studies.

"Happiness is the Greatest Good": Tutorial notes on the Bentham reading cited above.

Quiz on Bentham: Truthful-False quiz on the reading and notes on Bentham.

Recommended Readings

On the Web:

Anderson, Michael and Susan Leigh Anderson, eds. Car Ideals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Printing, 2011). Papers on the nature, importance, approaches, and main issues in computational ethics. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511978036. https://books.google.com/books?id=N4IF2p4w7uwC (preview)

Fox, James R. "Utilitarianism." Brief but useful discussion of the history of utilitarian and hedonistic theories from the Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15241c.htm

Hibbard, Bill. Ethical Artificial Intelligence 1st. ed., version ix(17 November 2015). The definition and cosmos of ethical AI is discussed in terms of its nature and issues. Utilitarian ethics for AI is discussed in Affiliate 2, "How Should We instruct AI." https://arxiv.org/pdf/14111.1373.pdf

Loukides, Mike. "On Computational Ethics." O'Reilly AI Interesting, concise outline of some of the computational bug involved in developing utility functions in computational ethical computing. https://world wide web.oreilly.com/ideas/on-computational-ethics

Mitchell, Wesley C. "Bentham's Felicific Calculus." Political Scientific discipline Quarterly 33 no.2 (June 1918), 161-183. In Parts II-III an test, interpretation, and criticism of the felicific calculus and in Office IV a construction of Bentham'south functional psychology. http://world wide web.jstor.org/stable/2141580

Rzepka, Rafal and Kenji Araki. "Possible Usage of Sentiment Analysis for Calculating Vectors of Felific Calculus." IEEE 13th International Conference on Data Mining Workshops (2013) doi:10.1109/ICDMW.2013.seventy. Using a hedonic calculus algorithm for sentiment analysis in guild to understand reasons and consequences of human activity for use with machines. http://arakilab.media.eng.hokudai.ac.jp/~araki/2013/2013-A-15.pdf

Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. "Consequentialism." A discussion from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the doctrine that the rightness of an action depends upon the consequences of the action. The classic utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill is discussed as a paradigm case. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/

Sturt, Henry. Utilitarianism The entry from the classic 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica discussing the ethical doctrine and history of utilitarianism. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Utilitarianism

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