Many arguments have been advanced against the foregoing Gross Utilitarianism of Bentham.
The major arguments are as follows:
(1) Defects of Psychological Hedonism:
Bentham’s Hedonism s based on Psychological Hedonism, thus including all its defects
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(2) There is no way of passing from selfishness to selflessness:
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Bentham held that man is selfish and then tried to burden him with selflessness but if selfishness and selflessness are two completely contradictory elements, any attempts at making a compromise between them are futile.
The origination of selflessness from pure selfishness is impossible. In spite of this Bentham has a place for the dimensions of extent in his ‘Hedonist Calculus’. But he does not succeed in giving any logical argument for this passage from selfishness to selflessness.
(3) It is wrong to call external sanctions ‘moral’:
Ethical orders are internal orders not external pressure. Any activity done with a view to pleasure or profit or due to pressure cannot be ethical. It is merely the inspiration of prudence. It has no moral obligation. Thus, activity done under physical, political, social or religious sanction cannot be ethical.
(4) Gross hedonism:
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Not accepting any qualitative distinction, Bentham has made his theory gross and sensual. To accept only the distinctions of consequences is to put all pleasures on the same footing. This makes both physical and mental or intellectual pleasures similar. Critics have objected to this so strongly that Carlyle has called it ‘Pig Philosophy’.
(5) Hedonistic Calculus is totally impractical:
All pleasures are changeable according to a man’s circumstances. Anything giving pleasure today gives pain tomorrow. The object yielding pleasure to one may cause pant to another.
Besides pleasure cannot be measured at the time of feeling pleasure and nothing valid can be known by measuring it on the basis of memory. Thus which of the sanctions is superior when there is a conflict between the different sanctions?
A division of any pleasure among many people detracts from its intensity. In such a condition is intensity superior or its extent? Bentham has no answer to all these questions.
(6) The dimension of extent does not fit in Bentham’s theory:
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The dimension of extent is a foreign element in the Selfish Hedonism of Bentham. Bentham is definitely utilitarian but he does not succeed in clarifying his Utilitarianism.
(7) It is fallacious to treat selfishness and selflessness as mutually contradictory:
Bentham’s fundamental mistake lies in treating selfishness and selflessness as mutually contradictory. Selflessness, as much as selfishness is an eternal quality of human beings.