Quiz: Utilitarianism: Bentham and Mill — 13 questions

1. What does Bentham’s principle of utility use to determine whether an action is good?

A. The rights the action respects regardless of results

B. The amount of pleasure the action maximises

C. The duty the action expresses toward others

D. The motive that the agent had before acting

Answer: (B)

Explanation

Bentham’s principle of utility evaluates an action by whether it maximises pleasure. Deontological ethics instead assesses actions through duties or rights, making duty-based evaluation a different approach.

2. What does consequentialism primarily evaluate when judging an action?

A. The rights protected by the action

B. The consequences the action produces

C. The intention motivating the action

D. The duty required by a moral rule

Answer: (B)

Explanation

Consequentialism judges an action according to the consequences it produces. Evaluating an action through intrinsic duties or rights belongs to deontological ethics rather than consequentialism.

3. What is Bentham’s hedonic calculus designed to calculate?

A. The moral worth of an agent’s underlying motive

B. The strength of a duty that an action creates

C. The social rule that should govern future conduct

D. The amount of pleasure an action will produce

Answer: (D)

Explanation

Bentham’s hedonic calculus uses seven criteria, including intensity and duration, to estimate the pleasure produced by an action. A system for selecting social rules belongs to rule utilitarianism rather than the hedonic calculus.

4. After applying the hedonic calculus, what does act utilitarianism require a person to do?

A. Select the action with the most admirable intention

B. Follow the established rule with the widest acceptance

C. Perform the action expressing the strongest moral duty

D. Choose the action producing the greatest net pleasure

Answer: (D)

Explanation

Act utilitarianism requires choosing the individual action that produces the greatest net pleasure after calculation. Rule utilitarianism instead assesses rules that guide actions, so following an established rule is not the defining requirement here.

5. How do Bentham and Mill differ in their treatment of pleasures?

A. Bentham ranks mental pleasures higher, while Mill treats every pleasure as equal

B. Both philosophers rank pleasures according to their intensity and duration

C. Both philosophers regard mental pleasures as inferior to physical pleasures

D. Bentham treats pleasures as equal, while Mill ranks higher mental pleasures above lower pleasures

Answer: (D)

Explanation

Bentham regarded all pleasures as equal, whereas Mill distinguished higher pleasures of the mind from lower pleasures and considered the former superior. The reverse attribution incorrectly assigns Mill’s hierarchy to Bentham.

6. What does Mill’s rule utilitarianism require people to follow?

A. Social rules whose general acceptance would maximise happiness

B. Personal duties that apply regardless of their consequences

C. Traditional customs that have existed across generations

D. Individual choices producing the greatest immediate pleasure

Answer: (A)

Explanation

Rule utilitarianism selects social rules by asking whether happiness would be maximised if people followed them, and then requires adherence to those rules. Judging each individual choice by immediate pleasure describes act utilitarianism instead.

7. According to Mill’s harm principle, when should people remain free to act as they wish?

A. When their actions do not harm other people

B. When their actions follow a socially accepted rule

C. When their actions express a higher mental pleasure

D. When their actions produce the greatest personal pleasure

Answer: (A)

Explanation

Mill’s harm principle protects a person’s freedom to act as they wish provided that the action does not harm others. Maximising personal pleasure is a utilitarian aim, but it is not the specific condition stated by the harm principle.

8. What makes the hedonic calculus difficult to apply to future actions?

A. Past actions provide no evidence about the consequences of similar future actions

B. Social rules prevent people from comparing different kinds of pleasure

C. Future outcomes are uncertain and subjective pleasure lacks an objective measure

D. Individual actions cannot produce consequences that affect overall happiness

Answer: (C)

Explanation

The calculation problem arises because future consequences cannot be predicted with certainty and pleasure is difficult to measure objectively. The claim that past actions provide no useful evidence is incorrect because Bentham treats past tendencies as a basis for sufficiently reliable prediction.

9. How does Mill’s response address the difficulty of calculating the consequences of every individual action?

A. He accepts that pleasure can be measured objectively for each individual decision

B. He develops social rules aimed at maximising happiness and revises them through debate

C. He relies on past actions to predict the consequences of every future choice

D. He rejects the use of rules and judges each action by its immediate outcome

Answer: (B)

Explanation

Mill proposes developing happiness-maximising social rules, improving them through debate, and generally avoiding separate calculations for every action. Relying on past tendencies to make predictions is Bentham’s response rather than Mill’s.

10. How do human rights differ from consequentialist utilitarianism?

A. Human rights depend on majority approval, whereas consequentialism follows established moral rules

B. Human rights are intrinsic claims, whereas consequentialism evaluates actions by their outcomes

C. Human rights concern predicted consequences, whereas consequentialism concerns inherent human status

D. Human rights measure social happiness, whereas consequentialism protects inviolable individual claims

Answer: (B)

Explanation

Human rights are deontological claims that people possess rights intrinsically, such as a right to life, while consequentialism assesses actions by their results. The claim that human rights depend on majority approval conflicts with their status as intrinsic rights.

11. Why do critics argue that consequentialist utilitarianism could permit slavery?

A. It might judge enslaving a minority acceptable if the resulting happiness for the majority were greater

B. It regards slavery as harmless when the affected minority receives compensation from society

C. It treats slavery as acceptable because every individual has an equal duty to obey social rules

D. It protects slavery because intrinsic rights are defined by the happiness of the majority

Answer: (A)

Explanation

Critics argue that a consequentialist calculation could justify enslaving a minority if doing so produced greater overall happiness for the majority. The intrinsic-rights approach rejects this reasoning because social benefits do not erase the rights being violated.

12. Under Mill’s rule-utilitarian response, why would slavery remain forbidden even if it appeared to increase total happiness?

A. The harm principle protects minorities from slavery and other forms of serious harm

B. Every individual action must be calculated without reference to general social rules

C. A social rule becomes binding because breaking it always reduces happiness in practice

D. The pleasure of a majority cannot be compared with the suffering of a minority

Answer: (A)

Explanation

Mill’s rule-utilitarianism uses the harm principle to forbid slavery and similar harms to minorities, even when a particular harmful act seems beneficial. It does not claim that every action must be recalculated separately, which would move away from the rule-based response.

13. What is the key difference between strong and weak rule utilitarianism?

A. Strong rule utilitarianism permits exceptions, while weak rule utilitarianism preserves rules without exceptions

B. Strong rule utilitarianism judges outcomes directly, while weak rule utilitarianism rejects happiness as a moral goal

C. Strong rule utilitarianism forbids breaking a rule, while weak rule utilitarianism permits it when happiness increases

D. Strong rule utilitarianism protects majority interests, while weak rule utilitarianism protects intrinsic rights

Answer: (C)

Explanation

Strong rule utilitarianism holds that a rule should not be broken even when an exception would maximise happiness, whereas weak rule utilitarianism allows such an exception. Because weak rule utilitarianism permits breaking rules for better outcomes, it collapses into act utilitarianism.