Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is the consequentialist doctrine that the right action is the one that maximizes aggregate welfare, counting the welfare of each affected being impartially.

Definition

Utilitarianism holds that an act is right if and only if it produces at least as great a balance of welfare over ill-being, summed impartially across all affected individuals, as any alternative act available to the agent.

Scope

This topic covers the classical and revised forms of utilitarianism: the principle of utility, hedonistic and preference-based accounts of welfare, the impartial summing of welfare across persons, and the principal internal debates and external objections. It treats utilitarianism as the paradigm welfarist consequentialism; the act/rule distinction and aggregation are developed in sibling topics.

Core questions

• What is welfare or utility, and how should it be measured?
• Why count each individual's welfare equally and impartially?
• Should we maximize total welfare or average welfare?
• Can utilitarianism accommodate justice, rights, and special obligations?

Key theories

Hedonistic utilitarianism

Bentham's view that the good to be maximized is pleasure and the absence of pain, quantified through a felicific calculus weighing intensity, duration, certainty, and extent.

Qualitative hedonism

Mill's refinement holding that pleasures differ in quality as well as quantity, so that 'higher' intellectual and moral pleasures count for more than 'lower' bodily ones.

History

Bentham (1789) gave utilitarianism its first systematic formulation as a reform program grounded in the principle of utility. Mill (1863) defended it against the charge of being a 'doctrine worthy of swine' by distinguishing higher and lower pleasures and offering his controversial proof of the principle. Sidgwick (1907) provided the most careful classical treatment, analysing the relation between utilitarianism, egoism, and common-sense morality.

Debates

Mill's proof of the principle of utility

Mill's argument that happiness is desirable because it is desired has been criticized as committing a fallacy of equivocation, prompting extensive debate over whether a defensible reading exists.

Justice and rights

A standing objection is that maximizing aggregate welfare could justify punishing the innocent or sacrificing minorities; utilitarians respond by appeal to rules, expectations, and the long-run utility of stable rights.

Key figures

• Jeremy Bentham
• John Stuart Mill
• Henry Sidgwick
• Peter Singer
• R. M. Hare

Seminal works

• bentham1789
• mill1863
• sidgwick1907

Frequently asked questions

What is the 'greatest happiness principle'?

It is Mill's name for the principle of utility: actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, and wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness, for all affected.

How does utilitarianism differ from egoism?

Egoism maximizes the agent's own welfare; utilitarianism is impartial, counting everyone's welfare equally, including the agent's, with no special weight for the self.