## Definition **Utilitarianism** is the moral theory, developed chiefly by Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), that the morally right action is the one that produces the greatest total happiness (or well-being) for all those affected. The rightness of an act is determined entirely by its consequences — specifically, by whether it maximises aggregate welfare — and not by the intentions behind it or by adherence to fixed rules. ## Bentham's Hedonic Calculus Bentham identified happiness with pleasure and the absence of pain. He proposed a *felicific calculus* — a quasi-mathematical procedure for assigning numerical values to pleasures and pains according to their intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, and purity. The formula he offered was: $\text{Utility} = \text{Total Pleasure Produced} - \text{Total Pain Produced}$ A morally right act is one that yields the highest positive utility. Crucially, Bentham insisted that the pleasure of any sentient being counts equally: "Each to count for one, none for more than one." This levelling principle was radical in a society structured by rank and privilege. Bentham also included animals in the calculus: since they can feel pleasure and pain, their suffering is morally relevant — an idea later developed by Peter Singer. ## Mill's Refinements Mill accepted Bentham's consequentialist framework but objected that not all pleasures are equal in value. He proposed a hierarchy: intellectual pleasures are qualitatively superior to purely bodily ones. His thought experiment — would you prefer to be a happy pig or an unhappy Socrates? — aims to show that any reflective human would choose the richer but more painful life of the mind. Mill further argued that individual liberty is not merely instrumentally valuable for maximising happiness but is closely bound up with what happiness for humans actually means. His *On Liberty* (1859) introduced the **Harm Principle**: the state may coerce individuals only to prevent harm to others, never to promote their own good or to enforce majority moral tastes. This anti-paternalist position stands in direct tension with Rousseau's General Will. ## Strengths - Impartial: no one's welfare counts for more than anyone else's. - Practical: it provides a decision procedure (even if imprecise) rather than a list of duties. - Inclusive: animals and future generations can in principle be included in the calculus. ## Standard Objections - **Justice**: straightforward utility maximisation can justify violating individual rights if the aggregate gain is large enough (e.g., punishing an innocent person to prevent a riot). - **Measurement**: cardinal measurement of pleasure and the interpersonal comparison of utilities are deeply problematic. - **Demandingness**: it seems to require that each person sacrifice personal projects up to the point where further sacrifice produces less good than it costs. ## Contrast with Kant Warburton presents Kantian and utilitarian ethics as polar opposites. For Bentham, consequences are everything and intentions nothing; for Kant, the moral worth of an act lies entirely in the will from which it springs, and consequences are irrelevant to rightness. The Trolley Problem thought experiments (Foot, Thomson) were designed precisely to probe which intuitions carry more weight. ## Related - [[Aristotelian Virtue Ethics]] - [[The Categorical Imperative]] - [[Existentialism]] ## Sources - [[A Little History of Philosophy (Warburton 2011)]]