the felicific calculus | 2016-10-12

Philosopher Jeremy Bentham, father of modern Utilitarianism and sage to John Stuart Mill, devised an algorithm called the Felicific Calculus.

Himself being an ethical hedonist, it is perhaps likely that his starting point and end goal differ from mine. I’ll admit, however, that my chief interest in this entire topic is the delightful set of words used throughout… i’m a bit of a one trick pony that way.

Regardless, the Felicific Calculus purports to determine the moral status of any given act; moral, in this sense, meaning how likely the act is to provide pleasure and with how little associated pain.

Here are the ‘circumstances’ which Bentham suggested form this algorithm:

1. Intensity: How strong the pleasure?
2. Duration: How long will it last?
3. Certainty/Uncertainty: How likely is it that the pleasure will occur?
4. Propinquity/Remoteness: How soon will it occur?
5. Fecundity: Will the action be followed by similar sensations?
6. Purity: Will the action NOT be followed by opposite sensations?
7. Extent: How many people will be affected?

This algorithm uses final measurements of ‘hedons’ and ‘dolors’. Basically, you tally up the amount of pleasure (hedons) and pain (dolors) any one person involved in the act will experience — you get a simple plus-minus for that one. Then you tally up the hedons and dolors for each other person involved, each having their individual plus-minus. Finally, sum up all the individual tallies. Whammy — you have determined precisely how pleasurable an act is! And by precisely, Bentham would say:

There is some good fun in measuring up any given act with this list and determining what these categories say about particular acts/events.

Some examples:

Eating Ice Creamsies with Friends:

• What if the flavour is only to the liking of some friends?
• What if one friend has hyper-sensitive teeth but doesn’t like to talk about it?
• What if the bowls are small and there are no seconds?

Having the Sex:

• Intensity? “Was it good for you?”
• Duration? “Sorry… I’ll try to do better next time…”
• Certainty? “Was it good for you?”
• Propinquity? “Are you there yet!!??”
• Fecundity? “Wanna go again?”
• Purity? “Alright… good night… I guess…”
• How much does extent (read: number of people involved) change the level of hedons or dolors? “… … …”

See? Fun, right?

So, fecundity and propinquity are both delightful words here.


Fecundity tends to be used in terms of the readiness of a farmer’s field to produce crops or a woman to produce offspring. Using it to determine how likely pleasure is produced in an act is clever, if a little off-putting to me.


Propinquity (Lat. nearness) is a new one for me. It comes from social psychology and is supposed to be one of the contributing factors to personal attraction. The theory revolves around “like-attracts-like”: various similarities (living on the same floor of an apartment building; sharing political beliefs; working together) tend to draw people together. Often, propinquity can be coupled with and/or used in causal relationship with limerence, which is yet another lovely word defined thusly:

an involuntary interpersonal state that involves intrusive, obsessive, and compulsive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation from the object of interest
So, apparently, there is a connection between being ‘near’ someone and developing an interest in them, however likely that interest is to be an unhealthy one. But wait… doesn’t absence make the heart grow fonder? I’m confused…

Propinquity, in Bentham’s usage, focuses on temporal nearness more than psychological or sociological nearness — how soon will this pleasure come?

I tend to think Utilitarianism and ethical hedonism are problematic in a variety of ways but I thought it would be fun to take a look at Bentham’s algorithm.

So far on the felicific calculus