DEFINITION AND ORIGINES

Utilitarianism is mainly characterized by two elements: happiness and consequentialism.

Utilitarian happiness is the biggest happiness which (supposetly) every human being looks for. In
utilitarianism everything useful to happiness is good. Therefore, the name of the doctrine is
utilitarianism, based on the principle of utility. Utility is found in every thing which contributes
to the happiness of every rational being. The criterion of good and evil is balanced between
individual's happiness and the happiness of the community, "each counting in an equal way"
(Bentham, Introduction in the principles of morality and legislation). Consequentialism in
utilitarianism is in the fact that an action must be judged for its consequences on the happiness of
the largest number. That is: my search for happiness stops when it decreases the happiness of
another individual or the happiness of the largest number, of the society or the community. As
personal freedom is considered in respect of the freedom of other individuals and of the
community, my freedom stops when it diminishes the freedom of another individual or the well-
being of the society. We could say that utilitarianism is the continuation of Roman legislation,
and its modern aspect is shown in the fact that utilitarianism adds an economical, legislative and
political dimension to an ethical concept, that of happiness and well-being. The modern aspect of
the doctrine will evolve throughout the 19th century, with Bentham, Mill and Sidgwick who
succeeds in giving to this doctrine a practical and rational dimension which we can find in our
modern society, in economics, politics and ethics.

"The continuing vitality of the greatest happiness system is not difficult to understand – it
embodies a very natural and compelling model of rationality. This model, which dominates
much of contemporary economics (as well as decision theory, "cost-benefit analysis", and
"public choice theory") sees rational action as an attempt to maximise net utility (i.e. the result of
summing the benefits and costs and subtracting the latter from the former). This view, which is
frequently called "means-end" rationality, goes back (at least) to Aristotle. In the Nicomachean
Ethics Aristotle asserts that "we cannot deliberate about ends but only about the means by which
ends can be attained." If we assume, with Aristotle, that happiness is the "highest good attainable
by action," and hence the aim of politics, we get something very like Bentham's view. Indeed it
is tempting, and not implausible, to interpret philosophers as different as Adam Smith and
Chairman Mao as agreeing that the goal of social institutions is the maximization of realizing
that end.

Of course philosophers who share this vision of the proper function of social institutions like law
and morality may differ on more than the best methods to attain it, as Aristotle noted, there is
widespread agreement that happiness is the goal, but considerable disagreement as to what
constitutes happiness. For Bentham the answer is simple: happiness is just pleasure and absence
of pain. The value (or disvalue) of a pleasure (or pain) depends only on its intensity and duration,
and can (at least in principle) be quantified precisely. Given this, we can reconstruct one line of
Bentham's argument for the principle of UTILITY as something like the following:

1. The good of a society is the sum of happiness of the individuals in that society.
2. The purpose of morality is promotion of the good of society.
3. A moral principle is ideal if and only if universal conformity to it would maximize the
good of society.
4. Universal conformity to the principle of UTILITY ("Act always so as to maximize total
net balance of pleasures and pains") would maximize the good of society

____________________________________________________

Therefore the principle of UTILITY is the ideal moral principle."

(See the book: The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill, author: John Troyer, Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Connecticut)

"The origin of the utilitarian doctrine is in the debate, which brought together, during the largest
part of the 18th century, the philosophers of the "moral sense", Shaftesbury and Hutcheson who
tried to find a natural foundation for the moral motivation of spontaneous benevolence that we
feel for someone else and his happiness, and their criticisms (of those philosophers), which we
describe as followers of Hobbes, who, nevertheless, was not utilitarian.
(…)
Utilitarianism joins a very long tradition of thought which goes back, to China, from Mo-Tseu
for example, and in Greek philosophy, from, essentially, Aristotle and Epicurus. Then, it offers
the paradox to be, with Kantianism, his contemporary and rival; always so alive as it was more
than two centuries ago: Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation was published, indeed,
in 1789, and Kant's Critic of Practical Reason in 1788. And, more specifically, it dominates the
English-speaking world where, unlike in France, the Kantian philosophy had difficulty in being
adopted. The critics which Mill sent to Kant in Utilitarianism in the name of the
consequentialism still seem as valid as they were." (See, Introduction of Catherine Audard et
Patrick Thierry, of the book: John Stuart Mill, L'utilitarisme Essai sur Bentham, PUF, 1998)

Even if utilitarianism exists since a long time, it seems to take a bigger importance in the 18th
and 19th centuries, with the beginning of modern society and the end of the feudalism. Indeed,
the industrial development which occured in Europe in the 18th century entailed important
changes in the behaviour of individuals within the society. So, industrialization, in which France
was, in the 18th century, the leading country, individualized the people of the society. That is,
this new society (or community) which offered to the poorest, to averagely poor men and to the
averagely rich men, to meet their needs without being obliged to be part of a clan or a family
group. During the Middle Ages, the individual could not survive alone, the group was the only
means of survival, whether it was within the city, the big villages or around a Lord's castle in the
countryside. In the Middle Ages an individual could only survive if he was part of a group. The
technological and scientific development and the discoveries of new lands, in 15th, 16th and 17th
centuries, produced the society of the Enlightenment, society which gave birth to individualism
and to the independence of private economy with regard to the State. It is thus in this context that
the "laissez-faire policy" appeared, which bacame finally the creed of utilitarianism in the sense
that as an individual is free to produce his own happiness, and is most aware to know what is
convenient for him, but it also gave more responsibilities to the individual because the
consequence of the individual's acts became very important and fundamental. Indeed, it is here,
in this aspect of utilitarianism that we can see the french influence of Auguste Comte's altruism,
and a general movement of a "humanization" of the European society. And as this society
became richer and "mastered" a little more the nature in which it evolved, as it had financial and
material means which brought a better material comfort it allowed, in the 18th century, an
individualization of the persons, producing then the consideration of the other one as a unique
individual in the same way as each one considered himself as a unique individual, and not as part
of a group. Our modern society is then born.

The "laissez-faire" takes its origin in France. In 1683, during a meeting between Colbert (1619-
1683) and a group of French traders managed by a certain Legendre, who, when Colbert asked
the traders what the French State could do to help them, he answered this:

Let it be, such should be the motto of every public power, ever since the world is civilized ... A
detestable principle that we want to grow but by the lowering of our neighbours! There is
nothing but mischief and malignity of heart that are satisfied with that principle, and interest is
opposed to it. Let it be (laissez-faire), damn it (morbleu) ! Let it be!! (J. Turgot: Eloge de Vincent
de Gournay, Mercure, 1759)

Vincent de Gournay (1712-1759) popularized this motto which characterized the need of
economic and individual freedom which reflects in the 18th century: "let make (laissez-faire),
allow passing, the world goes by itself ". This need of freedom keeps pace with an increasing
individualism which cannot exist without a certain altruism, which finally Auguste Comte
expressed in the first half of the 19th century. Comte expressed a state mind which existed and
evolved throughout the 18th century but which could not be clearly expressed because people
were too busy freeing themselves, physically, economically and intellectually, that they did not
manage to express this altruism born with individualism. Finally individual happiness lauded by
utilitarianism comes inevitably along with an altruism, given that man can only be happy if the
community is happy itself; it is thus necessary to respect the happiness of others by acting in a
way that the consequences of my acts would produce happiness, or, at least, not cause misfortune
to anyone.

Utilitarianism expressed a desire of freedom; it is then a form of liberalism. Indeed, in England,

it evolved in two currents arisen from the influence of Bentham: an economic liberalism and a
social liberalism. The need of freedom arising from the end of the 17th century and during the
18th century developed and expressesed itself much more clearly in the 19th century. Two
currents appeared then: an economical liberalism which will become the capitalism in the 20th
century, and a social liberalism which will become during the 19th and 20th centuries socialism
and later on communism.

Jeremy Bentham was born in Houndsditch, London on 15 February 1748. He was the eldest son
of Alicia Whitehorn, née Grove, who on 3 October 1745 had entered into he second marriage
with Jeremiah Bentham, a successful practitioner in the Court of Chancery. (…) Six further
children were born, of whom only the youngest, Samuel, born in 1757, survived beyond infancy.
Death was never far away and on 6 January 1759, when Jeremy was ten years old, he lost his
mother. (…) by 1755 he was considered robust enough to go to Westminster School.
(…)
Recognizing that his eldest child was a prodigy, Jeremiah sent him at the tender age of 12, to the
Queen's College, Oxford, where he took up residence in October 1760. (…) his graduation with a
Bachelor of Arts degree in 1764 (he was reputedly the youngest person up to that time ever to
graduate) proved extremely problematic. Graduation was conditional upon the graduand
swearing to the statements of faith and discipline contained in the Thirty-nine Articles of the
Church of England.
(...)
Bentham could not bring himself to accept them. He realized, however, that not to swear, and
thereby to disqualify himself from receiving his degree, would destroy his relationship with his
father, who expected him to pursue a brilliant legal career, and even rise to the office of Lord
Chancellor at the pinnacle of the profession. (…) On the other hand, to swear to the articles was
an act of intellectual dishonesty. In the event, he swore, but it was a decision he always regretted,
as he made clear over 50 years later: "by the view I found myself forced to take of the whole
business, such an impression was made, as will never depart from me but with life." What is
remarkable about this episode is that Bentham was a mere 16 years old at the time. His
scepticism in relation to religious belief already ran deep, though the precise nature of that
scepticism not easy to discern.
(…)
The year 1769 – "a most interesting year" as Bentham himself called it – was important for a
different reason. It was in 1769 that Bentham found a purpose for his life. All the pieces of the
jigsaw suddenly came into place. His later reflections on this period of his life reveal an exposure
to a very different literature from the one he had been allowed to peruse as a child. Prominent
now were names such as Montesquieu, Helvétius, Beccaria and Voltaire – figures associated
with the continental Enlightenment – and David Hume, David Hartley and Joseph Priestley –
figures who were advancing radical philosophical and political views. Bentham brought together
various elements from these thinkers to construct his version of the principle of UTILITY.
(…)
In the late 1770s and early 1780s Bentham spent much of his time developing his notion of the
science of legislation, founded upon the principle of utility. As noted above, one result of this
endeavour was An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Here he argued that
the right and proper end of government was the happiness of the community (…) and went on to
develop his theory of punishment and produce a detailed classification of offences. In relation to
punishment, he found inspiration in the work of Cesare Beccaria, who had stressed the
importance of deterrence, proportionality and certainty of infliction. Bentham took Beccaria's
ideas, related them systematically to the principle of UTILITY, and added elements of his own.
He argued that the legislator, when assigning punishment to actions, had to take to account of the
"profit" which accrued to the criminal, and the "mischief" which resulted to the community, from
the commission of the offence.
(…)
as he worked on the text which became An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation, Bentham became aware that in order to produce a code of laws, he needed to
understand what a single (or individuated) law consisted in. but he also realizes that neither he,
nor any one who had written before him, had properly defined what was meant by the notion of
law – just what was this entity which was termed a law? Bentham embarked on an investigation
which produced the text hitherto known as Of Laws in General in which he argued, with an
incredible insight of sophistication, that a law was an expression of will on the part of a
sovereign, who in turn was the person or body of persons, or some combination of persons and
bodies, to whom the community was in a habit of obedience. Around the same time, he came to
the conclusion that the most effective means of promoting the happiness of the community
would be through the introduction of a complete code of laws, or a "pannomion" as he termed it.
Such a code would be "all-comprehensive" and "rationalized". This meant that the code would be
logically complete, in that all the terms used in the code would be clearly defined and that each
single provision would be immediately followed by the reason which justified it, such
justification bearing reference of course to the principle of UTILITY. (See the book: Bentham:
A guide for the Perplexed,author: Philip Schofield, Professor of History of Legal and Political
Thought, University College London, Director of the Bentham Project, Associate Editor
of Utilitas.,)

Philosophers who share this vision of the proper function of social institutions like law and
morality may differ on more than the best methods to attain it, as Aristotle noted, there is
widespread agreement that happiness is the goal, but considerable disagreement as to what
constitutes happiness. For Bentham the answer is simple: happiness is just pleasure and absence
of pain. The value (or disvalue) of a pleasure (or pain) depends only on its intensity and duration,
and can (at least in principle) be quantified precisely. Given this, we can reconstruct one line of
Bentham's argument for the principle of UTILITY as something like the following:

1. The good of a society is the sum of happiness of the individuals in that society.
2. The purpose of morality is promotion of the good of society.
3. A moral principle is ideal if and only if universal conformity to it would maximize the
good of society.
4. Universal conformity to the principle of UTILITY ("Act always so as to maximize total
net balance of pleasures and pains") would maximize the good of society.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Therefore the principle of UTILITY is the ideal moral principle.

(See the book: The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill, author: John Troyer, Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Connecticut)

Abstracts of Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation:

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.
It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.
On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects,
are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every
effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In
words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the
while. The principle of utility recognises this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that
system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law.
System which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason,
in darkness instead of light. (Bentham: Principles of Morals and Legislation, c. I)

CHAPTER IV

Value of a Lot of Pleasure or Pain, How to be Measured

I. Use of this chapter. Pleasure then, and the avoidance of pains, are the ends which the
legislator has in view: it behoves him therefore to understand their value. Pleasures and pains
are the instruments he has to work with: it behoves him therefore to understand their force,
which is again in other words their value.

II. Circumstances to be taken into the account in estimating the value of a pleasure or pain
considered with reference to a single person, and by itself. To a person considered by himself,
the value of a pleasure or pain considered by itself, will be greater or less, according to the four
following circumstances:

1. Its intensity.
2. Its duration.
3. Its certainty or uncertainty.
4. Its propinquity or remoteness.
III. – considered as connected with other pleasures or pains. These are the circumstances which
are to be considered in estimating a pleasure or a pain considered each of them by itself. But
when the value of any pleasure or pain is considered for the purpose of estimating the tendency
of any act by which it is produced, there are two other circumstances to be taken into account,
these are,

1. Its fecundity, or the chance it has of being followed by sensations of the same kind: that
is, pleasures, if it be a pleasure: pains, if it be a pain.
2. Its purity, or the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of opposite kind: that
is: pains, if it be a pleasure, pleasures, if it be a pain

These two last, however, are in strictness and scarcely to be deemed properties of the pleasure
or the pain itself; they are not, therefore, in strictness to be taken into the account of the value of
that pleasure or that pain. They are in strictness to be deemed in properties only of the act, or
other event, by which such pleasure or pain has been produced; and accordingly are only to be
taken into the account of the tendency of such act or such event.

IV. – considered with reference to a number of persons. To a number of persons, with reference
to each of whom the value of a pleasure or a pain is considered, it will be greater or less,
according to seven circumstances: to wit, the six preceding ones; viz.

1. Its intensity.
2. Its duration.
3. Its certainty or uncertainty.
4. Its propinquity or remoteness.
5. Its fecundity.
6. Its purity.

And one other to wit:

1. Its extent; that is, the number of persons to whom it extends; or (in other words) who are
affected by it.

V. Process for estimating the tendency of any act or event. To take an exact account then the
general tendency of any act, by which the interests of a community are affected, proceeds as
follows. Begin with any one person of those whose interests seem most immediately to be affected
by it: and take an account,

1. Of the value of each distinguishable pleasure which appears to be produced by it in the

first instance.
2. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it in the first instance.
3. Of the value of each pleasure which appears to be produced by it after the first. This
constitutes the fecundity of the first pleasure and the impurity of the first pain.
4. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it after the first. This
constitutes the fecundity of the first pain, and the impurity of the first pleasure.
5. Sum up all the values of all the pleasures on the one side, and those of all the pains on
the other. The balance, if it be on the side of pleasure, will give the good tendency of act
upon the whole, with respect to the interests of that individual person; if on the side of
pain, the bad tendency of it upon the whole.
6. Take an account of the number of persons whose interests appear to be concerned; and
repeat the above process with respect to each. Sum up the numbers expressive of the
degrees of good tendency, which the act has, with respect to each individual, in regard to
whom the tendency of it is good upon the whole: do this again with respect to each
individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is good upon the whole: do this again
with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is bad upon the
whole. Take the balance; which, if on the side of pleasure, will give the general good
tendency of the act, with respect to the total number or community of individuals
concerned; if on the side of pain, the general evil tendency, with respect to the same
community.

VI. Use the foregoing process. It is not to be expected that this process should be strictly pursued
previously to every moral judgement, or to every legislative of judicial operation. It may,
however, be always kept in view: and as near as the process actually pursued on these occasions
approaches to it, so near will such process approach to the character of an exact one.

VII. The same process applicable to good and evil, profit and mischief, and all other
modifications of pleasure and pain. The same process is alike applicable to pleasure and pain, in
whatever shape they appear: and by whatever denomination they are distinguished: to pleasure,
whether it be called good (which is properly the cause or instrument of pleasure) or profit
(which is distant pleasure, or the cause or instrument of distant pleasure), or convenience,
benefit, emolument, happiness and so forth: to pain, whether it be called evil, (which
corresponds to good) or mischief, or inconvenience , or disadvantage, or loss, or unhappiness,
and so forth.

VIII. Conformity of men's practice to this theory. Nor is this a novel and unwarranted, any more
than it is a useless theory. In all this there is nothing but what the practice of mankind,
whosesoever they have a clear view of their own interest, is perfectly conformable too. An article
of property an estate in land, for instance, is valuable, on what account? On account of the
pleasures of all kinds which it enables a man to produce, and what comes to the same thing the
pains of all kinds which it enables him to avert. But the value of such an article of property is
universally understood to rise or fall according to the length or shortness of the time which a
man has in it: the certainty or uncertainty of its coming into possession: and the nearness or
remoteness of the time a which, if at all, it is to come into possession. As to the intensity of the
pleasure which a man may derive from it, this is never thought of, because it depends upon the
use which each particular person may come to make of it; which cannot be estimated till the
particular pleasures he may come to derive from it, or the particular pains he may come to
exclude by means of it, are brought to view. For the same reason, neither does he think of the
fecundity or purity of those pleasures.

Thus much for pleasure and pain, happiness and unhappiness, in general.

John Stuart Mill was born in London in 1806. His father, James Mill, historian of India and
radical writer for the utilitarian cause, supervised his rigorous education from the age of three
onwards. In 1823 he followed his father into the East India Office, starting as a clerk and
eventually becoming Chief Examiner in 1856.

Mill became the editor of the London and Westminster Review in 1836; his first book, the System
of Logic appeared in 1843; the Principles of Political Economy in 1848; On Liberty in
1859; Utilitarianism and Consideration on Representative Government in 1861; The Subjection
of Women in 1869.

In 1851, Mill married Mrs Harriet Taylor; he retired from the East India Office having opposed
to its dissolution in 1858. His wife died the same year and thereafter he lived in Avignon and in
London. He was Member of the Parliament for Westminster from 1865 to 1868. He died in
Avignon in 1873 and was buried alongside his wife.
(…)

Mill's education is often described as one of narrow utilitarian nature, and he himself compares it
to a "course in Benthamism" in the sense that "the greatest happiness" was always his father's
guiding light.
(…)
He found the searching scrutiny to which Socrates subjected his companions to be an invaluable
lesson in precise thinking. Furthermore, the content of the Platonic and the Aristotelian works
which Mill read would have introduced him to a view of happiness more in keeping with his
father's high moral tone than one reducible to bentham's more egalitarian view of pleasures.
(…)
Mill's mental crisis in 1826 began the period of transition in which he was open to new ideas and
in which he became somewhat disillusioned with his utilitarian inheritance. (…) From
Wordsworth and poetry he saw that emotion and intellect need not be at odds: truth is the aim of
both. The view of happiness rationally sought by the philosopher needed to complement the view
of happiness in inward joy and tranquil contemplation expressed by the poet. From the Saint-
Simonians he saw that his own uncertainties were a reflection of the critical and transitional
nature of the times where disharmony had replaced the previous order of an organic past. From
Coleridge he learnt the importance of a literary culture which needed to develop alongside the
march to political democracy, to ensure the quality of life and the enlightenment of popular
opinion.
(…)

The cause to which Mill had committed so much energy and enthusiasm as a young man was not
one which he felt able to give up altogether. Instead, it continued to act as a framework into
which he incorporated new elements. Indeed, his formal definition of utility is orthodox
Benthamism in its account of happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain; the difference lies in
his further elaboration. Mill seeks to accomplish two things, both the defence of utilitarianism as
properly defined and the criticism of utilitarianism as a popularly defined.
(…)

The idea that the general happiness is the ultimate end of action Mill thinks is something that all
rational and impartial people would agree to. All things of value are seen to be so either as means
to or as part of happiness; there can not be no proof beyond this appeal to the psychological
constitution of human nature. Thus virtue, which Mill sees as the chief good is valued as a means
to the ultimate end but also, through association, comes to be desired for its own sake. (…)
Justice is used in a number of instances, with reference to legal rights, moral rights, the idea of
desert, of not breaking faith, of impartiality, of equality, but seems to have no common attribute.
In each case it seems to justify punishment for the breach of a duty but this is true of other moral
actions generally. What characterises justice is that it concerns those duties which give rise to a
correlative right in some other person or persons; other moral obligations do not. When Mill
talks of rights he means that individuals have a valid claim that society should protect them
against any violation, and this is because justice concerns the most vital and basic social utilities
essential for human wellbeing. (…) Liberty, he claims, because of its association with the rules
of justice, cannot be overridden by other less basic utilitarian considerations. If justice stands at
the heart of utilitarianism, one of the rights it guarantees, the right to liberty is similarly
central. (Joseph Malaby Dent (1849-1926) in Utilitarianism, On Liberty, Considerations on
Representative Government)

Abstracts of Mill's Utilitarianism:

Chapter I

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, of the Greatest Happiness
Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as
they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the
absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the
moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular what things it
includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is left an open question. But
these supplementary explainations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality
is grounded – namely that desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as
numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent
in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.

Chapter IV

Virtue, according to the utilitarian conception, is a good of its description. There was no original
desire of it, or motive to it, save its conduciveness to pleasure, and especially to protection from
pain. But through the association thus formed, it may be felt a good in itself, and desired as such
with as great intensity as any other good, and with this difference between it and the love of
money, of power, or of fame, that all of these may, and often do, render the individual noxious to
the other members of the society he belongs, whereas there is nothing which makes him so much
a blessing to them as the cultivation of the disinterested, love of virtue. And consequently, the
utilitarian standard, while it tolerates and approves those other acquire desires, up to the point
beyond which they would be more injurious to the general happiness than promotive of it,
enjoins and requires the cultivation of the love of virtue up to the greatest strength possible, as
being above all things important to the general happiness.
(…)
Those who desire virtue for its own sake, desire it either because the consciousness of it is a
pleasure, or because the consciousness of being without is a pain, or for both reasons united; as
in truth pleasure and pain seldom exist separately, but almost always together, the same person
feeling pleasure in the degree of virtue attained, and pain is not having attained more. If one of
these gave him no pleasure, and the other no pain, he would not love or desire virtue, or would
desire it only for the benefits which it might produce to himself or to persons who are cared for.
(…)
How can the will to be virtuous, where it does not exist in sufficient force, be implanted or
awakened? Only by making the person desire virtue – by making him think of it in a pleasurable
light, or of its absence in a painful one. It is by associating the doing right with pleasure, or the
doing wrong with pain, or by eliciting and impressing and bringing home to the person's
experience the pleasure naturally involved in the one or the pain in the other, that is possible to
call forth that will to be virtuous, which, when confirmed, acts without any thought of either
pleasure or pain. (…) Both in feeling and in conduct, habits is the only thing which imparts
certainty; and it is because of the importance to others of being able to really absolutely on one's
feelings and conduct, and to oneself of being able to rely on one's own, that will to do right ought
to be cultivated into this habitual independence. In other words, this state of the will is a means
to good, not intrinsically a good; and does not contradict the doctrine that nothing is a good to
human beings but in so far as it is either itself pleasurable, or means of attaining pleasure or
averting pain.
But if this doctrine be true, the principle of utility is proved. Whether it is so or not, must now be
left to the consideration of the thoughtful reader.
(…)

Chapter V

The equal claim of everybody to happiness in the estimation of the moralist and the legislator,
involves an equal claim to all the means of happiness, except in so far as the inevitable
conditions of human life, and the general interest, in which that of every individual is included,
set limits to the maxim; and those limits ought to be strictly construed. As every other maxim of
justice, so this, is by no mean applied or help applicable universally (…) The entire history of
social improvement has been a series of transitions, by which one custom or institution after
another, from being a supposed primary necessity of social existence, has passed into the rank of
an universally stigmatizes injustice and tyranny.
Henry Sidgwick was a british philosopher and a politician. These two qualifications are among
many others, as he was quiet multidisciplinary. In fact he was also a poet, a sociologist and was
interested in psychology, he was one of the founders of the Society for Psychical research,
society of which he was the first president and was with his wife, Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick,
very active in the realisation of numerous projects for the society.
Henry Sidgwick lived all his life during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) as he born on
May 31, 1838, at Skipton, Yorkshire, and died on August 28, 1900. It is possible to say that he
was a " typical " representative of his time, even d'avant garde, he was a modernist as well as a
traditionalist, he could understand that the second half of the 19th century was a turning point in
the world's evolution and that the one who had the greatest power at this time, the United
Kingdom, would, in the future, submit to a Nation that was one of there colonies once before. He
also imaginated in " The Elements of Politics " (1891), the creation of a Union of the Western
European Countries, Union that would act as an arbitrator between the coutries of Western
Europe.

In October 1855, Sidgwick started living in Cambridge University where he lived untill his death
in 1900. He was a brilliant student and an active one, he was admitted to the very closed circle of
the Cambridge Apostles. He took his degree in 1859 and was, the same year, elected to a
Fellowship at the Trinity College Cambridge and appointed Assistant Tutor. In 1869 he resigned
this Fellowship, as he was not anymore conviced of his religious belief and could not honnestly
submit the 39 articles of the Church of England. As long as this law existed, he was appointed to
an other position wich didn't require such an agreement. In 1885, when this law was abrogated,
Henry Sidgwick took his Fellowship back. In 1883 he was elected Knightbridge Professor of
Moral Philosophy.

Henry Sidgwick always worked at the Trinity College of Cambridge where he taught Human
Science, Moral Philosophy and Political Science. He was offered to teach at Harvad University
and refused as he wasn't interested. He was very found of Cambridge not only because he lived,
studied and taught there, but also because he was very active in reforming Trinity College.
One of his reformes is the opening, in 1871 of the Newnham College, offering higher education
for women (one of the first University for women). When the Newnham College opened in 1875,
Mrs Clough became its first principal

In 1882 he founded with Edmund Gurney (1847-1888) English Psychologist and Fellow at
Cambridge, Frederic William Henry Myers (1843-1901) English Poet and Essayist, classical
lecturer at Trinity College, William Flatcher Barrett (1844-1925) English Physicist and Professor
of Physics at Dublin University and Edmund Dawson Rogers (1823-1910) English Journalist and
Spiritualist, the Society for Psychical Researchone of the first association for learning "more
about events and abilities commonly described as "psychic" "paranormal" by supporting
research, sharing information and encouraging debate" and "to examine paranormal phenomena
in a scientific and unbiased way".

"Henry Sidgwick's book, Methods of Ethics, was published in 1874, a year after the death of
John Stuart Mill. This book represents the deepest and most systematic effort to analyze the
difficulties of Mill's philosophy and to surmount them to reach a satisfying philosophical version
of classic utilitarianism. This book had a great influence in the 19th century and until now,
specially on John Rawls' conceptions of justice as equity (or fairness) of moral intuition and the
method of the balance, which are very close to Sidgwick's conceptions. We owe him several
anticipations about contemporary moral philosophy, such as, among others, the difference
between "average" utility and total (complete) utility, the notion of optimal popularization, of the
importance of these rules and the problems of the collective action. Less innovative and eloquent
than Mill, but with a deeper and more rigorous, he managed to emancipate ethics of psychology
and made an independent discipline. (…) His greatest merit was, doubtless, to see that the crucial
and unsolved problem of utilitarianism was sitting in moral obligation, the duty of scarifying
one's personal happiness to that of the largest number. There was in Bentham as well as in Mill
an unsolved dilemma between what Sidgwick called "universalistic hedonism" which led
sacrifice one's happiness for the wellbeing of the group, and "psychological hedonism" or
selfishness which urged anyone to only search for his own happiness. Both are made compatible
by the "sanctions" of consciousness, of the society, etc., by the habits of education, but neither
Bentham nor Mill explained why the result of this would be an obligation which would bind all
rational beings. It is not so much the weakness of its epistemologist basis and the value of the
"proof", that he could set against intuitionism which worried Sidgwick in utilitarianism that the
logical impossibility to deduct the individual search for happiness from the necessity of
maximizing general happiness, to the point that one had to sacrifice his own happiness. Is it thus
a rational attitude? - wondered Sidgwick. (…)The question which worried Sidgwick and which
he anticipated on 20th century moral philosophy was the question about the justification of the
obligation, and not that of the origin of the moral sentiments and he strongly distinguished the
Ethics (…) from psychology. His ambition was about a true ethical philosophy in which the first
principles of would be "axioms" based on rigorous criteria." (see: C. Audard: Anthologie
historique et critique de l'utilitarisme, t.2)

Abstracts of Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics:

Book IV - Chapter I

By Utilitarianism is here meant the ethical theory, that the conduct which, under any given
circumstances, is objectively right, is that which will produce the greatest amount of happiness
on the whole; that is, taking into account all whose happiness is affectd by the conduct. It would
tend to clearness if we might call this principle, and the method based upon it, by some such
name as "Universalistic Hedonism": and I have therefore sometimes ventured to use this term, in
spite of its cumbrousness.
(…)
Assuming, then, that the average happiness of human beings is a positive quantity, it seems clear
that, supposing the average happiness enjoyed remains undiminished, Utilitarianism directs us
to make the umber enjoying it as great as possible. But if we foresee as possible that an increase
in numbers will be accompanied by a decrease in average happiness or vice versa, a point arises
which has not only never been formally noticed but which seems to have been substantially
overlooked by many Utilitarians. For if we take Utilitarianism to prescribe, as the ultimate end
of action, happiness on the whole, and not any individual's happiness, unless considered as an
element of the whole, it would follow that, if the additional population enjoy on the whole
positive happiness, we ought to weight the amount of happiness gained by the extra number
against the amount of happiness lost by the remainder. So that, strictly conceived, the point up to
which, on Utilitarian principles, population ought to be encouraged to increase, is not that at
which average happiness is the greatest possible (…) but that at which the product formed by
multiplying the number of persons living into the amount of average happiness reaches its
maximum.
(…)
Utilitarian formula seem to supply no answer to this question: at least we have to supplement the
principle of seeking the greatest happiness on the whole by some principle of Just or Right
distribution of this happiness. The principle which most Utilitarians have either tacitly or
expressly adopted is that of pure equality – as given in Bentham's formula, "everybody to count
for one, and nobody for more than one." And this principle seems the only one which does not
need a special justification; for as we saw, it must be reasonable to treat any one man in the
same way than any other, if there be no reason apparent fro treating him differently.
(…)

Book IV - Chapter III

If we consider the relation of Ethics to Politics from a Utilitarian point of view, the question,
what rules of conduct for the governed should be fixed by legislators and applied by judges, will
be determined by the same kind of forecast of consequences as will be used in setting all
questions of private morality: we shall endeavour to estimate and balance against each other the
effects of such rules on the general happiness. In so far, however, as we divide the Utilitarian
theory of private conduct from that of legislation, and ask which is prior, the answer would seem
to be different in respect of different parts of the legal code.
(…)

Book I - Chapter IV

The question whether all desire has in some degree the quality of pain, is one of psychological
rather than ethical interest; so long as it is admitted that it is often not painful in any degree
comparable to its intensity as desire, so that its volitional impulse cannot be explained as a case
of aversion to its own painfulness. (…) the conscious active impulses are so far from being
always directed towards the attainment of pleasure or avoidance of pain for ourselves, that we
can find everywhere in consciousness extra-regarding impulses, directed towards something that
is not pleasure, nor relief from pain; and, indeed, a most important part of our pleasure depends
upon the existence of such impulses: while on the other hand they are in many cases so far
incompatible with the desire with our own pleasure that the two kinds of impulse do not easily
coexist in the same moment of consciousness ; and more occasionally (but by no means
really)the two come into irreconcilable conflict, and prompt to opposite courses of action. And
this incompatibility (though it is important to notice it in other instances) is no doubt specially
prominent in the case of the impulse towards the end which most markedly competes in ethical
controversy with pleasure: the love of virtue for its own sake, or desire to do what is right as
such.

Introduction

You have probably heard a politician say he or she passed a piece of legislation because it did the
greatest good for the greatest number of citizens. Perhaps you have heard someone justify their
actions because it was for the greater good.

In this article, we are going to talk about the philosophy behind such actions. The philosophy is
known as utilitarianism. Although it is a long word, it is in common usage every day. It is the
belief that the sole standard of morality is determined by its usefulness.

Philosophers refer to it as a “teleological” system. The Greek word “telos” means end or goal.
This means that this ethical system determines morality by the end result. Whereas Christian
ethics are based on rules, utilitarianism is based on results.

Utilitarianism began with the philosophies of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873). Utilitarianism gets its name from Bentham’s test question, “What is the use of it?”
He conceived of the idea when he ran across the words “the greatest happiness of the greatest
number” in Joseph Priestly’s Treatise of Government.

Jeremy Bentham developed his ethical system around the idea of pleasure. He built it on ancient
hedonism which pursued physical pleasure and avoided physical pain. According to Bentham,
the most moral acts are those which maximize pleasure and minimize pain. This has sometimes
been called the “utilitarian calculus.” An act would be moral if it brings the greatest amount of
pleasure and the least amount of pain.

John Stuart Mill modified this philosophy and developed it apart from Bentham’s hedonistic
foundation. Mill used the same utilitarian calculus but instead focused on maximizing the general
happiness by calculating the greatest good for the greatest number. While Bentham used the
calculus in a quantitative sense, Mill used this calculus in a qualitative sense. He believed, for
example, that some pleasures were of higher quality than others.

Utilitarianism has been embraced by so many simply because it seems to make a good deal of
sense and seems relatively simple to apply. However, when it was first proposed, utilitarianism
was a radical philosophy. It attempted to set forth a moral system apart from divine revelation
and biblical morality. Utilitarianism focused on results rather than rules. Ultimately the focus on
the results demolished the rules.

In other words, utilitarianism provided for a way for people to live moral lives apart from the
Bible and its prescriptions. There was no need for an appeal to divine revelation. Reason rather
than revelation was sufficient to determine morality.
Founders of Utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham was a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law and one of the
founders of utilitarianism. He developed this idea of a utility and a utilitarian calculus in
the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1781).

In the beginning of that work Bentham wrote: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance
of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to
do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong,
on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we
do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve
but to demonstrate and confirm it.”{1}

Bentham believed that pain and pleasure not only explain our actions but also help us define
what is good and moral. He believed that this foundation could provide a basis for social, legal,
and moral reform in society.

Key to his ethical system is the principle of utility. That is, what is the greatest good for the
greatest number?

Bentham wrote: “By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or
disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to
augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same
thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness.” {2}

John Stuart Mill was a brilliant scholar who was subjected to a rigid system of intellectual
discipline and shielded from boys his own age. When Mill was a teenager, he read Bentham.
Mill said the feeling rushed upon him “that all previous moralists were superseded.” He believed
that the principle of utility “gave unity to my conception of things. I now had opinions: a creed, a
doctrine, a philosophy; in one among the best senses of the word, a religion; the inculcation and
diffusion of what could be made the principle outward purpose of a life.”{3}

Mill modified Bentham’s utilitarianism. Whereas Bentham established an act utilitarianism, Mill
established a ruleutilitarianism. According to Mill, one calculates what is right by comparing the
consequences of all relevant agents of alternative rules for a particular circumstance. This is done
by comparing all relevant similar circumstances or settings at any time.

Analysis of Utilitarianism

Why did utilitarianism become popular? There are a number of reasons for its appeal.

First, it is a relatively simple ethical system to apply. To determine whether an action is moral
you merely have to calculate the good and bad consequences that will result from a particular
action. If the good outweighs the bad, then the action is moral.

Second, utilitarianism avoids the need to appeal to divine revelation. Many adherents to this
ethical system are looking for a way to live a moral life apart from the Bible and a belief in God.
The system replaces revelation with reason. Logic rather than an adherence to biblical principles
guides the ethical decision-making of a utilitarian.

Third, most people already use a form of utilitarianism in their daily decisions. We make lots of
non-moral decisions every day based upon consequences. At the checkout line, we try to find the
shortest line so we can get out the door more quickly. We make most of our financial decisions
(writing checks, buying merchandise, etc.) on a utilitarian calculus of cost and benefits. So
making moral decisions using utilitarianism seems like a natural extension of our daily decision-
making procedures.

There are also a number of problems with utilitarianism. One problem with utilitarianism is that
it leads to an “end justifies the means” mentality. If any worthwhile end can justify the means to
attain it, a true ethical foundation is lost. But we all know that the end does not justify the means.
If that were so, then Hitler could justify the Holocaust because the end was to purify the human
race. Stalin could justify his slaughter of millions because he was trying to achieve a communist
utopia.
The end never justifies the means. The means must justify themselves. A particular act cannot be
judged as good simply because it may lead to a good consequence. The means must be judged by
some objective and consistent standard of morality.

Second, utilitarianism cannot protect the rights of minorities if the goal is the greatest good for
the greatest number. Americans in the eighteenth century could justify slavery on the basis that it
provided a good consequence for a majority of Americans. Certainly the majority benefited from
cheap slave labor even though the lives of black slaves were much worse.

A third problem with utilitarianism is predicting the consequences. If morality is based on

results, then we would have to have omniscience in order to accurately predict the consequence
of any action. But at best we can only guess at the future, and often these educated guesses are
wrong.

A fourth problem with utilitarianism is that consequences themselves must be judged. When
results occur, we must still ask whether they are good or bad results. Utilitarianism provides no
objective and consistent foundation to judge results because results are the mechanism used to
judge the action itself.

Situation Ethics

A popular form of utilitarianism is situation ethics first proposed by Joseph Fletcher in his book
by the same name.{4}Fletcher acknowledges that situation ethics is essentially utilitarianism, but
modifies the pleasure principle and calls it the agape (love) principle.

Fletcher developed his ethical system as an alternative to two extremes: legalism and
antinomianism. The legalist is like the Pharisees in the time of Jesus who had all sorts of laws
and regulations but no heart. They emphasized the law over love. Antinomians are like the
libertines in Paul’s day who promoted their lawlessness.

The foundation of situation ethics is what Fletcher calls the law of love. Love replaces the law.
Fletcher says, “We follow law, if at all, for love’s sake.”{5}

Fletcher even quotes certain biblical passages to make his case. For example, he quotes Romans
13:8 which says, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one
another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law.”

Another passage Fletcher quotes is Matthew 22:37-40. “Christ said, Love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. . . . Love your neighbor as
yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Proponents of situation ethics would argue that these summary verses require only one absolute
(the law of love). No other universal laws can be derived from this commandment to love. Even
the Ten Commandments are subject to exceptions based upon the law of love.

Situation ethics also accepts the view that the end justifies the means. Only the ends can justify
the means; the means cannot justify themselves. Fletcher believes that “no act apart from its
foreseeable consequences has any ethical meaning whatsoever.”{6}

Joseph Fletcher tells the story of Lenin who had become weary of being told that he had no
ethics. After all, he used a very pragmatic and utilitarian philosophy to force communism on the
people. So some of those around him accused him of believing that the end justifies the means.
Finally, Lenin shot back, “If the end does not justify the means, then in the name of sanity and
justice, what does?”{7}

Like utilitarianism, situation ethics attempts to define morality with an “end justifies the means”
philosophy. According to Fletcher, the law of love requires the greatest love for the greatest
number of people in the long run. But as we will see in the next section, we do not always know
how to define love, and we do not always know what will happen in the long run.

Analysis of Situation Ethics

Perhaps the biggest problem with situation ethics is that the law of love is too general. People are
going to have different definitions of what love is. What some may believe is a loving act, others
might feel is an unloving act.

Moreover, the context of love varies from situation to situation and certainly varies from culture
to culture. So it is even difficult to derive moral principles that can be known and applied
universally. In other words, it is impossible to say that to follow the law of love is to do such and
such in every circumstance. Situations and circumstances change, and so the moral response may
change as well.

The admonition to do the loving thing is even less specific than to do what is the greatest good
for the greatest number. It has about as much moral force as to say to do the “good thing” or the
“right thing.” Without a specific definition, it is nothing more than a moral platitude.

Second, situation ethics suffers from the same problem of utilitarianism in predicting
consequences. In order to judge the morality of an action, we have to know the results of the
action we are about to take. Often we cannot know the consequences.

Joseph Fletcher acknowledges that when he says, “We can’t always guess the future, even
though we are always being forced to try.”{8} But according to his ethical system, we have
to know the results in order to make a moral choice. In fact, we should be relatively certain of the
consequences, otherwise our action would by definition be immoral.

Situation ethics also assumes that the situation will determine the meaning of love. Yet love is
not determined by the particulars of our circumstance but merely conditioned by them. The
situation does not determine what is right or wrong. The situation instead helps us determine
which biblical command applies in that particular situation.

From the biblical perspective, the problem with utilitarianism and situation ethics is that they
ultimately provide no consistent moral framework. Situation ethics also permits us to do evil to
achieve good. This is totally contrary to the Bible.

For example, Proverbs 14:12 says that “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is
the way of death.” The road to destruction is paved with good intentions. This is a fundamental
flaw with an “ends justifies the means” ethical system.

In Romans 6:1 Paul asks, “Are we to continue sinning so that grace may increase?” His response
is “May it never be!”

Utilitarianism attempts to provide a moral system apart from God’s revelation in the Bible, but in
the end, it does not succeed.

Introduction Back to Top

Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its
contribution to overall utility in maximizing happiness or pleasure as summed
among all people. It is, then, the total utility of individuals which is important here,
the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Utility, after which the
doctrine is named, is a measure in economics of the relative satisfaction from,
or desirability of, the consumption of goods. Utilitarianism can thus be described as
a quantitativeand reductionistic approach to Ethics.

Utilitarianism starts from the basis that pleasure and happiness are intrinsically
valuable, that pain and suffering are intrinsically disvaluable, and that anything else
has value only in its causing happiness or preventing suffering (i.e. "instrumental", or
as means to an end). This focus on happiness or pleasure as the ultimate end of moral
decisions, makes it a type of Hedonism (and it is sometimes known as Hedonistic
Utilitarianism).

Utilitarians support equality by the equal consideration of interests, and they reject
any arbitrary distinctions as to who is worthy of concern and who is not, and
any discrimination between individuals. However, it does accept the idea of declining
marginal utility, which recognizes that the same thing furthers the interests of a well-
off individual to a lesser degree than it would the interests of a less well-off individual.

It is a form of Consequentialism (in that the moral worth of an action is determined by

its outcome or consequence - the ends justify the means), as opposed
to Deontology (which disregards the consequences of performing an act, when
determining its moral worth), and to Virtue Ethics (which focuses on character, rather
than rules or consequences).

History of Utilitarianism Back to Top

The origins of Utilitarianism are often traced back to the Epicureanism of the followers
of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. It can be argued that David Hume and Edmund
Burke were proto-Utilitarians.

But as a specific school of thought, it is generally credited to the English

philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Bentham found pain and pleasure to be the
only intrinsic values in the world, and this he derived the rule of utility: that the good
is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of
people. Bentham himself, however, attributed the origins of the theory to Joseph
Priestley (1733 - 1804), the English scientist, theologian and founder
of Unitarianism in England.

Bentham's foremost proponent was James Mill (1773 - 1836) and his son John Stuart
Mill, who was educated from a young age according to Bentham's principles. In his
famous 1861 short work, "Utilitarianism", John Stuart Mill both named the movement
and refined Bentham's original principles. Mill argued
that cultural, intellectual and spiritual pleasures are of greater value than
mere physical pleasure as valued by a competent judge (which, according to Mill, is
anyone who has experienced both the lower pleasures and the higher).

In his essay "On Liberty" and other works, Mill argued that Utilitarianism requires that
any political arrangements satisfy the liberty principle (or harm principle), according
to which the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member
of a civilized community against his will, is to prevent harm to others, a cornerstone of
the principles of Liberalism and Libertarianism. Some Marxist philosophers have also
used these principles as arguments for Socialism.

The classic Utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill influenced many other moral philosophers
and the development of many different types of Consequentialism.

Criticisms of Utilitarianism Back to Top

It has been argued that measuring and comparing happiness among different people
is impossible, not only in practice, but even in principle. Defenders argue that the same
problem is sucessfully overcome in everyday life, and that rough estimates are usually
sufficient.
Another dilemma of Utilitarianism is that the pleasure of a sadist should have the same
importance as the pleasure of an altruist, although proponents have countered that
sadists are relatively few and so their effective influence would be minimal, and that
the hurt suffered by others would counterbalance any pleasure registered by the sadist.
Furthermore, the sadist's pleasure is superficial and temporary, thus it is detrimental to
the sadist's long term well-being.

Another argument is that sometimes a long time is needed to weigh all

the evidence and reach a definite conclusion on the relative costs and benefits of an
action. Utilitarians admit that certain knowledge of consequences is sometimes
impossible, but argue that best estimates of the consequences or predictions based
on the past are usually sufficient.

A very specific argument against Utilitarianism has been put forward on the grounds
that Determinism is either true or false: if it is true, then we have no real choice over
our actions; if it is false, then the consequences of our actions are unpredictable, not
least because they will depend on the actions of others whom we cannot predict.

Utilitarianism has been criticized for only looking at the results of actions, not at
the desires or intentions which motivate them, which many people also consider
important. Thus, an action intended to cause harm but that inadvertently causes good
results would be judged equal to the result from an action done with good intentions.

Utilitarians may argue that justification of slavery, torture or mass murder would
require unrealistically large benefits to outweigh the direct and extreme suffering to
the victims, as well as taking into consideration of the indirect impact of social
acceptance of inhumane policies (e.g. general anxiety and fear might increase for all if
human rights are commonly ignored).

Other critics have made objections to the following: the right and wrong
dichotomy implicit in Utilitarianism, whereby a "good"act (e.g. a charitable donation)
may be branded as a wrong action (e.g. if there is an alternative donation to a more
efficient charity); Utilitarianism does not take account of the fact that human nature
is dynamic and changing, so the concept of a single utility for all humans is one-
dimensional and not useful; Utilitarians have no ultimate justification for primarily
valuing pleasure, other than the tautological on that "this is the way it should be".

Some Consequentialists consider that, although happiness an important consequence,

other consequences such as justice or equality should also be valued and taken into
consideration, regardless of whether they increase happiness or not.

Types of Utilitarianism Back to Top

 Act Utilitarianism (or Case Utilitarianism) states that, when faced with a
choice, we must first consider the likely consequences of potential actions in
that particular case and, from that, choose to do what we believe will generate
the most overall happiness. Act Utilitarians may follow certain rules of
thumb (heuristics) to save time or cost although, if the consequences can be
calculated relatively clearly, exactly and easily, then such rules of thumb can
be ignored, and the choice treated on a case by case basis.
 Rule Utilitarianism states that, when faced with a choice, we must look
at potential rules of action to determine whether the generalized rule produces
more happiness than otherwise, if it were to be constantly followed. Thus, an
action should only be carried out if it follows a rule that morally should be
followed at all times. Rule Utilitarians may agree that there are some general
exception rules that allow the breaking of other rules if this increases
happiness (e.g. the exception of self-defence to overcome the general rule never
to kill a human), although critics argue that this logically just reduces to Act
Utilitarianism.
 Two-Level Utilitarianism states that normally we should use "intuitive" moral
thinking, in the form of Rule Utilitarianism, because it usually maximizes
 happiness. However, there are some times when we must ascend to a
higher "critical"level of reflection in order to decide what to do, and must think
as an Act Utilitarian would. This method is based on the view that, although Act
Utilitarianism may be preferable in theory, usually it is too difficult to perfectly
predictconsequences, and so we require moral guidelines or rules in day to
day life.
 Motive Utilitarianism states that our initial moral task is to inculcate
motives within ourselves (by means of teaching and repetition) that will be
generally useful across the spectrum of the actual situations we are likely to
encounter, rather than hypothetical examples which are unlikely to occur. It can
be thought of as a hybrid between Act and Rule Utilitarianism, but it also
attempts to take into account how human beings actually
function psychologically.
 Total Utilitarianism advocates measuring the utility of a population based on
the total utility of its members. However, it has been argued that this leads to
a "repugnant conclusion", in which an enormous population whose individual
lives are barely worth living is considered preferable to a smaller population with
good lives.
 Average Utilitarianism advocates measuring the utility of a population based on
the average utility of that population. The drawback here is known as the "mere
addition paradox", where bringing a moderately happy person in a very
happyworld would be seen as an immoral act, or the logical implication that it
would be a moral good to eliminate all people whose happiness is below
average, as this would raise the average happiness.
 Negative Utilitarianism requires us to promote the least amount of evil or
harm, or to prevent the greatest amount of suffering, for the greatest
number (as opposed to the general, or positive, Utilitiarian rule of the greatest
amount of goodfor the greatest number). The justification for Negative
Utilitarianism is that the greatest harms are more consequentialthan the
greatest goods, and so should have more influence on moral decision-making.
Critics have argued that the ultimate aim of Negative Utilitarianism would
therefore logically be to engender the quickest and least painful method of killing
the entirety of humanity, as this would effectively minimize suffering, although
more moderate proponents would obviously not propose that.
 Sentient Utilitarianism states that the well-being of all sentient beings (i.e.
conscious beings who feel pain, including therefore some non-human animals)
deserve equal consideration with that given to human beings, when making
moral decisions in a Utilitarian context.
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Act and Rule Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is one of the best known and most influential moral theories. Like other forms
of consequentialism, its core idea is that whether actions are morally right or wrong depends on
their effects. More specifically, the only effects of actions that are relevant are the good and bad
results that they produce. A key point in this article concerns the distinction between individual
actions and types of actions. Act utilitarians focus on the effects of individual actions (such as
John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of Abraham Lincoln) while rule utilitarians focus on the
effects of types of actions (such as killing or stealing).
Utilitarians believe that the purpose of morality is to make life better by increasing the amount of
good things (such as pleasure and happiness) in the world and decreasing the amount of bad
things (such as pain and unhappiness). They reject moral codes or systems that consist of
commands or taboos that are based on customs, traditions, or orders given by leaders or
supernatural beings. Instead, utilitarians think that what makes a morality be true or justifiable is
its positive contribution to human (and perhaps non-human) beings.

The most important classical utilitarians are Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart
Mill(1806-1873). Bentham and Mill were both important theorists and social reformers. Their
theory has had a major impact both on philosophical work in moral theory and on approaches to
economic, political, and social policy. Although utilitarianism has always had many
critics, there are many 21st century thinkers that support it.
The task of determining whether utilitarianism is the correct moral theory is complicated because
there are different versions of the theory, and its supporters disagree about which version is
correct. This article focuses on perhaps the most important dividing line among utilitarians, the
clash between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. After a brief overall explanation of
utilitarianism, the article explains both act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism, the main
differences between them, and some of the key arguments for and against each view.

Table of Contents
1. Utilitarianism: Overall View
a. What is Good?
b. Whose Well-being?
i. Individual Self-interest
ii. Groups
iii. Everyone Affected
c. Actual Consequences or Foreseeable Consequences?
2. How Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism Differ
3. Act Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons
. Arguments for Act Utilitarianism
. Why Act utilitarianism Maximizes Utility
i. Why Act Utilitarianism is Better than Traditional, Rule-based Moralities
ii. Why Act Utilitarianism Makes Moral Judgments Objectively True
a. Arguments against Act Utilitarianism
. The “Wrong Answers” Objection
i. The “Undermining Trust” Objection
ii. Partiality and the “Too Demanding” Objection
b. Possible Responses to Criticisms of Act Utilitarianism
4. Rule Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons
. Arguments for Rule Utilitarianism
. Why Rule Utilitarianism Maximizes Utility
i. Rule Utilitarianism Avoids the Criticisms of Act Utilitarianism
1. Judges, Doctors, and Promise-makers
2. Maintaining vs. Undermining Trust
3. Impartiality and the Problem of Over-Demandingness
a. Arguments against Rule Utilitarianism
. The “Rule Worship” Objection
i. The “Collapses into Act Utilitarianism” Objection
ii. Wrong Answers and Crude Concepts
5. Conclusion
6. References and Further Reading
. Classic Works
a. More Recent Utilitarians
b. Overviews
c. J. S. Mill and Utilitarian Moral Theory
d. Critics of Utilitarianism
e. Collections of Essays
1. Utilitarianism: Overall View
Utilitarianism is a philosophical view or theory about how we should evaluate a wide range of
things that involve choices that people face. Among the things that can be evaluated are actions,
laws, policies, character traits, and moral codes. Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism
because it rests on the idea that it is the consequences or results of actions, laws, policies, etc.
that determine whether they are good or bad, right or wrong. In general, whatever is being
evaluated, we ought to choose the one that will produce the best overall results. In the language
of utilitarians, we should choose the option that “maximizes utility,” i.e. that action or policy that
produces the largest amount of good.

Utilitarianism appears to be a simple theory because it consists of only one evaluative principle:
Do what produces the best consequences. In fact, however, the theory is complex because we
cannot understand that single principle unless we know (at least) three things: a) what things are
good and bad; b) whose good (i.e. which individuals or groups) we should aim to maximize; and
c) whether actions, policies, etc. are made right or wrong by their actual consequences (the
results that our actions actually produce) or by their foreseeable consequences (the results that
we predict will occur based on the evidence that we have).

a. What is Good?
Jeremy Bentham answered this question by adopting the view called hedonism. According to
hedonism, the only thing that is good in itself is pleasure (or happiness). Hedonists do not deny
that many different kinds of things can be good, including food, friends, freedom, and many
other things, but hedonists see these as “instrumental” goods that are valuable only because they
play a causal role in producing pleasure or happiness. Pleasure and happiness, however, are
“intrinsic” goods, meaning that they are good in themselves and not because they produce some
further valuable thing. Likewise, on the negative side, a lack of food, friends, or freedom is
instrumentally bad because it produces pain, suffering, and unhappiness; but pain, suffering and
unhappiness are intrinsically bad, i.e. bad in themselves and not because they produce some
further bad thing.
Many thinkers have rejected hedonism because pleasure and pain are sensations that we feel,
claiming that many important goods are not types of feelings. Being healthy or honest or having
knowledge, for example, are thought by some people to be intrinsic goods that are not types of
feelings. (People who think there are many such goods are called pluralists or“objective list”
theorists.) Other thinkers see desires or preferences as the basis of value; whatever a person
desires is valuable to that person. If desires conflict, then the things most strongly preferred are
identified as good.

In this article, the term “well-being” will generally be used to identify what utilitarians see as
good or valuable in itself. All utilitarians agree that things are valuable because they tend to
produce well-being or diminish ill-being, but this idea is understood differently by hedonists,
objective list theorists, and preference/desire theorists. This debate will not be further discussed
in this article.

b. Whose Well-being?
Utilitarian reasoning can be used for many different purposes. It can be used both for moral
reasoning and for any type of rational decision-making. In addition to applying in different
contexts, it can also be used for deliberations about the interests of different persons and groups.

i. Individual Self-interest
(See egoism.) When individuals are deciding what to do for themselves alone, they consider only
their own utility. For example, if you are choosing ice cream for yourself, the utilitarian view is
that you should choose the flavor that will give you the most pleasure. If you enjoy chocolate but
hate vanilla, you should choose chocolate for the pleasure it will bring and avoid vanilla because
it will bring displeasure. In addition, if you enjoy both chocolate and strawberry, you should
predict which flavor will bring you more pleasure and choose whichever one will do that.

In this case, because utilitarian reasoning is being applied to a decision about which action is best
for an individual person, it focuses only on how the various possible choices will affect this
single person’s interest and does not consider the interests of other people.
ii. Groups
People often need to judge what is best not only for themselves or other individuals but alsowhat
is best for groups, such as friends, families, religious groups, one’s country, etc. Because
Bentham and other utilitarians were interested in political groups and public policies, they often
focused on discovering which actions and policies would maximize the well-being of the
relevant group. Their method for determining the well-being of a group involved adding up the
benefits and losses that members of the group would experience as a result of adopting one
action or policy. The well-being of the group is simply the sum total of the interests of the all of
its members.

To illustrate this method, suppose that you are buying ice cream for a party that ten people will
attend. Your only flavor options are chocolate and vanilla, and some of the people attending like
chocolate while others like vanilla. As a utilitarian, you should choose the flavor that will result
in the most pleasure for the group as a whole. If seven like chocolate and three like vanilla and if
all of them get the same amount of pleasure from the flavor they like, then you should choose
chocolate. This will yield what Bentham, in a famous phrase, called “the greatest happiness for
the greatest number.”

An important point in this case is that you should choose chocolate even if you are one of the
three people who enjoy vanilla more than chocolate. The utilitarian method requires you to count
everyone’s interests equally. You may not weigh some people’s interests—including your own—
more heavily than others. Similarly, if a government is choosing a policy, it should give equal
consideration to the well-being of all members of the society.

iii. Everyone Affected

While there are circumstances in which the utilitarian analysis focuses on the interests of specific
individuals or groups, the utilitarian moral theory requires that moral judgments be based on
what Peter Singer calls the “equal consideration of interests.” Utilitarianism moral theory then,
includes the important idea that when we calculate the utility of actions, laws, or policies, we
must do so from an impartial perspective and not from a “partialist” perspective that favors
ourselves, our friends, or others we especially care about. Bentham is often cited as the source of
a famous utilitarian axiom: “every man to count for one, nobody for more than one.”

If this impartial perspective is seen as necessary for a utilitarian morality, then both self-interest
and partiality to specific groups will be rejected as deviations from utilitarian morality. For
example, so-called “ethical egoism,” which says that morality requires people to promote their
own interest, would be rejected either as a false morality or as not a morality at all. While a
utilitarian method for determining what people’s interests are may show that it is rational for
people to maximize their own well-being or the well-being of groups that they favor, utilitarian
morality would reject this as a criterion for determining what is morally right or wrong.

c. Actual Consequences or Foreseeable Consequences?

Utilitarians disagree about whether judgments of right and wrong should be based on the actual
consequences of actions or their foreseeable consequences. This issue arises when the actual
effects of actions differ from what we expected. J. J. C. Smart (49) explains this difference by
imagining the action of a person who, in 1938,saves someone from drowning. While we
generally regard saving a drowning person as the right thing to do and praise people for such
actions, in Smart’s imagined example, the person saved from drowning turns out to be Adolph
Hitler. Had Hitler drowned, millions of other people might have been saved from suffering and
death between 1938 and 1945. If utilitarianism evaluates the rescuer’s action based on its actual
consequences, then the rescuer did the wrong thing. If, however, utilitarians judge the rescuer’s
action by its foreseeable consequences (i.e. the ones the rescuer could reasonably predict), then
the rescuer—who could not predict the negative effects of saving the person from drowning—
did the right thing.

One reason for adopting foreseeable consequence utilitarianism is that it seems unfair to say that
the rescuer acted wrongly because the rescuer could not foresee the future bad effects of saving
the drowning person. In response, actual consequence utilitarians reply that there is a difference
between evaluating an action and evaluating the person who did the action. In their view, while
the rescuer’s action was wrong, it would be a mistake to blame or criticize the rescuer because
the bad results of his act were unforeseeable. They stress the difference between evaluating
actions and evaluating the people who perform them.

Foreseeable consequence utilitarians accept the distinction between evaluating actions and
evaluating the people who carry them out, but they see no reason to make the moral rightness or
wrongness of actions depend on facts that might be unknowable. For them, what is right or
wrong for a person to do depends on what is knowable by a person at a time. For this reason,
they claim that the person who rescued Hitler did the right thing, even though the actual
consequences were unfortunate.

Another way to describe the actual vs. foreseeable consequence dispute is to contrast two
thoughts. One (the actual consequence view) says that to act rightly is to do whatever produces
the best consequences. The second view says that a person acts rightly by doing the action that
has the highest level of “expected utility.” The expected utility is a combination of the good (or
bad) effects that one predicts will result from an action and the probability of those effects
occurring. In the case of the rescuer, the expected positive utility is high because the probability
that saving a drowning person will lead to the deaths of millions of other people is extremely
low, and thus can be ignored in deliberations about whether to save the drowning person.

What this shows is that actual consequence and foreseeable consequence utilitarians have
different views about the nature of utilitarian theory. Foreseeable consequence utilitarians
understand the theory as a decision-making procedure while actual consequence utilitarians
understand it as a criterion of right and wrong. Foreseeable consequence utilitarians claim that
the action with the highest expected utility is both the best thing to do based on current evidence
and the right action. Actual consequence utilitarians might agree that the option with the highest
expected utility is the best thing to do but they claim that it could still turn out to be the wrong
action. This would occur if unforeseen bad consequences reveal that the option chosen did not
have the best results and thus was the wrong thing to do.

2. How Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism Differ

Both act utilitarians and rule utilitarians agree that our overall aim in evaluating actions should
be to create the best results possible, but they differ about how to do that.

Act utilitarians believe that whenever we are deciding what to do, we should perform the action
that will create the greatest net utility. In their view, the principle of utility—do whatever will
produce the best overall results—should be applied on a case by case basis. The right action in
any situation is the one that yields more utility (i.e. creates more well-being) than other available
actions.

Rule utilitarians adopt a two part view that stresses the importance of moral rules. According to
rule utilitarians, a) a specific action is morally justified if it conforms to a justified moral rule;
and b) a moral rule is justified if its inclusion into our moral code would create more utility than
other possible rules (or no rule at all). According to this perspective, we should judge the
morality of individual actions by reference to general moral rules, and we should judge particular
moral rules by seeing whether their acceptance into our moral code would produce more well-
being than other possible rules.

The key difference between act and rule utilitarianism is that act utilitarians apply the utilitarian
principle directly to the evaluation of individual actions while rule utilitarians apply the
utilitarian principle directly to the evaluation of rules and then evaluate individual actions by
seeing if they obey or disobey those rules whose acceptance will produce the most utility.

The contrast between act and rule utilitarianism, though previously noted by some philosophers,
was not sharply drawn until the late 1950s when Richard Brandt introduced this terminology.
(Other terms that have been used to make this contrast are “direct” and “extreme” for act
utilitarianism, and “indirect” and “restricted” for rule utilitarianism.) Because the contrast had
not been sharply drawn, earlier utilitarians like Bentham and Mill sometimes apply the principle
of utility to actions and sometimes apply it to the choice of rules for evaluating actions. This has
led to scholarly debates about whether the classical utilitarians supported act utilitarians or rule
utilitarians or some combination of these views. One indication that Mill accepted rule
utilitarianism is his claim that direct appeal to the principle of utility is made only when
“secondary principles” (i.e. rules) conflict with one another. In such cases, the “maximize utility”
principle is used to resolve the conflict and determine the right action to take.
[Mill, Utilitarianism, Chapter 2]

3. Act Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons

Act utilitarianism is often seen as the most natural interpretation of the utilitarian ideal. If our
aim is always to produce the best results, it seems plausible to think that in each case of deciding
what is the right thing to do, we should consider the available options (i.e. what actions could be
performed), predict their outcomes, and approve of the action that will produce the most good.

a. Arguments for Act Utilitarianism

i. Why Act utilitarianism Maximizes Utility
If every action that we carry out yields more utility than any other action available to us, then the
total utility of all our actions will be the highest possible level of utility that we could bring
about. In other words, we can maximize the overall utility that is within our power to bring about
by maximizing the utility of each individual action that we perform. If we sometimes choose
actions that produce less utility than is possible, the total utility of our actions will be less than
the amount of goodness that we could have produced. For that reason, act utilitarians argue, we
should apply the utilitarian principle to individual acts and not to classes of similar actions.

ii. Why Act Utilitarianism is Better than Traditional, Rule-based Moralities

Traditional moral codes often consist of sets of rules regarding types of actions. The Ten
Commandments, for example, focus on types of actions, telling us not to kill, steal, bear false
witness, commit adultery, or covet the things that belong to others. Although the Biblical sources
permit exceptions to these rules (such as killing in self-defense and punishing people for their
sins), the form of the commandments is absolute. They tell us “thou shalt not do x” rather than
saying “thou shalt not do x except in circumstances a, b, or c.”

In fact, both customary and philosophical moral codes often seem to consist of absolute rules.
The philosopher Immanuel Kant is famous for the view that lying is always wrong, even in cases
where one might save a life by lying. According to Kant, if A is trying to murder B and A asks
you where B is, it would be wrong for you to lie to A, even if lying would save B’s life (Kant).
Act utilitarians reject rigid rule-based moralities that identify whole classes of actions as right or
wrong. They argue that it is a mistake to treat whole classes of actions as right or wrong because
the effects of actions differ when they are done in different contexts and morality must focus on
the likely effects of individual actions. It is these effects that determine whether they are right or
wrong in specific cases. Act utilitarians acknowledge that it may be useful to have moral rules
that are “rules of thumb”—i.e., rules that describe what is generally right or wrong, but they
insist that whenever people can do more good by violating a rule rather than obeying it, they
should violate the rule. They see no reason to obey a rule when more well-being can be achieved
by violating it.

iii. Why Act Utilitarianism Makes Moral Judgments Objectively True

One advantage of act utilitarianism is that it shows how moral questions can have objectively
true answers. Often, people believe that morality is subjective and depends only on people’s
desires or sincere beliefs. Act utilitarianism, however, provides a method for showing which
moral beliefs are true and which are false.

Once we embrace the act utilitarian perspective, then every decision about how we should act
will depend on the actual or foreseeable consequences of the available options. If we can predict
the amount of utility/good results that will be produced by various possible actions, then we can
know which ones are right or wrong.

Although some people doubt that we can measure amounts of well-being, we in fact do this all
the time. If two people are suffering and we have enough medication for only one, we can often
tell that one person is experiencing mild discomfort while the other is in severe pain. Based on
this judgment, we will be confident that we can do more good by giving the medication to the
person suffering extreme pain. Although this case is very simple, it shows that we can have
objectively true answers to questions about what actions are morally right or wrong.

Jeremy Bentham provided a model for this type of decision making in his description of a
“hedonic calculus,” which was meant to show what factors should be used to determine amounts
of pleasure and happiness, pain and suffering. Using this information, Bentham thought, would
allow for making correct judgments both in individual cases and in choices about government
actions and policies.

b. Arguments against Act Utilitarianism

i. The “Wrong Answers” Objection
The most common argument against act utilitarianism is that it gives the wrong answers to moral
questions. Critics say that it permits various actions that everyone knows are morally wrong. The
following cases are among the commonly cited examples:

 If a judge can prevent riots that will cause many deaths only by convicting an innocent person of
a crime and imposing a severe punishment on that person, act utilitarianism implies that the judge
should convict and punish the innocent person. (See Rawls and also Punishment.)
 If a doctor can save five people from death by killing one healthy person and using that person’s
organs for life-saving transplants, then act utilitarianism implies that the doctor should kill the
one person to save five.
 If a person makes a promise but breaking the promise will allow that person to perform an action
that creates just slightly more well-being than keeping the promise will, then act utilitarianism
implies that the promise should be broken. (See Ross)
The general form of each of these arguments is the same. In each case, act utilitarianism implies
that a certain act is morally permissible or required. Yet, each of the judgments that flow from
act utilitarianism conflicts with widespread, deeply held moral beliefs. Because act utilitarianism
approves of actions that most people see as obviously morally wrong, we can know that it is a
false moral theory.

ii. The “Undermining Trust” Objection

Although act utilitarians criticize traditional moral rules for being too rigid, critics charge that
utilitarians ignore the fact that this alleged rigidity is the basis for trust between people. If, in
cases like the ones described above, judges, doctors, and promise-makers are committed to doing
whatever maximizes well-being, then no one will be able to trust that judges will act according to
the law, that doctors will not use the organs of one patient to benefit others, and that promise-
makers will keep their promises. More generally, if everyone believed that morality permitted
lying, promise-breaking, cheating, and violating the law whenever doing so led to good results,
then no one could trust other people to obey these rules. As a result, in an act utilitarian society,
we could not believe what others say, could not rely on them to keep promises, and in general
could not count on people to act in accord with important moral rules. As a result, people’s
behavior would lack the kind of predictability and consistency that are required to sustain trust
and social stability.

iii. Partiality and the “Too Demanding” Objection

Critics also attack utilitarianism’s commitment to impartiality and the equal consideration of
interests. An implication of this commitment is that whenever people want to buy something for
themselves or for a friend or family member, they must first determine whether they could create
more well-being by donating their money to help unknown strangers who are seriously ill or
impoverished. If more good can be done by helping strangers than by purchasing things for
oneself or people one personally cares about, then act utilitarianism requires us to use the money
to help strangers in need. Why? Because act utilitarianism requires impartiality and the equal
consideration of all people’s needs and interests.

Almost everyone, however, believes that we have special moral duties to people who are near
and dear to us. As a result, most people would reject the notion that morality requires us to treat
people we love and care about no differently from people who are perfect strangers as absurd.
This issue is not merely a hypothetical case. In a famous article, Peter Singer defends the view
that people living in affluent countries should not purchase luxury items for themselves when the
world is full of impoverished people. According to Singer, a person should keep donating money
to people in dire need until the donor reaches the point where giving to others generates more
harm to the donor than the good that is generated for the recipients.

Critics claim that the argument for using our money to help impoverished strangers rather than
benefiting ourselves and people we care about only proves one thing—that act utilitarianism is
false. There are two reasons that show why it is false. First, it fails to recognize the moral
legitimacy of giving special preferences to ourselves and people that we know and care about.
Second, since pretty much everyone is strongly motivated to act on behalf of themselves and
people they care about, a morality that forbids this and requires equal consideration of strangers
is much too demanding. It asks more than can reasonably be expected of people.

c. Possible Responses to Criticisms of Act Utilitarianism

There are two ways in which act utilitarians can defend their view against these criticisms. First,
they can argue that critics misinterpret act utilitarianism and mistakenly claim that it is
committed to supporting the wrong answer to various moral questions. This reply agrees that the
“wrong answers” are genuinely wrong, but it denies that the “wrong answers” maximize utility.
Because they do not maximize utility, these wrong answers would not be supported by act
utilitarians and therefore, do nothing to weaken their theory.

Second, act utilitarians can take a different approach by agreeing with the critics that act
utilitarianism supports the views that critics label “wrong answers.” Act utilitarians may reply
that all this shows is that the views supported by act utilitarianism conflict with common sense
morality. Unless critics can prove that common sense moral beliefs are correct the criticisms
have no force. Act utilitarians claim that their theory provides good reasons to reject many
ordinary moral claims and to replace them with moral views that are based on the effects of
actions.

People who are convinced by the criticisms of act utilitarianism may decide to reject
utilitarianism entirely and adopt a different type of moral theory. This judgment, however, would
be sound only if act utilitarianism were the only type of utilitarian theory. If there are other
versions of utilitarianism that do not have act utilitarianism’s flaws, then one may accept the
criticisms of act utilitarianism without forsaking utilitarianism entirely. This is what defenders of
rule utilitarianism claim. They argue that rule utilitarianism retains the virtues of a utilitarian
moral theory but without the flaws of the act utilitarian version.

4. Rule Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons

Unlike act utilitarians, who try to maximize overall utility by applying the utilitarian principle to
individual acts, rule utilitarians believe that we can maximize utility only by setting up a moral
code that contains rules. The correct moral rules are those whose inclusion in our moral code will
produce better results (more well-being) than other possible rules. Once we determine what these
rules are, we can then judge individual actions by seeing if they conform to these rules. The
principle of utility, then, is used to evaluate rules and is not applied directly to individual actions.
Once the rules are determined, compliance with these rules provides the standard for evaluating
individual actions.

a. Arguments for Rule Utilitarianism

i. Why Rule Utilitarianism Maximizes Utility
Rule utilitarianism sounds paradoxical. It says that we can produce more beneficial results by
following rules than by always performing individual actions whose results are as beneficial as
possible. This suggests that we should not always perform individual actions that maximize
utility. How could this be something that a utilitarian would support?

In spite of this paradox, rule utilitarianism possesses its own appeal, and its focus on moral rules
can sound quite plausible. The rule utilitarian approach to morality can be illustrated by
considering the rules of the road. If we are devising a code for drivers, we can adopt either open-
ended rules like “drive safely” or specific rules like “stop at red lights,” "do not travel more than
30 miles per hour in residential areas,” “do not drive when drunk," etc. The rule “drive safely”,
like the act utilitarian principle, is a very general rule that leaves it up to individuals to determine
what the best way to drive in each circumstance is. More specific rules that require stopping at
lights, forbid going faster than 30 miles per hour, or prohibit driving while drunk do not give
drivers the discretion to judge what is best to do. They simply tell drivers what to do or not do
while driving.

The reason why a more rigid rule-based system leads to greater overall utility is that people are
notoriously bad at judging what is the best thing to do when they are driving a car. Having
specific rules maximizes utility by limiting drivers’ discretionary judgments and thereby
decreasing the ways in which drivers may endanger themselves and others.

A rule utilitarian can illustrate this by considering the difference between stop signs and yield
signs. Stop signs forbid drivers to go through an intersection without stopping, even if the driver
sees that there are no cars approaching and thus no danger in not stopping. A yield sign permits
drivers to go through without stopping unless they judge that approaching cars make it dangerous
to drive through the intersection. The key difference between these signs is the amount of
discretion that they give to the driver.

The stop sign is like the rule utilitarian approach. It tells drivers to stop and does not allow them
to calculate whether it would be better to stop or not. The yield sign is like act utilitarianism. It
permits drivers to decide whether there is a need to stop. Act utilitarians see the stop sign as too
rigid because it requires drivers to stop even when nothing bad will be prevented. The result,
they say, is a loss of utility each time a driver stops at a stop sign when there is no danger from
oncoming cars.

Rule utilitarians will reply that they would reject the stop sign method a) if people could be
counted on to drive carefully and b) if traffic accidents only caused limited amounts of harm.
But, they say, neither of these is true. Because people often drive too fast and are inattentive
while driving (because they are, for example, talking, texting, listening to music, or tired), we
cannot count on people to make good utilitarian judgments about how to drive safely. In
addition, the costs (i.e. the disutility) of accidents can be very high. Accident victims (including
drivers) may be killed, injured, or disabled for life. For these reasons, rule utilitarians support the
use of stop signs and other non-discretionary rules under some circumstances. Overall these rules
generate greater utility because they prevent more disutility (from accidents) than they create
(from “unnecessary” stops).

Rule utilitarians generalize from this type of case and claim that our knowledge of human
behavior shows that there are many cases in which general rules or practices are more likely to
promote good effects than simply telling people to do whatever they think is best in each
individual case.

This does not mean that rule utilitarians always support rigid rules without exceptions. Some
rules can identify types of situations in which the prohibition is over-ridden. In emergency
medical situations, for example, a driver may justifiably go through a red light or stop sign based
on the driver’s own assessment that a) this can be done safely and b) the situation is one in which
even a short delay might cause dire harms. So the correct rule need not be “never go through a
stop sign” but rather can be something like “never go through a stop sign except in cases that
have properties a and b.” In addition, there will remain many things about driving or other
behavior that can be left to people’s discretion. The rules of the road do not tell drivers when to
drive or what their destination should be for example.

Overall then, rule utilitarian can allow departures from rules and will leave many choices up to
individuals. In such cases, people may act in the manner that looks like the approach supported
by act utilitarians. Nonetheless, these discretionary actions are permitted because having a rule in
these cases does not maximize utility or because the best rule may impose some constraints on
how people act while still permitting a lot of discretion in deciding what to do.
ii. Rule Utilitarianism Avoids the Criticisms of Act Utilitarianism
As discussed earlier, critics of act utilitarianism raise three strong objections against it.
According to these critics, act utilitarianism a) approves of actions that are clearly wrong; b)
undermines trust among people, and c) is too demanding because it requires people to make
excessive levels of sacrifice. Rule utilitarians tend to agree with these criticisms of act
utilitarianism and try to explain why rule utilitarianism is not open to any of these objections.

1. Judges, Doctors, and Promise-makers

Critics of act utilitarianism claim that it allows judges to sentence innocent people to severe
punishments when doing so will maximize utility, allows doctors to kill healthy patients if by
doing so, they can use the organs of one person to save more lives, and allows people to break
promises if that will create slightly more benefits than keeping the promise.

Rule utilitarians say that they can avoid all these charges because they do not evaluate individual
actions separately but instead support rules whose acceptance maximizes utility. To see the
difference that their focus on rules makes, consider which rule would maximize utility: a) a rule
that allows medical doctors to kill healthy patients so that they can use their organs for
transplants that will save a larger number of patients who would die without these organs; or b) a
rule that forbids doctors to remove the organs of healthy patients in order to benefit other
patients.

Although more good may be done by killing the healthy patient in an individual case, it is
unlikely that more overall good will be done by having a rule that allows this practice. If a rule
were adopted that allows doctors to kill healthy patients when this will save more lives, the result
would be that many people would not go to doctors at all. A rule utilitarian evaluation will take
account of the fact that the benefits of medical treatment would be greatly diminished because
people would no longer trust doctors. People who seek medical treatment must have a high
degree of trust in doctors. If they had to worry that doctors might use their organs to help other
patients, they would not, for example, allow doctors to anesthetize them for surgery because the
resulting loss of consciousness would make them completely vulnerable and unable to defend
themselves. Thus, the rule that allows doctors to kill one patient to save five would not maximize
utility.

The same reasoning applies equally to the case of the judge. In order to have a criminal justice
system that protects people from being harmed by others, we authorize judges and other officials
to impose serious punishments on people who are convicted of crimes. The purpose of this is to
provide overall security to people in their jurisdiction, but this requires that criminal justice
officials only have the authority to impose arrest and imprisonment on people who are actually
believed to be guilty. They do not have the authority to do whatever they think will lead to the
best results in particular cases. Whatever they do must be constrained by rules that limit their
power. Act utilitarians may sometimes support the intentional punishment of innocent people,
but rule utilitarians will understand the risks involved and will oppose a practice that allows it.

Rule utilitarians offer a similar analysis of the promise keeping case. They explain that in
general, we want people to keep their promises even in some cases in which doing so may lead
to less utility than breaking the promise. The reason for this is that the practice of promise-
keeping is a very valuable. It enables people to have a wide range of cooperative relationships by
generating confidence that other people will do what they promise to do. If we knew that people
would fail to keep promises whenever some option arises that leads to more utility, then we
could not trust people who make promises to us to carry them through. We would always have to
worry that some better option (one that act utilitarians would favor) might emerge, leading to the
breaking of the person’s promise to us.

In each of these cases then, rule utilitarians can agree with the critics of act utilitarianism that it
is wrong for doctors, judges, and promise-makers to do case by case evaluations of whether they
should harm their patients, convict and punish innocent people, and break promises. The rule
utilitarian approach stresses the value of general rules and practices, and shows why compliance
with rules often maximizes overall utility even if in some individual cases, it requires doing what
produces less utility.
2. Maintaining vs. Undermining Trust
Rule utilitarians see the social impact of a rule-based morality as one of the key virtues of their
theory. The three cases just discussed show why act utilitarianism undermines trust but rule
utilitarianism does not. Fundamentally, in the cases of doctors, judges, and promise-keepers, it is
trust that is at stake. Being able to trust other people is extremely important to our well-being.
Part of trusting people involves being able to predict what they will and won’t do. Because act
utilitarians are committed to a case by case evaluation method, the adoption of their view would
make people’s actions much less predictable. As a result, people would be less likely to see other
people as reliable and trustworthy. Rule utilitarianism does not have this problem because it is
committed to rules, and these rules generate positive “expectation effects” that give us a basis for
knowing how other people are likely to behave.

While rule utilitarians do not deny that there are people who are not trustworthy, they can claim
that their moral code generally condemns violations of trust as wrongful acts. The problem with
act utilitarians is that they support a moral view that has the effect of undermining trust and that
sacrifices the good effects of a moral code that supports and encourages trustworthiness.

3. Impartiality and the Problem of Over-Demandingness

Rule utilitarians believe that their view is also immune to the criticism that act utilitarianism is
too demanding. In addition, while the act utilitarian commitment to impartiality undermines the
moral relevance of personal relations, rule utilitarians claim that their view is not open to this
criticism. They claim that rule utilitarianism allows for partiality toward ourselves and others
with whom we share personal relationships. Moreover, they say, rule utilitarianism can recognize
justifiable partiality to some people without rejecting the commitment to impartiality that is
central to the utilitarian tradition.

How can rule utilitarianism do this? How can it be an impartial moral theory while also allowing
partiality in people’s treatment of their friends, family, and others with whom they have a special
connection?

In his defense of rule utilitarianism, Brad Hooker distinguishes two different contexts in which
partiality and impartiality play a role. One involves the justification of moral rules and the other
concerns the application of moral rules. Justifications of moral rules, he claims, must be strictly
impartial. When we ask whether a rule should be adopted, it is essential to consider the impact of
the rule on all people and to weigh the interests of everyone equally.

The second context concerns the content of the rules and how they are applied in actual cases.
Rule utilitarians argue that a rule utilitarian moral code will allow partiality to play a role in
determining what morality requires, forbids, or allows us to do. As an example, consider a moral
rule parents have a special duty to care for their own children. (See Parental Rights and
Obligations.) This is a partialist rule because it not only allows but actually requires parents to
devote more time, energy, and other resources to their own children than to others. While it does
not forbid devoting resources to other people’s children, it allows people to give to their own.
While the content of this rule is not impartial, rule utilitarians believe it can be impartially
justified. Partiality toward children can be justified for several reasons. Caring for children is a
demanding activity. Children need the special attention of adults to develop physically,
emotionally, and cognitively. Because children’s needs vary, knowledge of particular children’s
needs is necessary to benefit them. For these reasons, it is plausible to believe that children’s
well-being can best be promoted by a division of labor that requires particular parents (or other
caretakers) to focus primarily on caring for specific children rather than trying to take care of all
children. It is not possible for absentee parents or strangers to provide individual children with all
that they need. Therefore, we can maximize the overall well-being of children as a class by
designating certain people as the caretakers for specific children. For these reasons, partiality
toward specific children can be impartially justified.
Similar “division of labor” arguments can be used to provide impartial justifications of other
partialist rules and practices. Teachers, for example have special duties to students in their own
classes and have no duty to educate all students. Similarly, public officials can and should be
partial to people in the jurisdiction in which they work. If the overall aim is to maximize the
well-being of all people in all cities, for example, then we are likely to get better results by
having individuals who know and understand particular cities focus on them while other people
focus on other cities.

Based on examples like these, rule utilitarians claim that their view, unlike act utilitarianism,
avoids the problems raised about demandingness and partiality. Being committed to impartialist
justifications of moral rules does not commit them to rejecting moral rules that allow or require
people to give specific others priority.

While rule utilitarians can defend partiality, their commitment to maximizing overall utility also
allows them to justify limits on the degree of partiality that is morally permissible. At a
minimum, rule utilitarians will support a rule that forbids parents to harm other people’s children
in order to advance the interests of their own children. (It would be wrong, for example, for a
parent to injure children who are running in a school race in order to increase the chances that
their own children will win.) Moreover, though this is more controversial, rule utilitarians may
support a rule that says that if parents are financially well-off and if their own children’s needs
are fully met, these parents may have a moral duty to contribute some resources for children who
are deprived of essential resources.

The key point is that while rule utilitarianism permits partiality toward some people, it can also
generate rules that limit the ways in which people may act partially and it might even support a
positive duty for well off people to provide assistance to strangers when the needs and interests
of people to whom we are partial are fully met, when they have surplus resources that could be
used to assist strangers in dire conditions, and when there are ways to channel these resources
effectively to people in dire need.

b. Arguments against Rule Utilitarianism

i. The “Rule Worship” Objection
Act utilitarians criticize rule utilitarians for irrationally supporting rule-based actions in cases
where more good could be done by violating the rule than obeying it. They see this as a form of
“rule worship,” an irrational deference to rules that has no utilitarian justification (J. J. C. Smart).

Act utilitarians say that they recognize that rules can have value. For example, rules can provide
a basis for acting when there is no time to deliberate. In addition, rules can define a default
position, a justification for doing (or refraining from) a type of action as long as there is no
reason for not doing it. But when people know that more good can be done by violating the rule
then the default position should be over-ridden.

ii. The “Collapses into Act Utilitarianism” Objection

While the “rule worship” objection assumes that rule utilitarianism is different from act
utilitarianism, some critics deny that this is the case. In their view, whatever defects act
utilitarianism may have, rule utilitarianism will have the same defects. According to this
criticism, although rule utilitarianism looks different from act utilitarianism, a careful
examination shows that it collapses into or, as David Lyons claimed, is extensionally equivalent
to act utilitarianism.

To understand this criticism, it is worth focusing on a distinction between rule utilitarianism and
other non-utilitarian theories. Consider Kant’s claim that lying is always morally wrong, even
when lying would save a person’s life. Many people see this view as too rigid and claim that it
fails to take into account the circumstances in which a lie is being told. A more plausible rule
would say “do not lie except in special circumstances that justify lying.” But what are these
special circumstances? For a utilitarian, it is natural to say that the correct rule is “do not lie
except when lying will generate more good than telling the truth.”

Suppose that a rule utilitarian adopts this approach and advocates a moral code that consists of a
list of rules of this form. The rules would say something like “do x except when not doing x
maximizes utility” and “do not do x except when doing x maximizes utility.” While this may
sound plausible, it is easy to see that this version of rule utilitarianism is in fact identical with act
utilitarianism. Whatever action x is, the moral requirement and the moral prohibition expressed
in these rules collapses into the act utilitarian rules “do x only when not doing x maximizes
utility” or “do not do x except when doing x maximizes utility.” These rules say exactly the same
thing as the open-ended act utilitarian rule “Do whatever action maximizes utility.”

If rule utilitarianism is to be distinct from act utilitarianism, its supporters must find a way to
formulate rules that allow exceptions to a general requirement or prohibition while not collapsing
into act utilitarianism. One way to do this is to identify specific conditions under which violating
a general moral requirement would be justified. Instead of saying that we can violate a general
rule whenever doing so will maximize utility, the rule utilitarian code might say things like “Do
not lie except to prevent severe harms to people who are not unjustifiably threatening others with
severe harm.” This type of rule would prohibit lying generally, but it would permit lying to a
murderer to prevent harm to the intended victims even if the lie would lead to harm to the
murderer. In cases of lesser harms or deceitful acts that will benefit the liar, lying would still be
prohibited, even if lying might maximize overall utility.

Rule utilitarians claim that this sort of rule is not open to the “collapses into act utilitarianism”
objection. It also suggests, however, that rule utilitarians face difficult challenges in formulating
utility-based rules that have a reasonable degree of flexibility built into them but are not so
flexible that they collapse into act utilitarianism. In addition, although the rules that make up a
moral code should be flexible enough to account for the complexities of life, they cannot be so
complex that they are too difficult for people to learn and understand.

iii. Wrong Answers and Crude Concepts

Although rule utilitarians try to avoid the weaknesses attributed to act utilitarianism, critics argue
that they cannot avoid these weaknesses because they do not take seriously many of our central
moral concepts. As a result, they cannot support the right answers to crucial moral problems.
Three prominent concepts in moral thought that critics cite are justice, rights, and desert. These
moral ideas are often invoked in reasoning about morality, but critics claim that neither rule nor
act utilitarianism acknowledge their importance. Instead, they focus only on the amounts of
utility that actions or rules generate.

In considering the case, for example, of punishing innocent people, the best that rule utilitarians
can do is to say that a rule that permits this would lead to worse results overall than a rule that
permitted it. This prediction, however, is precarious. While it may be true, it may also be false,
and if it is false, then utilitarians must acknowledge that intentionally punishing an innocent
person could sometimes be morally justified.

Against this, critics may appeal to common sense morality to support the view that there are no
circumstances in which punishing the innocent can be justified because the innocent person is a)
being treated unjustly, b) has a right not to be punished for something that he or she is not guilty
of, and c) does not deserve to be punished for a crime that he or she did not commit.

In responding, rule utilitarians may begin, first, with the view that they do not reject concepts
like justice, rights, and desert. Instead, they accept and use these concepts but interpret them
from the perspective of maximizing utility. To speak of justice, rights, and desert is to speak of
rules of individual treatment that are very important, and what makes them important is their
contribution to promoting overall well-being. Moreover, even people who accept these concepts
as basic still need to determine whether it is always wrong to treat someone unjustly, violate their
rights, or treat them in ways that they don’t deserve.

Critics object to utilitarianism by claiming that the theory justifies treating people unjustly,
violating their rights, etc. This criticism only stands up if it is always wrong and thus never
morally justified to treat people in these ways. Utilitarians argue that moral common sense is
less absolutist than their critics acknowledge. In the case of punishment, for example, while we
hope that our system of criminal justice gives people fair trials and conscientiously attempts to
separate the innocent from the guilty, we know that the system is not perfect. As a result, people
who are innocent are sometimes prosecuted, convicted, and punished for crimes they did not do.
 This is the problem of wrongful convictions, which poses a difficult challenge to critics of
utilitarianism. If we know that our system of criminal justice punishes some people unjustly and
in ways they don’t deserve, we are faced with a dilemma. Either we can shut down the system
and punish no one, or we can maintain the system even though we know that it will result in
some innocent people being unjustly punished in ways that they do not deserve. Most people will
support continuing to punish people in spite of the fact that it involves punishing some people
unjustly. According to rule utilitarians, this can only be justified if a rule that permits
punishments (after a fair trial, etc.) yields more overall utility than a rule that rejects punishment
because it treats some people unfairly. To end the practice of punishment entirely—because it
inevitably causes some injustice—is likely to result in worse consequences because it deprives
society of a central means of protecting people’s well-being, including what are regarded as their
rights. In the end, utilitarians say, it is justice and rights that give way when rules that approve of
violations in some cases yield the greatest amount of utility.

5. Conclusion
The debate between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism highlights many important issues
about how we should make moral judgments. Act utilitarianism stresses the specific context and
the many individual features of the situations that pose moral problems, and it presents a single
method for dealing with these individual cases. Rule utilitarianism stresses the recurrent features
of human life and the ways in which similar needs and problems arise over and over again. From
this perspective, we need rules that deal with types or classes of actions: killing, stealing, lying,
cheating, taking care of our friends or family, punishing people for crimes, aiding people in need,
etc. Both of these perspectives, however, agree that the main determinant of what is right or
wrong is the relationship between what we do or what form our moral code takes and what is the
impact of our moral perspective on the level of people’s well-being.

6. References and Further Reading

a. Classic Works
 Jeremy Bentham. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, available in many editions,
1789.
 See Book I, chapter 1 for Bentham’s statement of what utilitarianism is; chapter IV for his
method of measuring amounts of pleasure/utility; chapter V for his list of types of pleasures and pains,
and chapter XIII for his application of utilitarianism to questions about criminal punishment.
 John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism, available in many editions and online, 1861.
 See especially chapter II, in which Mill tries both to clarify and defend utilitarianism.
Passages at the end of chapter suggest that Mill was a rule utilitarian. In chapter V, Mill tries to show that
utilitarianism is compatible with justice.
 Henry Sidgwick. The Methods of Ethics, Seventh Edition, available in many editions, 1907.
 Sidgwick is known for his careful, extended analysis of utilitarian moral theory and
competing views.
 G. E. Moore. Principia Ethica, 1903.
 Moore criticizes aspects of Mill’s views but support a non-hedonistic form of utilitarianism.
 G. E. Moore. Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1912.
 Mostly focused on utilitarianism, this book contains a combination of act and rule utilitarian
ideas.
b. More Recent Utilitarians
 J. J. C. Smart. “An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics” in J. J. C. Smart and
Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against. Cambridge University Press, 1973.
 Smart’s discussion combines an overview of moral theory and a defense of act
utilitarianism. It is followed by Bernard Williams’, “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” a source of many
important criticisms of utilitarianism.
 Richard Brandt. Ethical Theory. Prentice Hall, 1959. Chapter 15.
 Brandt, who coined the terms “act” and “rule” utilitarianism, explains and criticizes act
utilitarianism and tentatively proposes a version of rule utilitarianism.
 Richard Brandt. Morality, Utilitarianism, and Rights. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
 Brandt developed and defended rule utilitarianism in many papers. This book contains
several of them as well as works in which he applies rule utilitarian thinking to issues like rights and the
ethics of war.
 R. M. Hare. Moral Thinking. Oxford University Press, 1981.
 An interesting development of a form of rule utilitarianism by an influential moral theorist.
 John C. Harsanyi. “Morality and the Theory of Rational Behavior.” in Social Research 44.4 (1977): 623-656.
(Reprinted in Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams, eds., Utilitarianism and Beyond, Cambridge University
Press, 1982).
 Harsanyi, a Nobel Prize economist, defends rule utilitarianism, connecting it to a preference
theory of value and a theory of rational action.
 John Rawls. “Two Concepts of Rules.” In Philosophical Review LXIV (1955), 3-32.
  Before becoming an influential critic of utilitarianism, Rawls wrote this defense of rule
utilitarianism.
 Brad Hooker. Ideal Code, Real World: A Rule-consequentialist Theory of Morality. Oxford University Press,
2000.
 In this 21st century defense of rule utilitarianism, Hooker places it in the context of more
recent developments in philosophy.
 Peter Singer. Writings on an Ethical Life. HarperCollins, 2000.
 Singer, a prolific, widely read thinker, mostly applies a utilitarian perspective to
controversial moral issues (for example, euthanasia, the treatment of non-human animals, and global
poverty) rather than discussing utilitarian moral theory. This volume contains selections from his books
and articles.
 Peter Singer. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” in Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972), 229-43.
Reprinted in Peter Singer. Writings on an Ethical Life. Harper Collins, 2000.
 This widely reprinted article, though it does not focus on utilitarianism, uses utilitarian
reasoning and has sparked decades of debate about moral demandingness and moral impartiality.
 Robert Goodin. Utilitarianism as a Public Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
 In a series of essays, Goodin argues that utilitarianism is the best philosophy for public
decision-making even if it fails as an ethic for personal aspects of life.
 Derek Parfit. On What Matters. Oxford University Press, 1991.
 In a long, complex work, Parfit stresses the importance of Henry Sidgwick as a moral
philosopher and argues that rule utilitarianism and Kantian deontology can be understood in a way that
makes them compatible with one another.
c. Overviews
 Tim Mulgan. Understanding Utilitarianism. Acumen, 2007.
 This is a very clear description of utilitarianism, including explanations of arguments both
for and against. Chapter 2 discusses Bentham, Mill, and Sidgwick while chapter 6 focuses on act and rule
utilitarianism.
 Julia Driver, “The History of Utilitarianism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
 This article gives a good historical account of important figures in the development of
utilitarianism.
 Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, “Consequentialism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
 This very useful overview is relevant to utilitarianism and other forms of consequentialism.
 William Shaw. Contemporary Ethics: Taking Account of Utilitarianism. Blackwell, 1999.
 Shaw provides a clear, comprehensive discussion of utilitarianism and its critics as well as
defending utilitarianism.
 John Troyer. The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill. Hackett, 2003.
 Troyer’s introduction to this book of selections from Mill and Bentham is clear and
informative.
 Ben Eggleston and Dale Miller, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Utilitarianism. Cambridge University
Press, 2014.
 This collection contains sixteen essays on utilitarianism, including essays on historical
figures as well as discussion of 21st century issues, including both act and rule utilitarianism.
d. J. S. Mill and Utilitarian Moral Theory
 J. O. Urmson. “The Interpretation of the Moral Philosophy of J. S. Mill,” in Philosophical Quarterly (1953)
3, 33-9.
 This article generated renewed interest in both Mill’s moral theory and rule utilitarianism.
 Roger Crisp. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Mill on Utilitarianism. Routledge, 1997.
 A clear discussion of Mill’s Utilitarianism with chapters on key topics as well as on Mill’s On
Liberty and The Subjection of Women.
 Henry. R. West, ed. The Blackwell Guide to Mill’s Utilitarianism. Blackwell, 2006.
 This contains the complete text of Mill’s Utilitarianism preceded by three essays on the
background to Mill’s utilitarianism and followed by five interpretative essays and four focusing on
contemporary issues.
 Henry R. West. An Introduction to Mill’s Utilitarian Ethics. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
 A clear discussion of Mill; Chapter 4 argues that Mill is neither an act nor a rule utilitarian.
Chapter 6 focuses on utilitarianism and justice.
 Dale Miller. J. S. Mill. Polity Press, 2010.
 Miller, in Chapter 6, argues that Mill was a rule utilitarian.
 Stephen Nathanson. “John Stuart Mill on Economic Justice and the Alleviation of Poverty,” in Journal of
Social Philosophy, XLIII, no. 2.
 Drawing on Mill’s Principles of Political Economy, Nathanson claims that Mill was a rule
utilitarian and provides an interpretation of Mill’s views on economic justice.
 Wendy Donner, “Mill’s Utilitarianism” in John Skorupski, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Mill.
Cambridge University Press, 1998, 255–92.
 A discussion of Mill’s views and some recent interpretations of them.
 David Lyons. Rights, Welfare, and Mill’s Moral Theory. Oxford, 1994.
 In this series of papers, Lyons defends Mill’s view of morality against some critics,
differentiates Mill’s views from both act and rule utilitarianism, and criticizes Mill’s attempt to show that
utilitarianism can account for justice.
e. Critics of Utilitarianism
 David Lyons. Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism. Oxford, 1965.
  Lyons argues that at least some versions of rule utilitarianism collapse into act
utilitarianism.
 David Lyons. “The Moral Opacity of Utilitarianism” in Brad Hooker, Elinor Mason, and Dale Miller,
eds. Morality, Rules, and Consequences. Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
 In a challenging essay, Lyons raises doubts about whether there is any coherent version of
utilitarianism.
 Judith Jarvis Thomson. “The Trolley Problem.” Yale Law Journal 94 (1985), 1395-1415. Reprinted in Judith
Jarvis Thomson. Rights, Restitution and Risk. Edited by William Parent. Harvard University Press, 1986;
Chapter 7.
 An influential rights-based discussion in which Jarvis Thomson uses hypothetical cases to
show, among other things, that utilitarianism cannot explain why some actions that cause killings are
permissible and others not.
 Bernard Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” In J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For
and Against. Cambridge University Press, 1973.
 Williams’ contribution to this debate contains arguments and examples that have played an
important role in debates about utilitarianism and moral theory.
f. Collections of Essays
 Michael D. Bayles, ed. Contemporary Utilitarianism. Garden City: Doubleday, 1968.
 Ten essays that debate act vs. rule utilitarianism as well as whether a form of utilitarianism
is correct.
 Samuel Gorovitz, ed. John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism, With Critical Essays. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill
Company, 1971.
 This includes Mill’s Utlitarianism plus a rich array of twenty-eight (pre-1970) articles
interpreting, defending, and criticizing utilitarianism.
 Brad Hooker, Elinor Mason, and Dale Miller, eds. Morality, Rules, and Consequences. Rowman and
Littlefield, 2000.
 Thirteen essays on utilitarianism, many focused on issues concerning rule utilitarianism.
 Samuel Scheffler. Consequentialism and Its Critics. Oxford, 1988.
 This contains a dozen influential articles, mostly by prominent critics of utilitarianism and
other forms of consequentialism.
 Amartya Sen, and Bernard Williams, eds. Utilitarianism and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1982.
 This contains fourteen articles, including essays defending utilitarianism by R. M. Hare and
John Harsanyi, As the title suggests, however, most of the articles are critical of utilitarianism.

Author Information
Stephen Nathanson
Email: s.nathanson@neu.edu
Northeastern University
U. S. A.
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