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Explain Bentham’s hedonic calculus as a means of measuring pleasure? watch

    • Thread Starter

    can some one help me to understand this please explain benthams hedonic calculus means of measuring pleasure

    Bentham thought that the fundamental principle of morality was to maximize happiness. He thought that happiness consisted in pleasure, and the absence of pain. If these two things are correct, then for Bentham's theory - a form of utilitarianism - to be true/practical, we would need some way of measuring pleasure (and pain); otherwise we would not be able to maximize happiness. Bentham thought that this could be done, and in a fairly formulaic way - by means of a hedonic (he used the term 'felicific') calculus. This consists of a collection of variables by which pleasure can be measured, namely (i) intensity, (ii) duration, (iii) (un)certainty, (iv) propinquity (remoteness), (v) fecundity (likelihood to be followed by further similar pleasures), (vi) purity (the inverse of (v)), (vii) extent (no. of people affected).

    What you have to do to 'explain' it I don't know: over to you...

    (Original post by viduradharshan)
    To measure pleasure he uses the hedonic calculus

    7 factors
    1 intensity
    2 duration
    3 certainty - probability pleasure will occur
    4 propinquity how far in the future will pleasure happen
    5 fecundity likelihood of pleasure followed by more pleasure
    6 purity- opposite of 5
    7 extent- no. of people affected
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