Utilitarianism
From the late 18th century
The theory that the right action is the one that produces the most wellbeing, counting everyone equally.
The core idea
Jeremy Bentham held that pain and pleasure are the only things that matter in themselves, and that laws and actions should be judged by how much happiness they produce. John Stuart Mill refined the view, distinguishing higher pleasures from lower ones and defending individual liberty. Henry Sidgwick gave it its most careful nineteenth-century statement.
Utilitarianism is the best-known form of consequentialism. It is radically impartial: your own happiness counts no more than a stranger's, and, as Bentham and later Peter Singer insisted, the suffering of animals counts too. This impartiality makes it a powerful engine of reform, from prison conditions to global poverty and effective altruism.
Modern utilitarians disagree about what wellbeing is, whether to judge individual acts or general rules, and how to compare lives across a whole population.
What they hold
- Only consequences determine whether an action is right.
- The consequences that matter are effects on wellbeing.
- Everyone's wellbeing counts equally, wherever and whoever they are.
- We should bring about the greatest total good.
The main criticisms
Critics argue that utilitarianism permits terrible acts if the numbers work out, such as punishing an innocent person to calm a riot, and so ignores rights and justice. Others raise the demandingness objection and John Rawls' charge that it ignores the separateness of persons. Defenders reply that well-designed rules and honest accounting avoid most of these results, or bite the bullet.
“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, ch. 2
Key figures
Where it comes up
Further reading
- EncyclopediaStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The History of Utilitarianism
- WikipediaUtilitarianism