utilitarianism essay introduction

Utilitarianism Theory Essay

Utilitarianism is an ethical movement that began in 18th century. It dictates that the best course of action is the one that benefits majority. Here, you will discover an essay about utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism theory argues that the consequence of an action determines whether that particular action is morally right or wrong. Philosophers behind this theory include Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, R.M. Hare and Peter Singer. All these philosophers evaluate morality of actions depending on overall happiness or well-being. Thus, they see utilitarianism as a consequentialist ethic.

Consequentialist ethics holds that in determining whether an act, policy, rule or motive is morally right, we should check whether it has good consequences for all affected persons. Rather than asking if an action has good consequences for a person, we should just inquire whether that action adds to the person’s happiness.

Therefore, utilitarianism is an ethical theory that centers on happiness, not just the happiness of one person, but happiness of many people. Thus, the greatest happiness principle is synonymous with the principle of utility. The principle of greatest happiness states that a person should do things that will have the most happiness for all involved persons.

Critics of utilitarian ethics argue that because utilitarianism emphasizes on results, utilitarian theorists should agree that the theory of ethical relativism solves the problem of relativism. These critics claim that since utilitarian theorists argue that morality of an action depends on what the product of the action will take to all affected persons, then almost every action is moral. That is to say, utilitarianism is a consequentialistic ethic and thus, we cannot know whether an action is immoral until we see its bad consequences.

Given that, utilitarian ethics in some ways holds morality of an action hostage to the result, morality of the action appears relative. However, we refute ethical relativism since utilitarian ethics is a type of universalism, given its grounds in trust in universal human nature. Utilitarian theorists say that all people have altruistic and egoistic elements, and all people seek to evade pain and augment pleasure. Then, instead of ethical relativism, they support a liberal ethics that acknowledges there are universal principles and values.

The utilitarian perspective that ethics is more inclined to our feelings and not our rationality may seem to give evidence that utilitarianism is a type of relativism. Obviously, people have different outlooks about different matters. However, description of ethics may not always be from this perspective. Think about a cruel act such as premeditated murder.

How comes that this act immoral? Is it due to societal, divine, or natural laws? The truth is that human beings cannot make the moral judgment that premeditated murder is immoral until they experience negative sentiments about such acts. If there are human beings who do not get negative sentiments after reflecting on the idea of premeditated murder, or other monstrous acts, it is because those persons have something wrong with them and thus, cannot feel others pain.

Desensitization is the contemporary psychological word that describes why some people may not have feeling for the pain of others. People become desensitized making them not feel others pain. This psychological thought matches perfectly well with the utilitarian idea of sentience. However, human nature is universal and a universal ethics rests upon nothing more than human sentiments.

At the center of the utilitarian argument that shifts from the concern we physically have for our personal feelings of pain and pleasure, to others feelings of pain and pleasure, is the belief that this is the nature of human beings. When we hear about calamities happening to others, we may find ourselves flinching or grimacing. However, to go from a claim about our human nature to a moral claim that we ought to do this, and it is correct that we do this, and wrong when we fail to do this, includes an extra step in the argument.

The crucial step is to ask ourselves whether there is actually a difference between our pains and joys and other peoples’ pains and joys. This, for instance, is a problem to any racist. If dissimilar races experience equal pleasures and pains, then how come one race sees itself as superior to another race? If there is actually no difference between our pains and pleasures with others pains and pleasures, then we ought to, just due to consistency, view their suffering as just as significant as ours.

This is the heart of the justification of the theory of utility; we should do what will have the best outcomes for all persons involved, not only for ourselves, since there actually is no significant difference involving our welfare and other people’s welfare.

It is clear that equality is a main concept involved in this reasoning. A different way to portray the central utilitarian concept is just to say humans are equal; your pain or happiness is equal to another person’s anguish or happiness. However, another person’s happiness, well-being, suffering, pleasure and pain are not more crucial than yours. Hence, considering ethics along utilitarian line takes us from egoism through altruism to equality.

Other critics of utilitarianism argue that it is difficult and impossible to apply its principles. Those that hold that it is difficult to apply utilitarian principles argue that calculating the outcomes for all persons is impractical due to uncertainty and the big number involved. The truth, however, is that utilitarianism offers a clear way of determining whether an action is moral or not, and this does not involve calculations.

As mentioned earlier, a morally right action should have pleasurable consequences. Therefore, a person who says that it is difficult to apply this theory should support his/her claims with examples of actions that produce pleasurable outcomes, but are wrong. Therefore, the argument that it is difficult to calculate what is right does not hold any water, since it has no harm to the principle of utility. Rather, this is a problem of the human condition.

Other critics that oppose the application of utilitarian principles argue that it is not possible to gauge or quantify happiness and there is no defined method of weighing happiness against suffering. However, the truth is that happiness is measurable and comparable through words like happier and happiest. If it were not measurable, then these words would have little meaning.

In conclusion, the theory of utilitarianism is sound, logical and consistent. Utilitarian ethics follow the law of greatest happiness. According to this law, human beings seek to decrease suffering and maximize happiness. Hence, an action that is correct morally must lead to the greatest possible pleasure. This also implies that actions that cause pain on human beings are morally wrong. As seen in the arguments above, this theory is beyond reproach, as it caters for all possible objections.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Utilitarianism

Introduction, general overviews.

• Textbooks and Anthologies
• Consequentialism
• Act versus Rule Utilitarianism
• Works by R. M. Hare
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• Satisficing
• Other Forms of Utilitarianism
• Contrasts with Other Views
• Utilitarianism and Rights
• The Number Problem
• Harms and Benefits of Different Degrees
• The History of Utilitarianism: John Stuart Mill
• The History of Utilitarianism: Other Figures
• Peter Singer
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Utilitarianism by Ben Eggleston LAST MODIFIED: 29 November 2022 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0431

Utilitarianism is a moral theory that judges actions based on their consequences—specifically, based on their effects on well-being. Most utilitarians take well-being to be constituted largely by happiness, and historically utilitarianism has been known by the phrase “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.” As the second part of this phrase suggests, utilitarianism is concerned with the well-being of all people, not just the person who performs an action or the people most directly affected; in fact, because nonhuman animals can also experience pleasure and pain, their well-being also counts in the moral assessment of actions, according to most utilitarians. Thus, a simple statement of the utilitarian view is that an action is right if and only if it brings about at least as much overall well-being as any action the agent could have performed instead. Controversially, this means that, according to utilitarianism, in principle, any type of action—such as lying, stealing, or even killing someone—could conceivably be condoned by utilitarianism if, in the particular circumstances, it would produce at least as much overall well-being as anything else the agent could have done. Utilitarians tend to condemn such actions because they tend to reduce overall well-being, but they hold that the impact on well-being is what makes such actions wrong—not their being prohibited by conventionally accepted moral rules, the commands of a deity, principles of human rights, or other considerations that can conflict with the fundamental moral goal of maximizing overall well-being. In addition to the straightforward form of utilitarianism summarized above, there are other forms of the view, such as ones that judge acts not in terms of their direct effects on overall well-being, but in terms of their compliance with rules whose general acceptance tends to promote well-being. All forms of the view, however, hold that the moral assessment of acts derives directly or indirectly from the fundamental utilitarian moral criterion of the maximization of overall well-being.

For most readers, de Lazari-Radek and Singer 2017 is the best work to start with. They will then be well-situated to enjoy the debate between Smart 1973 and Williams 1973 . They can then turn to Brink 2006 to appreciate the place of utilitarianism within consequentialism and several issues that arise there.

Brink, David O. “Some Forms and Limits of Consequentialism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory . Edited by David Copp, 380–423. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195325911.003.0015

An overview of the general consequentialist approach to ethics, situating utilitarianism within that approach. The chapter is divided into twenty sections, providing clarity of organization and enabling the reader to home in on topics of particular interest. The introduction and sections 1–8 (pp. 380–398) are especially important and accessible.

de Lazari-Radek, Katarzyna, and Peter Singer. Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

DOI: 10.1093/actrade/9780198728795.001.0001

A brief and accessible introduction to utilitarianism, by two leading contemporary utilitarian theorists, covering the historical roots of the view, arguments in support of it, objections, different varieties of the view, and its contemporary relevance. Probably the best choice for most readers looking for a brief but substantial introduction presupposing no prior philosophical background.

Smart, J. J. C. “An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics.” In Utilitarianism: For and Against . Edited by J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, 3–74. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1973.

One of the classic defenses of utilitarianism, emphasizing act utilitarianism in particular, and a hedonistic theory of well-being. Brief, direct, and uncompromising. Some aspects of Smart’s view have been superseded by subsequent developments in utilitarian thought, but Smart’s essay is still well worth the time required to read it. Best read just before Williams 1973 .

Williams, Bernard. “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” In Utilitarianism: For and Against . Edited by J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, 77–150. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1973.

One of the classic critiques of utilitarianism, by one of the most influential ethicists of the twentieth century, written with his customary verve. The essay’s examples and arguments on two topics—negative responsibility and what has come to be called the integrity objection—have become mainstays of the critical literature on utilitarianism. Even proponents of utilitarianism who consider Williams’s objections misguided generally acknowledge his critique as seminal. Best read just after Smart 1973 .

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Introduction to Utilitarianism

Checked : Luis G. , Curtis H.

Latest Update 19 Jan, 2024

Table of content

How Does Utilitarian Reasoning Work?

Real-world applications of utilitarianism, flaws in utilitarianism.

Imagine you are in a country that suffers from a severe lack of donated organs, with thousands of people on the waiting list for a transplant. A full set of organs from one person would be able to save seven lives. You, as a doctor, could choose to remove the organs from one healthy but homeless beggar in order to save seven important high-ranking members of society in your care. Would you do it?

Or what about the converse, removing the organs from one   healthy, important high-ranking member of society in order to save seven homeless beggars in your care?

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory and a type of consequentialism that focuses on maximizing happiness, or pleasure, and reducing pain. When faced with a decision, a utilitarian would consider the available options and ask themselves how many people would benefit and how many would suffer from it. The most ethical course of action in utilitarianism is the one that causes the greatest amount of good to the most number of people, or the least harm to the least number of people.

Utilitarianism believes that all living beings, present or future, are equal to the extent that they can experience pain and pleasure. As such, in the organ transplant examples above, a utilitarian would always choose to sacrifice one person to save the seven, no matter who was a beggar and who was an important member of society, because all humans are equally capable of experiencing pain and pleasure.

In early times, utilitarian philosophers sought to come up with a scientific process of determining which course of action would be the most ethical. They came up with a calculative method similar to a cost-benefit assessment, weighing the consequences of each action in terms of the benefits received and losses incurred by all affected sentient beings. Sentient beings were not just restricted to human beings, but animals as well, because they also have the ability to feel pain and pleasure (though utilitarianism considered that animals felt pain and pleasure to less of an extent than humans).

The calculation process took into account a number of factors, including the following:

• The number of sentient beings that would benefit (i.e. feel pleasure or happiness)
• The number of sentient beings that would suffer losses or be harmed (i.e. feel pain)
• The intensity of any resulting pleasure, and how long it would last
• The intensity of any resulting pain, and how long it would last

Utilitarian thinking sees all people as equals. As such, if you were to choose either to benefit your one child or benefit five strangers, a utilitarian would choose to benefit five strangers as more people would be happy that way. Although you are making the decision and could choose to make someone you know happy, utilitarianism believes that a person’s identity has no bearing on their ability to feel pain and pleasure, and thus, each person’s happiness is just as important as another person’s happiness. Utilitarianism employs an impartial calculation process to determine the most ethical course of action.

Utilitarianism has seen many applications throughout the world’s history. It was used to bring an end to slavery, end the mistreatment of animals, orphans and child laborers, as well as providing better treatment to adult laborers, prisoners and criminals, the poor and those with mental conditions. It helped in fighting for women’s rights and the equal treatment of any gender.

Today, not everyone may rely on calculations to make choices in their daily lives. However, we can still see the impact of utilitarianism in teaching us that all people are equal and everyone’s happiness is just as important, regardless of their wealth, age, gender, race, social status or anything else.

Many modern societies make decisions based on this rationale, and the community in general usually tries to choose the action with the most benefit and least harm. For example, when a major decision is to be made, voting is carried out among the affected populace to determine the public’s opinion, and the majority vote is taken. This ensures that the option chosen is the one that makes the most number of people happy, thereby maximizing happiness and reducing harm. Additionally, in an ideal voting system, everyone’s vote has an equal weightage regardless of their position in society, demographics or other factors, which aligns with the utilitarian belief that all humans’ happiness is equally important.

Despite the advantages of utilitarianism, the ethical theory still has its drawbacks. Remember the organ transplant scenario discussed at the start of this article? Well, it is generally considered unacceptable in modern society to harm a perfectly healthy person even if it could save thousands of other lives. If it was socially acceptable to sacrifice one life to save seven others, what would happen to our society?

Another flaw of utilitarianism is the assumption that all humans involved in the consequences are equal. Consider a car driver who has to choose either to swerve to another lane and kill one person, or stay on the current lane and kill four people. Utilitarianism would prompt the action that results in less harm, which would be swerving to kill that one person, thus sparing the other four. However, what if you later learned that that one person was a business owner and solely responsible for the livelihoods of a thousand other people, including the four you spared?

Additionally, utilitarian thinking assumes that the course of each action will result in the expected consequence. What if you chose the ethical action, but it actually resulted in an unexpected – and worse – consequence? Would your action still be ethical then?

Do you think that the calculative process of utilitarianism is a viable way to determine the most ethical course of action? Why or why not?

Can you think of one situation not mentioned in this article that displays a flaw of the theory of utilitarianism?*

Some people say that some types of pleasure can be better than other types of pleasure and some types of pain can be worse than other types of pain. Other people think that all types of pleasure are equally good and all types of pain are equally bad. Which do you agree with, and why?

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Utilitarianism works based on the principle that one can assume that others will respond to a consequence in the same way as they do. In other words, a person can assume that whatever causes them pleasure will similarly cause others pleasure, and whatever causes them pain will similarly cause others pain. Do you agree with this? Why or why not?

*One example: Suppose you had to choose either to give ten billion people a free ride at an amusement park, or heal the terrible chronic pain of one person. Assuming that receiving a free ride would make each of those ten billion people happy, utilitarianism would theoretically dictate that the more ethical course of action would be to give ten billion people a free ride because it makes more people happy, instead of healing one person’s terrible chronic pain and making just that person happy. However, most people would probably agree that the ethical course of action in this case would be to alleviate one person’s terrible pain instead of giving ten billion people a free ride, which they can easily do without. This is an example of how, in some cases, no amount of pleasure can add up to terrible pain.

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“The core precept of utilitarianism is that we should make the world the best place we can. That means that, as far as it is within our power, we should bring about a world in which every individual has the highest possible level of well-being.” — Peter Singer

What Is Utilitarianism?

Utilitarianism is not a single viewpoint, but a family of related ethical theories. What these theories have in common is their focus on bringing about the best consequences for the world by improving the lives of all sentient beings. Utilitarianism holds that we should give equal moral consideration to the well-being of all individuals, regardless of characteristics such as their gender, race, nationality, or even species . 1

The original and most influential version of utilitarianism is classical utilitarianism , first expressed in the writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill . Classical utilitarianism holds that what makes someone’s life go well is based on the subjective conscious experiences they have. A good life is filled with positive conscious experiences like enjoyment, happiness, and contentment, whereas a bad life contains many negative conscious experiences like suffering and pain. Classical utilitarianism holds that we should act so that the world contains the greatest sum total of positive experience over negative experience.

Introduction to Utilitarianism: An Online Textbook

This website aims to provide a concise, accessible and engaging introduction to modern utilitarianism, functioning as an online textbook targeted at the undergraduate level. The content of this website aims to be understandable to a broad audience, avoiding philosophical jargon where possible and providing definitions where necessary.

• Introduction to Utilitarianism
• Elements and Types of Utilitarianism
• Arguments for Utilitarianism
• Theories of Well-Being
• Population Ethics
• Utilitarianism and Practical Ethics
• Near-Utilitarian Alternatives
• Objections to Utilitarianism and Responses
• Resources and Further Reading

Acting on Utilitarianism

Guest essays, utilitarian thinkers.

• Utilitarian Quotes
• Utilitarian Glossary
• Utilitarian Books

“This is the perfect introduction to utilitarianism: comprehensive, critical and accessible as a basis for classroom discussion or public debate.” — Prof. Philip Pettit, Princeton / ANU

Utilitarianism has important implications for how we should think about leading an ethical life. Because utilitarianism weighs the well-being of everyone equally, it implies that we should make helping others a very significant part of our lives.

There are many pressing problems in the world today. Unfortunately, because our resources are scarce, we cannot solve all the world’s problems at once. What is more, not all ways of helping others are equally effective. According to utilitarianism we should carefully choose which problems to work on and by what means, based on how we can most improve the lives of everyone, counted equally. This involves taking seriously the question of how we can best use our time and money to help others.

A few moral projects appear especially pressing by utilitarian lights, such as fighting extreme poverty , reducing the suffering of animals on factory farms , and, in particular, ensuring that the long-term future goes as well as possible . People who will exist in the future greatly outnumber those who are alive today, and we may be able to take actions that affect their well-being. Therefore, one key concern for utilitarians is to promote the well-being of not only the current generation but of all generations to come.

Addressing these problems may involve donating generously to effective charities , choosing your career based on how to most help others , and encouraging other people to do the same .

“Utilitarianism is a great idea with an awful name. It is, in my opinion, the most underrated and misunderstood idea in all of moral and political philosophy.” — Joshua Greene

Utilitarianism and Nonhuman Animals

Virtues for real-world utilitarians, buddhism and utilitarianism, bentham and criminal law, analytic hedonism and observable moral facts, naturalistic arguments for ethical hedonism, utilitarianism and research ethics, uncertainty and utilitarianism, utilitarianism and climate change, the time-relative account of interests.

This website was written by Richard Yetter Chappell , Darius Meissner , and William MacAskill . Richard is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Miami and holds a PhD from Princeton University. Darius holds a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford and currently studies for a graduate degree at Georgetown University. William is an Associate Professor in Philosophy and Senior Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute at the University of Oxford.

We’re proud to have secured endorsements from prominent scholars, including at Harvard University, Princeton University, and New York University.

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Of course, individuals of different species may differ drastically in their capacity to suffer or flourish: a typical human or dolphin may have vastly more well-being at stake than a typical mouse or chicken. The point is just that an equal amount of suffering matters equally no matter who it is that experiences it.  ↩︎

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5 Utilitarianism

Frank Aragbonfoh Abumere

Introduction

Let us start our introduction to utilitarianism with an example that shows how utilitarians answer the following question, “Can the ends justify the means?” Imagine that Peter is an unemployed poor man in New York. Although he has no money, his family still depends on him; his unemployed wife (Sandra) is sick and needs $500 for treatment, and their little children (Ann and Sam) have been thrown out of school because they could not pay tuition fees ($500 for both of them). Peter has no source of income and he cannot get a loan; even John (his friend and a millionaire) has refused to help him. From his perspective, there are only two alternatives: either he pays by stealing or he does not. So, he steals $1000 from John in order to pay for Sandra’s treatment and to pay the tuition fees of Ann and Sam. One could say that stealing is morally wrong. Therefore, we will say that what Peter has done— stealing from John—is morally wrong.

Utilitarianism, however, will say what Peter has done is morally right. For utilitarians, stealing in itself is neither bad nor good; what makes it bad or good is the consequences it produces. In our example, Peter stole from one person who has less need for the money, and spent the money on three people who have more need for the money. Therefore, for utilitarians, Peter’s stealing from John (the “means”) can be justified by the fact that the money was used for the treatment of Sandra and the tuition fees of Ann and Sam (the “end”). This justification is based on the calculation that the benefits of the theft outweigh the losses caused by the theft. Peter’s act of stealing is morally right because it produced more good than bad. In other words, the action produced more pleasure or happiness than pain or unhappiness, that is, it increased net utility.

The aim of this chapter is to explain why utilitarianism reaches such a conclusion as described above, and then examine the strengths and weaknesses of utilitarianism. The discussion is divided into three parts: the first part explains what utilitarianism is, the second discusses some varieties (or types) of utilitarianism, and the third explores whether utilitarianism is persuasive and reasonable.

What is Utilitarianism?

Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism. For consequentialism, the moral rightness or wrongness of an act depends on the consequences it produces. On consequentialist grounds, actions and inactions whose negative consequences outweigh the positive consequences will be deemed morally wrong while actions and inactions whose positive consequences outweigh the negative consequences will be deemed morally right. On utilitarian grounds, actions and inactions which benefit few people and harm more people will be deemed morally wrong while actions and inactions which harm fewer people and benefit more people will be deemed morally right.

Benefit and harm can be characterized in more than one way; for classical utilitarians such as Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), they are defined in terms of happiness/unhappiness and pleasure/pain. On this view, actions and inactions that cause less pain or unhappiness and more pleasure or happiness than available alternative actions and inactions will be deemed morally right, while actions and inactions that cause more pain or unhappiness and less pleasure or happiness than available alternative actions and inactions will be deemed morally wrong. Although pleasure and happiness can have different meanings, in the context of this chapter they will be treated as synonymous.

Utilitarians’ concern is how to increase net utility. Their moral theory is based on the principle of utility which states that “the morally right action is the action that produces the most good” (Driver 2014). The morally wrong action is the one that leads to the reduction of the maximum good. For instance, a utilitarian may argue that although some armed robbers robbed a bank in a heist, as long as there are more people who benefit from the robbery (say, in a Robin Hood-like manner the robbers generously shared the money with many people) than there are people who suffer from the robbery (say, only the billionaire who owns the bank will bear the cost of the loss), the heist will be morally right rather than morally wrong. And on this utilitarian premise, if more people suffer from the heist while fewer people benefit from it, the heist will be morally wrong.

From the above description of utilitarianism, it is noticeable that utilitarianism is opposed to deontology, which is a moral theory that says that as moral agents we have certain duties or obligations, and these duties or obligations are formalized in terms of rules (see Chapter 6). There is a variant of utilitarianism, namely rule utilitarianism, that provides rules for evaluating the utility of actions and inactions (see the next part of the chapter for a detailed explanation). The difference between a utilitarian rule and a deontological rule is that according to rule utilitarians, acting according to the rule is correct because the rule is one that, if widely accepted and followed, will produce the most good. According to deontologists, whether the consequences of our actions are positive or negative does not determine their moral rightness or moral wrongness. What determines their moral rightness or moral wrongness is whether we act or fail to act in accordance with our duty or duties (where our duty is based on rules that are not themselves justified by the consequences of their being widely accepted and followed).

Some Varieties (or Types) of Utilitarianism

The above description of utilitarianism is general. We can, however, distinguish between different types of utilitarianism. First, we can distinguish between “actual consequence utilitarians” and “foreseeable consequence utilitarians.” The former base the evaluation of the moral rightness and moral wrongness of actions on the actual consequences of actions; while the latter base the evaluation of the moral rightness and moral wrongness of actions on the foreseeable consequences of actions. J. J. C. Smart (1920-2012) explains the rationale for this distinction with reference to the following example: imagine that you rescued someone from drowning. You were acting in good faith to save a drowning person, but it just so happens that the person later became a mass murderer. Since the person became a mass murderer, actual consequence utilitarians would argue that in hindsight the act of rescuing the person was morally wrong. However, foreseeable consequence utilitarians would argue that—looking forward (i.e., in foresight)—it could not be foreseen that the person was going to be a mass murderer, hence the act of rescuing them was morally right (Smart 1973, 49). Moreover, they could have turned out to be a “saint” or Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr., in which case the action would be considered to be morally right by actual consequence utilitarians.

A second distinction we can make is that between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism focuses on individual actions and says that we should apply the principle of utility in order to evaluate them. Therefore, act utilitarians argue that among possible actions, the action that produces the most utility would the morally right action. But this may seem impossible to do in practice since, for every thing that we might do that has a potential effect on other people, we would thus be morally required to examine its consequences and pick the one with the best outcome. Rule utilitarianism responds to this problem by focusing on general types of actions and determining whether they typically lead to good or bad results. This, for them is the meaning of commonly held moral rules: they are generalizations of the typical consequences of our actions. For example, if stealing typically leads to bad consequences, stealing in general would be considered by a rule utilitarian to be wrong. [1]

Hence rule utilitarians claim to be able to reinterpret talk of rights, justice, and fair treatment in terms of the principle of utility by claiming that the rationale behind any such rules is really that these rules generally lead to greater welfare for all concerned. We may wonder whether utilitarianism in general is capable of even addressing the notion that people have rights and deserve to be treated justly and fairly, because in critical situations the rights and wellbeing of persons can be sacrificed as long as this seems to lead to an increase overall utility.

For example, in a version of the famous “trolley problem,” imagine that you and an overweight stranger are standing next to each other on a footbridge above a rail track. You discover that there is a runaway trolley rolling down the track and the trolley is about to kill five people who cannot get off of the track quickly enough to avoid the accident. Being willing to sacrifice yourself to save the five persons, you consider

jumping off the bridge, in front of the trolley…but you realize that you are far too light to stop the trolley….The only way you can stop the trolley killing five people is by pushing this large stranger off the footbridge, in front of the trolley. If you push the stranger off, he will be killed, but you will save the other five. (Singer 2005, 340)

Utilitarianism, especially act utilitarianism, seems to suggest that the life of the overweight stranger should be sacrificed regardless of any purported right to life he may have. A rule utilitarian, however, may respond that since in general killing innocent people to save others is not what typically leads to the best outcomes, we should be very wary of making a decision to do so in this case. This is especially true in this scenario since everything rests on our calculation of what might possibly stop the trolley, while in fact there is really far too much uncertainty in the outcome to warrant such a serious decision. If nothing else, the emphasis placed on general principles by rule utilitarians can serve as a warning not to take too lightly the notion that the ends might justify the means.

Whether or not this response is adequate is something that has been extensively debated with reference to this famous example as well as countless variations. This brings us to our final question here about utilitarianism—whether it is ultimately a persuasive and reasonable approach to morality.

Is Utilitarianism Persuasive and Reasonable?

First of all, let us start by asking about the principle of utility as the foundational principle of morality, that is, about the claim that what is morally right is just what leads to the better outcome. John Stuart Mill’s argument that it is is based on his claim that “each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness” (Mill [1861] 1879, Ch. 4). Mill derives the principle of utility from this claim based on three considerations, namely desirability, exhaustiveness, and impartiality. That is, happiness is desirable as an end in itself; it is the only thing that is so desirable (exhaustiveness); and no one person’s happiness is really any more desirable or less desirable than that of any other person (impartiality) (see Macleod 2017).

In defending desirability, Mill argues,

The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it: and so of the other sources of our experience. In like manner…the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. (Mill [1861] 1879, Ch. 4)

In defending exhaustiveness, Mill does not argue that other things, apart from happiness, are not desired as such; but while other things appear to be desired , happiness is the only thing that is really desired since whatever else we may desire, we do so because attaining that thing would make us happy. Finally, in defending impartiality, Mill argues that equal amounts of happiness are equally desirable, whether the happiness is felt by the same person or by different persons. In Mill’s words, “each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons” (Mill [1861] 1879, Ch. 4). We may wonder, however, whether this last argument is truly adequate. Does Mill really show here that we should treat everyone’s happiness as equally worthy of pursuit, or does he simply assert this?

Let us grant that Mill’s argument here is successful and the principle of utility is the basis of morality. Utilitarianism claims that we should thus calculate, to the best of our ability, the expected utility that will result from our actions and how it will affect us and others, and use that as the basis for the moral evaluation of our decisions. But then we may ask, how exactly do we quantify utility? Here there are two different but related problems: how can I come up with a way of comparing different types of pleasure and pain, benefit or harm that I myself might experience, and how can I compare my benefit and yours on some neutral scale of comparison? Bentham famously claimed that there was a single universal scale that could enable us to objectively compare all benefits and harms based on the following factors: intensity, duration, certainty/uncertainty, proximity, fecundity, purity, and extent. And he offered on this basis what he called a “felicific calculus” as a way of objectively comparing any two pleasures we might encounter (Bentham [1789] 1907).

For example, let us compare the pleasure of drinking a pint of beer to that of reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet . Suppose the following are the case:

• The pleasure derived from drinking a pint of beer is more intense than the pleasure derived from reading Hamlet (intensity).
• The pleasure of drinking the beer lasts longer than that of reading Hamlet (duration).
• We are confident that drinking the beer is more pleasurable than reading Hamlet (certainty/uncertainty).
• The beer is closer to us than the play, and therefore it is easier for us to access the former than the latter (proximity).
• Drinking the beer is more likely to promote more pleasure in the future while reading Hamlet is less likely to promote more pleasure in the future (fecundity).
• Drinking the beer is pure pleasure while reading Hamlet is mixed with something else (purity).
• Finally, drinking the beer affects both myself and my friends in the bar and so has a greater extent than my solitary reading of Hamlet (extent).

Since, on all of these measures, drinking a pint of beer is more pleasurable than reading Hamlet , it follows according to Bentham that it is objectively better for you to drink the pint of beer and forget about reading Hamlet , and so you should. Of course, it is up to each individual to make such a calculation based on the intensity, duration, certainty, etc. of the pleasure resulting from each possible choice they may make in their eyes, but Bentham at least claims that such a comparison is possible.

This brings us back to the problem we mentioned before that, realistically, we cannot be expected to always engage in very difficult calculations every single time we want to make a decision. In an attempt to resolve this problem, utilitarians might claim that in the evaluation of the moral rightness and moral wrongness of actions, the application of the principle of utility can be backward-looking (based on hindsight) or forward-looking (based on foresight). That is, we can use past experience of the results of our actions as a guide to estimating what the probable outcomes of our actions might be and save ourselves from the burden of having to make new estimates for each and every choice we may face.

In addition, we may wonder whether Bentham’s approach misses something important about the different kinds of pleasurable outcomes we may pursue. Mill, for example, would respond to our claim that drinking beer is objectively more pleasurable than reading Hamlet by saying that it overlooks an important distinction between qualitatively different kinds of pleasure. In Mill’s view Bentham’s calculus misses the fact that not all pleasures are equal—there are “higher” and “lower” pleasures that make it “better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied” (Mill [1861] 1879, Ch. 2). Mill justifies this claim by saying that between two pleasures, although one pleasure requires a greater amount of difficulty to attain than the other pleasure, if those who are competently acquainted with both pleasures prefer (or value) one over the other, then the one is a higher pleasure while the other is a lower pleasure. For Mill, although drinking a pint of beer may seem to be more pleasurable than reading Hamlet , if you are presented with these two options and you are to make a choice—each and every time or as a rule—you should still choose to read Hamlet and forego drinking the pint of beer. Reading Hamlet generates a higher quality (although perhaps a lower quantity) of pleasure, while drinking a pint of beer generates lower quality (although higher quantity) of pleasure.

In the end, these issues may be merely technical problems faced by utilitarianism—is there some neutral scale of comparison between pleasures? If there is, is it based on Betham’s scale which makes no distinctions between higher and lower pleasures, or Mill’s which does? The more serious problem, however, remains, which is that utilitarianism seems willing in principle to sacrifice the interests and even perhaps lives of individuals for the sake of the benefit of a larger group. And this seems to conflict with our basic moral intuition that people have a right not to be used in this way. While Mill argued that the notion of rights could be accounted for on purely utilitarian terms, Bentham simply dismissed it. For him such “natural rights” are “simple nonsense, natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts”  (Bentham [1796] 1843, 501).

Let us conclude by revisiting the question we started with: can the ends justify the means? I stated that as far as utilitarianism is concerned the answer to this question is in the affirmative. While the answer is plausible and right for utilitarians, it is implausible for many others, and notably wrong for deontologists. As we have seen in this chapter, on a close examination utilitarianism is less persuasive and less reasonable than it appears to be when it is far away.

Bentham, Jeremy. (1789) 1907. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bentham, Jeremy. (1796) 1843. Anarchical Fallacies. In The Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed. John Bowring. Vol 2. Edinburgh: William Tait.

Driver, Julia. 2014.  “The History of Utilitarianism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/utilitarianism-history/

Hooker, Brad. 2016. “Rule Consequentialism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/consequentialism-rule/

Macleod, Christopher. 2017. “John Stuart Mill.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/mill/

Mill, John Stuart . Utilitarianism . (1861) 1879. 7th ed. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11224

Singer, Peter. 2005. “Ethics and Intuitions.” The Journal of Ethics 9(3/4): 331-352.

Smart, J. J. C. 1973. “An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics.” In Smart, J. J. C. and Bernard Williams.

Smart, J. J. C. and Bernard Williams. 1973. Utilitarianism: For and Against . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Further Reading

Hare, R. M. 1981. Moral Thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hooker, Brad. 1990. “Rule-Consequentialism.” Mind 99(393): 66-77.

Scheffler, Samuel. 1988. Consequentialism and Its Critics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sen, Amartya and Bernard Williams, eds. 1982. Utilitarianism and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sidgwick, Henry. 1907. The Methods of Ethics. London: Macmillan.

Singer, Peter. 2000. Writings on an Ethical Life. New York: HarperCollins.

Thomson, Judith Jarvis. 1985. “The Trolley Problem.” The Yale Law Journal 94(6): 1395-1415.

Williams, Bernard. 1973. “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” In Smart, J. J. C and Bernard Williams.

• Of course, there may be exceptions to such a rule in particular, atypical cases if stealing might lead to better consequences. This raises a complication for rule utilitarians: if they were to argue that we should follow rules such as “do not steal” except in those cases where stealing would lead to better consequences, then this could mean rule utilitarianism wouldn’t be very different from act utilitarianism. One would still have to evaluate the consequences of each particular act to see if one should follow the rule or not. Hooker (2016) argues that rule utilitarianism need not collapse into act utilitarianism in this way, because it would be better to have a set of rules that are more clear and easily understood and followed than ones that require us to evaluate many possible exceptions. ↵

Utilitarianism Copyright © 2019 by Frank Aragbonfoh Abumere is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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4 (page 65) p. 65 Objections

• Published: July 2017
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Utilitarianism holds that the right act is the one that brings about the best consequences, where ‘best consequences’ means, for all of those affected by our choice, the greatest possible net increase in well-being. ‘Objections’ asks whether this standard form of utilitarianism can meet the objections pressed against it. Can happiness or well-being be measured? Is utilitarianism too demanding? Instead of a simple choice between right and wrong, is there a spectrum of choices, some better than others? Does utilitarianism ignore our special obligations? Does it tell us to act immorally? These questions are considered as well as the ‘separateness of persons’ objection and the distribution of utility.

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Utilitarianism and Other Essays

By john stuart mill and jeremy bentham introduction by alan ryan edited by alan ryan, category: philosophy | classic nonfiction | essays & literary collections.

Aug 04, 1987 | ISBN 9780140432725 | 5-1/16 x 7-3/4 --> | ISBN 9780140432725 --> Buy

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Aug 04, 1987 | ISBN 9780140432725

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About Utilitarianism and Other Essays

One of the most important nineteenth-century schools of thought, Utilitarianism propounds the view that the value or rightness of an action rests in how well it promotes the welfare of those affected by it, aiming for ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was the movement’s founder, as much a social reformer as a philosopher. His greatest interpreter, John Stuart Mill (1806-73), set out to humanize Bentham’s pragmatic Utilitarianism by balancing the claims of reason and the imagination, individuality and social well-being in essays such as ‘Bentham’, ‘Coleridge’ and, above all, Utilitarianism . The works by Bentham and Mill collected in this volume show the creation and development of a system of ethics that has had an enduring influence on moral philosophy and legislative policy. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Also by John Stuart Mill

About John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was a child of radicalism, born in 1806 into a rarefied realm of philosophic discourse. His father,… More about John Stuart Mill

About Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was educated at Westminster and Queen’s College, Oxford. He was called to the bar but found the… More about Jeremy Bentham

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Table of contents.

Introduction From An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation by Jeremy Bentham From A System of Logic by J. S. Mill “Bentham” by J. S. Mill “Coleridge” by J. S. Mill “Whewell on Moral Philosophy” by J. S. Mill Utilitarianism by J. S. Mill Further Reading Index

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