AQA A Level Philosophy Utilitarianism notes

This Powerpoint covers everything students studying AQA A Level philosophy need to know about Utilitarianism, according to the specification.

It is purely informative and you could adapt it to include written discussion questions, or simply use it as a prompt for class discussion during the course of your teaching.

It also doubles as a handy revision aid. It’s all laid out clearly and neatly to reduce cognitive load and to ensure the information contained within it is as accessible as possible,

My students really appreciated the format and the real world examples offered to help cement their understanding of these concepts.

Topics included:

Normative ethical theories

• What is normative ethics ?

Utilitarianism

• The question of what is meant by ‘utility’ and ‘maximising utility’, including:
• Jeremy Bentham’s quantitative hedonistic utilitarianism (his utility calculus)
• John Stuart Mill’s qualitative hedonistic utilitarianism (higher and lower pleasures) and his ‘proof’ of the greatest happiness principle
• non-hedonistic utilitarianism (including preference utilitarianism)
• act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism.

Issues, including:

• whether pleasure is the only good (Nozick’s experience machine)
• fairness and individual liberty/rights (including the risk of the ‘tyranny of the majority’)
• problems with calculation (including which beings to include)
• issues around partiality
• whether utilitarianism ignores both the moral integrity and the intentions of the individual.