The felicific calculus was an algorithm formulated by Jeremy Bentham for calculating the degree or amount of happiness that a specific action is likely to cause, and hence its degree of moral rightness.
The calculus was proposed by Bentham as part of his project of making morals amenable to scientific treatment. Since classical utilitarians considered that the rightness of an action was a function of the goodness of its consequences, and that the goodness of a state of affairs was itself a function of the happiness it contained, the felicific calculus could, in principle at least, establish the moral status of any considered act.
Variables, or vectorss of the pleasures and pains included in this calculation --which Bentham called "elements" or "dimensions"-- were
- intensity
- duration
- certainty or uncertainty
- propinquity or remoteness
- fecundity: the probability it has of being followed by sensations of the same kind
- purity: the probability it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind
To these six, which consider the pleasures and pains within the life of a person, Bentham added a seventh element, in order to account for possible variations among the number of people involved:
7. extent: the number of persons to whom it extends
Bentham's felicific calculus contained the following sequence of instructions:
- Begin with any one person of those whose interests seem most immediately to be affected by it: and take an account,
- Of the value of each distinguishable pleasure which appears to be produced by it in the first instance.
- Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it in the first instance.
- Of the value of each pleasure which appears to be produced by it after the first. This constitutes the fecundity of the first pleasure and the impurity of the first pain.
- Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it after the first. This constitutes the fecundity of the first pain, and the impurity of the first pleasure.
- Sum up all the values of all the pleasures on the one side, and those of all the pains on the other. The balance, if it be on the side of pleasure, will give the good tendency of the act upon the whole, with respect to the interests of that individual person; if on the side of pain, the bad tendency of it upon the whole.
- Take an account of the number of persons whose interests appear to be concerned; and repeat the above process with respect to each. Sum up the numbers expressive of the degrees of good tendency, which the act has, with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is good upon the whole: do this again with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is good upon the whole: do this again with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is bad upon the whole. Take the balance which if on the side of pleasure, will give the general good tendency of the act, with respect to the total number or community of individuals concerned; if on the side of pain, the general evil tendency, with respect to the same community.
To make his proposal easier to remember, Bentham devised what he called a "mnemonic doggerel" (also referred to as "memoriter verses"), which synthesized "the whole fabric of morals and legislation":
- Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure—
- Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure.
- Such pleasures seek if private be thy end:
- If it be public, wide let them extend
- Such pains avoid, whichever be thy view:
- If pains must come, let them extend to few.
Critics point that the happiness of different people is incommensurable, and thus a felicific calculus is impossible in practice.
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