Utilitarianism - Hedonism

Utilitarianism is a part of normative ethics, which originates from ancient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, where it examines the process in which people make moral decisions. It comes under the umbrella of deontological ethics. 

• Teleological ethics comes from the Greek word 'telos', meaning purpose. Consequentialists base their judgements on what actions are right or wrong depending on the purpose of the act.
• Even if the act is intrinsically good, this is irrelevant as it is only the consequence of the action that matters. 

The basis of Utilitarianism is Hedonism. Hedonism is the theory that the right, good thing to do in all ethical situations is to do what produces pleasure, and the definition of goodness and the source of everyone else's goodness is pleasure. Nothing else is intrinsically valuable except pleasure.

Egotistical Hedonism explains how we should always act in a way that maximises our pleasure. It focuses on the short term pleasure. It is more commonly used in a descriptive way (making morally neutral statements e.g. slavery exists), rather than in a prescriptive way (making moral standards e.g. slavery ought not to exist). 

       Issues with Prescriptive Egotistical Hedonism

- Altruism (doing something for others brings pleasure)

- Hedonistic fallacy (actively pursuing your pleasure isn't necessarily the best way of producing it)

- 'The Experience Machine' by Robert Nozick.

• A metaphor which tailors to everyone's pleasure, and one gets more pleasure in plugging into it than not
• If one gets more pleasure from doing x than y, then there is no point in doing y.
• If all that matters is to experience pleasure, then we have no reason not to plug into the machine.
• The fact that we do have reason not to plug into the machine shows that pleasure is not everything that matters. Reasons include: engaging in the machine makes pleasure limited and we take pleasure from doing certain things instead of just experiencing them.