amazon.co.ukAQA 7172 Paper 1 Section B: Bentham and Mill's utilitarianism, Kantian deontology and Aristotle's virtue ethics, applied ethics and 25-mark evaluation technique — with full mark-scheme answers.
Bentham's act utilitarianism. Hedonism: nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure; pleasure is the only intrinsic good. An act is right iff it produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number. The felicific calculus operationalises this: weigh each option's pleasure/pain by seven criteria — intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity (how soon), fecundity (will it produce more of the same), purity (will it be followed by pain), extent (how many affected). Act utilitarianism assesses each act individually by its consequences.
Mill's refinement. Mill accepts the consequentialist core but answers the doctrine of swine objection (that the theory makes humans no better than pigs) with a qualitative hedonism: pleasures of the intellect, imagination and moral sentiment are higher in kind; the test is the verdict of competent judges who have experienced both — they invariable prefer the higher. His 'proof' that happiness is desirable: the only proof something is desirable is that people actually desire it; everyone desires their own happiness; so general happiness is desirable — a fallacious slide (each person's happiness from my perspective vs everyone's). Mill also moves towards rule utilitarianism: acts are right if they conform to rules (e.g. keep promises, tell the truth) whose general acceptance maximises utility — the rules encode long-run, whole-society consequences.
Preference utilitarianism. The modern variant (Singer): maximise the satisfaction of preferences rather than pleasure — it avoids measuring pleasure and better handles diverse goods, at the cost of counting maladaptive or immoral preferences.
Issues. (1) Tyranny of the majority: aggregating happiness permits sacrificing individuals — punishing an innocent person to stop a riot maximises utility but is unjust. (2) Calculation: consequences are unknowable in advance; the calculus is impractical in real time (Mill's reply: rules summarise millennia of experience — the 'dead-weight' of calculation is already done). (3) Fairness/utility monster (Nozick): a being that gains enormous utility from any resource would justify total sacrifice of others. (4) Integrity (Williams): Jim and the Indians — shooting one hostage to save twenty maximises utility but destroys the agent's integrity; utilitarianism alienates agents from their own projects. (5) Motives/means: it assesses acts by outcomes, so a malicious act with good consequences comes out right. (6) Experience machine (Nozick): if pleasure were all that matters, we should plug in — most would not, suggesting we value contact with reality and authenticity.
The good will and duty. Kant: nothing is good without qualification except a good will — talents, wealth and even happiness can be used for evil. An act has moral worth only when done from duty (out of respect for the law), not merely in accordance with duty (the shopkeeper who is honest only because honesty profits). Hypothetical imperatives ('if you want X, do Y') bind conditionally and are hypothetical counsel of skill or prudence; morality needs an unconditional command: the categorical imperative.
Three formulations. (1) Universal law: act only on maxims you can will as universal laws. Kant's test case, the false promise: the maxim 'make a promise I do not intend to keep to escape difficulty' universalised destroys the institution of promising (if everyone lied, no one would believe promises — contradiction in conception); the maxim 'never help others' cannot be consistently willed (contradiction in the will — we all sometimes need help). (2) Humanity as an end: never treat persons merely as means — the false promiser uses the deceived person merely as a means; persons have dignity (priceless worth) rather than price. (3) Kingdom of ends: act as a legislating member of a community of rational agents — the formulations are claimed to be equivalent expressions of one supreme principle.
Issues. (1) Clashing duties (Constant's objection, the murderer at the door): 'never lie' and 'do not facilitate murder' cannot both be kept; Kant's own reply — lying to the murderer is wrong, and one may be truthful while the outcome harms — strikes most as unacceptable; a weaker reply: the duties do not genuinely clash if formulated precisely (the maxim against lying is about 'unavoidable falsehood', and lying to facilitate murder fails the humanity formulation). (2) Rigidity: universalisability yields inflexible rules insensitive to consequences. (3) Consequences ignored: an act's rightness is independent of outcomes — intuitively wrong when stakes are catastrophic (lying to save a life). (4) Universalisation is slippery: many wicked maxims universalise without contradiction if carefully worded ('always lie when it benefits me' may not contradict itself in conception). (5) Motives ignored: Kant counts only duty-motivated acts as morally worthy, ignoring love, friendship and kindness as motives with moral value. (6) Morality as hypothetical imperatives (Foot): Kant claims the moral law binds unconditionally, but obeying it itself requires a desired end (to be rational, to avoid blame, to live with oneself) — so morality is, after all, a system of hypothetical imperatives. (7) Animals: Kant holds rational nature is the source of worth, so animals have only indirect worth — mistreating them is wrong because it damages our humanity; contrast utilitarianism (sentience suffices) and virtue ethics (compassion).
Eudaimonia and the function argument. The highest good is eudaimonia — flourishing, living well and doing well: complete (desired for its own sake, not as a means), final and self-sufficient. The function (ergon) argument: the good of anything with a function lies in performing that function well; the human function is activity of the soul in accordance with reason (plants have nutrition, animals perception — what is distinctive to humans is reason); so the human good is activity of the soul in accordance with virtue — and, for a complete life, in accordance with the best virtue (contemplation, Aristotle adds). Critique: the inference from 'distinctive capacity' to 'function' to 'good' is contested — a capacity for wickedness is equally distinctive of humans, and a solitary, rational but friendless life hardly looks like flourishing; Aristotle's own account of friendship answers the second point.
Virtues and the mean. A virtue is a stable character trait (a hexis) to feel, choose and act well. Doctrine of the mean: each virtue lies between two vices, excess and deficiency, relative to us — courage between rashness and cowardice, generosity between prodigality and meanness, proper pride between vanity and false modesty. Some actions (murder, adultery) admit no mean — they are wrong in any degree. Phronesis (practical wisdom) is the intellectual virtue that perceives the particulars of a situation and deliberates to the mean; it unifies the virtues (one cannot have one fully without the others). Virtues are acquired by habituation: we become just by doing just acts, first with instruction and correction, until feeling and action align. The skill analogy: virtues are like skills — acquired by practice, exercised with judgement, assessed by how well they are done — but unlike skills they involve feelings: the generous person enjoys giving. Voluntariness: we are responsible for voluntary actions and for our characters, since habits are built from choices; involuntary actions (from force or ignorance) are not blameworthy, and non-voluntary actions (done in ignorance the agent could not avoid) attract pity rather than blame.
Issues. (1) Circularity (Hursthouse): the right act is what the virtuous person would do; the virtuous person is who does the right acts — a vicious circle? Reply: it is an explanatory circle not a definitional one — virtue and right action are mutually illuminating, as health and healthy organs are. (2) Guidance: 'do what the practically wise person would do' seems to give no action-guidance. Reply: the mean, the virtuous examples and phronesis give substantial guidance — but less mechanical than a calculus or a test. (3) Relativism: 'relative to us' invites cultural relativism. Reply: relativism is about how the mean applies, not whether virtue is objective. (4) Applicability/conflict: what happens when two virtues pull apart (honesty and kindness)? (5) Must a trait contribute to eudaimonia to be a virtue? — if virtues are defined by what makes the individual flourish, the good for the individual and the moral good may come apart; Aristotle answers that the practically wise person sees that a flourishing life is also the morally good one. Note also the eudaimonia–pleasure relationship: pleasure completes virtuous activity 'as the bloom of youth' — eudaimonia is not pleasure alone, but the virtuous life is pleasant to the virtuous person.
Three decision procedures. Utilitarianism: maximise aggregate welfare (consequentialist, agent-neutral). Kant: test maxims against the categorical imperative (deontological, intention-focused). Aristotle: ask what the person of practical wisdom would do (aretaic, character-focused). They disagree structurally: on what makes an act right (outcomes vs universalisable intention vs virtuous character), on whether consequences matter, and on partiality (utilitarianism counts everyone equally; Aristotle begins from relationships and communities; Kant from rational agents).
| Issue | Utilitarianism | Kant | Aristotle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stealing | Right iff net utility gained (usually wrong, but can permit it) | Wrong: the maxim 'take others' property when convenient' cannot be universalised; theft uses the owner merely as a means | Wrong as a matter of justice (no mean); but the virtuous person may face cases where what is owed is complex |
| Eating animals | Permitted if animal suffering is outweighed — but factory farming fails the calculus (sentience counts, Bentham) | Animals lack rational nature: only indirect duty — cruelty wrong because it damages our humanity | Wrong if intemperate (gluttony); the mean and compassion govern treatment — not outright prohibition |
| Simulated killing | Right: no one is harmed, and pleasure is gained | Problematic: habitual willingness to simulate killing may be impossible to universalise cleanly; virtue of the agent is at stake | Habituation matters: repeatedly simulating killing may form bad character — the practice shapes what we enjoy |
| Telling lies | Right iff consequences favour it (white lies often permitted) | Wrong in principle (false promise/universal law); even the murderer at the door (Kant: on a supposed right to lie) | Wrong if from a mean-deficient character; but practical wisdom may permit tact — honesty is not bluntness |
Why the comparison matters for AO2. 25-markers often ask you to argue that one theory is 'the best' or 'most convincing'. Strong answers do not merely list — they weigh structural features: utilitarianism's fairness problem vs its moral reach; Kant's rigidity vs its protection of persons from being used as means; Aristotle's richer moral psychology vs its weaker action-guidance. Then conclude consistently.
Where it lands. Moral philosophy (Specs 3.2.1–3.2.5) is Paper 1 Section B: five questions worth 3, 5, 5, 12 and 25 marks. Short questions are pure AO1; the 25-marker (5 AO1 + 20 AO2) is a quoted claim + 'Evaluate this claim'. Metaethics (Spec 3.2.4) has its own revision page — cross-reference it.
25-mark essay structure. Introduction: define the theory/claim, state your thesis. Argument for your view; best objection; response. Argument against; weak response; strong response. Consistent conclusion, no new ideas. Mark scheme top band (21–25) rewards 'crucial arguments clearly identified against less crucial ones' — e.g. in a utilitarianism essay, the tyranny-of-the-majority/fairness issue is crucial; the calculation issue is less so and can be handled in a line with Mill's rule-utilitarian reply.
Common pitfalls and examiner tips (click to expand)