Bentham and Kant

The map of positions

Each sub-topic lines its positions up on a single axis. Pick a sub-topic, then tap a position to see what it claims, and where it is strong or weak. Those strengths and weaknesses are your AO2 raw material.

The thread that ties it together. Bentham puts a moral fact in this world — in the measurable facts of pleasure and pain. Kant puts it in the noumenal realm, known by pure practical reason. Every other difference — absolute rules or secondary principles, people as ends or as means, whether animals count — follows from that one disagreement. And both are answering the same problem: Hume’s point that you cannot get an ought from an is. Show that in an essay and you are working at the top of the mark scheme.

The same case, two verdicts

Every sub-topic turns on one case that can be read two ways. Learning both readings is what turns an AO1 answer into an AO2 one.

Bentham's Act Utilitarianism

Can the rightness of an act be decided by measuring the happiness it produces?

The naive calculation (the critic's version)

Count only the people in the room.
Seven units of pleasure against one unit of pain.
Balance of pleasure over pain → the act is 'right'.

The full calculation (Bentham's own version)

Criteria 5–7 — fecundity, purity and extent — require ALL concerned to be counted.
Extent: the terror would spread to every woman and to their families.
Purity: the act is saturated with attendant pain, not free of it.

Kant's Categorical Imperative

Can reason alone tell us what we ought to do — whatever the consequences?

The strict Kantian — the duty holds

Not lying is a PERFECT duty: universalising the lie destroys truth-telling itself.
Consequences cannot release you — morality does not depend on results.
An evasive answer is still untruth, so evasion is no escape.

The amended Kantian — the duty yields

W.D. Ross: we have prima facie duties, and where categorical imperatives conflict one can take priority.
Careful thinking reveals an intuitive truth: the victim's life matters more than the problem about lying.
So you would simply lie to the maniac — you have a prima facie duty to protect the innocent.

Comparing Bentham & Kant

Why do Bentham and Kant reach different decisions — and can either be squared with religious moral decision-making?

The claim is TRUE — both are inconsistent with religious ethics

Bentham: formulated independently of God; he looked forward to religion becoming irrelevant.
Bentham: a properly utilitarian society must be secular, because religious belief perverts the principle of utility.
Bentham: no spiritual dimension, no room for the agent's mental state, less value given to rules.

The claim is FALSE — both converge with religious ethics

Bentham: Jesus judges by response to the needy — relief of need IS the greatest happiness in practice.
Bentham: like a utilitarian, Jesus acts situationally; Mill finds the whole spirit of utility in the golden rule.
Kant: the good will is compatible with Christian virtue; reason echoes Aquinas; the summum bonum parallels union with God.

Your resources

🎯 Practice and intervention for this unit · the Arena warm-up, the same question answered at D, C, B and A*, the four moves of your tier, timed writing with Coach Owl

Everything for the unit in one place. Work through a sub-topic’s lesson, booklet and podcast together, then use the Philosopher Companion across all three.

Teacher setup: links aren’t set yet. Open this file, find the LINKS list near the bottom, and paste each SharePoint share link once. Buttons with no link show as “Link not set”.

How to revise this unit

Use your resources in this order. The Philosopher Companion is where you learn to plan both question types.

Watch and listen first. The video below, then the lesson podcast for the sub-topic you are revising. Annotate your booklet as you go.
Rebuild the AO1 chain from memory. Bentham has four steps; Kant runs from the good will to the postulates. If you cannot rebuild it, you cannot evaluate it.
Use the flashcards below for key terms, then for positions — claim, strength, weakness.
Plan, don’t write. Part 4 of the Companion has eleven scaffolds: three AO1, four AO2 and all four dialogue questions.
Then write one full answer under time, and mark it against the Level 5 descriptors.

AO1 — “Examine…” (10 marks)

Descriptive analysis: a factual chain of reasoning. Critically describe the theory and show how it applies to a real case. You are not judging between positions yet — doing so wastes time you need elsewhere.

AO2 — “Evaluate this claim.” (15 marks)

A three-paragraph dialectic: position, opposing position, then a justified judgement. Each paragraph runs evaluation → counter-evaluation → implication, and links back to one thesis.

Why this unit pays twice

Across 2018–2024 there are 9 questions directly on Bentham, Kant or Utilitarianism, in 6 of 7 sessions — and 4 of them are Paper 2B 25-mark dialogue questions. Revising this unit prepares you for both papers.

The map of positions

The same case, two verdicts

Bentham's Act Utilitarianism

Kant's Categorical Imperative

Comparing Bentham & Kant

Your resources

1 · Bentham's Act Utilitarianism

2 · Kant's Categorical Imperative

3 · Comparing Bentham & Kant

Across the whole unit

How to revise this unit

AO1 — “Examine…” (10 marks)

AO2 — “Evaluate this claim.” (15 marks)

Why this unit pays twice

Watch: the whole unit in one go

Flashcards — test yourself