Utilitarianism is the doctrine that decisions should promote good consequences. It is a normative theory, meant to guide conduct and to serve as the basis of sound evaluations. It does not assume that actual decisions or judgements always satisfy that standard.
Like other important philosophical ideas, utilitarianism has many variations. The founders of modern utilitarianism, Bentham (1789) and J.S.Mill (1861), assumed that good consequences are, at bottom, desirable conditions of individuals (perhaps including animals other than humans). Bentham’s hedonistic utilitarianism called for the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain. Mill, who distinguished higher and lower pleasures, seems to have held that human good consists in the free development of individuals’ distinctive, and distinctively human, capacities. Ideal utilitarians believe that what is most fundamentally of value can include such things as beauty, which need not be defined in terms of human good or conscious states.
Utilitarianism in its various forms can be understood to combine a theory of intrinsic value with some notion of how stringently and directly it should be served, for example, whether good consequences must be maximized or need only be promoted to a lesser degree, and whether each and every decision should be so regulated (‘act’ utilitarianism) or rather that acts should conform to useful patterns (‘rule’ utilitarianism).
Utilitarians often claim as a virtue of their theory that it bases evaluations on ascertainable facts, such as how much pleasure and pain would result from alternative courses of action. But the calculations require interpersonal comparisons of utility, of which many are sceptical. This has led some theorists to develop normative standards in terms of less demanding notions of efficiency, as in welfare economics.
Utilitarians have generally favoured social reforms (because, for example, income transfers from rich to poor are supposed to promote welfare overall), and they have championed political rights and personal liberty (because, for example, paternalistic interference is supposed to be counter-productive). Critics charge, however, that utilitarianism lacks principled commitment to all such values: it cares only how much good is produced, but not about equitable distribution, respect for personal desert, or the security of freedom and individual integrity.
Most generally, critics charge that utilitarianism distorts sound moral judgement: to promise to do something, for example, is deliberately to place oneself under an obligation, the demands of which (it is argued) are greater and more specifically directed than utilitarianism allows. They claim that utilitarianism fails to take obligations (or for that matter rights) seriously.
Utilitarianism nevertheless remains a widely accepted theory of central importance, though its status—like that of any normative principle—is uncertain. The idea that principles merely express more or less arbitrary attitudes seems largely based upon an exaggerated contrast between ethics and science, which suffers from overly simple conceptions of empirical knowledge and discovery. Developments in the theory of reference and justification, along with the decline of logical positivism, have revived interest in moral realism (or cognitivism) and in the possibility of rationally defending either utilitarianism or some competing doctrine.
David Lyons
Cornell University
References
Bentham, J. (1789) An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, London.
Mill, J.S. (1861) Utilitarianism, London.
Further reading
Brandt, R.B. (1979) A Theory of the Good and the Right, Oxford.
Sen, A. and Williams, B. (eds) (1982) Utilitarianism and Beyond, Cambridge, UK.
Smart, J.J.C. and Williams, B. (eds) (1973) Utilitarianism, For and Against, Cambridge, UK.
