Assignment Task: Watch the 2nd episode and answer the questions.
YouTube: Justice with Michael Sandel
Instructor Michael Sandel
Episode 2 (Justice and Morality according to Utilitarianism, based primarily on the ideas of Jeremy Bentham)
1. Sandel begins by summarizing the life and utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham. Explain what utilitarianism is and how Bentham justified the principle of utilitarianism.
2. How does cost-benefit analysis act as a kind of utilitarianism? What did Phillip Morris determine in its analysis of smoking for the government of the Czech Republic? What does this example indicate about possible moral shortcomings of utilitarianism?
3. What did the Ford Motor company determine in its cost-benefit analysis of equipping its Pinto automobile with added safety equipment? Were Ford's actions justifiable from a utilitarian point of view?
4. One audience member disagrees with Ford's actions based on the idea that assigning any dollar value to a human life is wrong while other audience members state that some dollar value can be applied to human life, but that Ford's was too low. Do you think that a cost-benefit analysis in which life is given a specific dollar value is ever justified? If so, what dollar value do you think should be given to a person's life, and why?
5. One audience member objects to the utilitarian principle of sacrificing the rights or interests of some minority in favor of the collective benefit of a majority, while another audience member disagrees. Do you think it is acceptable to sacrifice the rights of a minority in favor of the good of the majority?
6. In the 1930s, a psychologist attempted to quantify people's wants by asking members of a study to provide a dollar value to each of the following experiences: Having one upper front tooth pulled out; having one little toe cut off; eating a live earthworm; living the rest of your life on a farm in Kansas; choking a stray cat to death. In what order (from highest dollar value to lowest) did the members of the study rank these experiences? Do you think it is feasible to quantify any experience in this way?
7. According to the psychologist (Thorndyke), what does the life of an animal consist of and what does the life of a human being consist of and which is, therefore, of greater value?
8. Sandel tries to determine the limits of utilitarian thinking with the following scenario justifying torture: You have apprehended a suspect on September 10, 2001 and you have adequate reason to believe that this suspect has information about an impending terrorist attack that might result in the deaths of thousands of people, but the suspect will not give up that information under normal methods of interrogation. Would you torture the suspect to try to get the information? Why
9. Sandel gives a quotation from Jeremy Bentham that, "The quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry." Explain what this quotation means in regard to utilitarian philosophy and whether you think all pleasures can in this way be measured by a common objective standard or whether some pleasures are intrinsically more valuable than others.
10. How did John Stuart Mill distinguish between higher and lower pleasures? Do you agree with Mill's idea?
11. What does Sandel's example of the differences between Shakespeare, Fear Factor, and The Simpsons indicate about the possibility of using an objective standard to determine the relative worth of something such as Hamlet and The Simpsons?
12. What did Mill indicate was the function of education in determining the worth of such things? Based on Mill's concept of utilitarianism, how is it possible to argue for the greater worth of Hamlet than The Simpsons despite most people's preference for The Simpsons?
13. What did Jeremy Bentham decide should be done with his body after his death? How did he justify this decision?