1.5: Pitfalls of Consequentialist Ethics and Mill's Utilitarianism
Read this article which presents difficulties with calculating benefits and various utilitarian responses to those difficulties. Be able to define hedonistic and idealistic utilitarianism, soft and hard utilitarianism, and the difference between act and rule.
Finish watching the last half hour of this video. In this last section of Talbot's lecture on utilitarianism, the question of rule utilitarianism is explored in depth. One can ask whether following rules results in a strange variety of deontology instead of utilitarianism, and an ethical theory that is forced to reconcile specific kinds of rules with situations that require specific acts, with an example of legislators deciding on a law.
Read the first two chapters of Mill's Utilitarianism, "General Remarks" and "What Utilitarianism Is". After you are done reading, ask yourself if you are able to define the principle of utility, describe the difference between higher and lower pleasures according to Mill, and describe actions which are of a generally injurious class.