thesis of utilitarianism

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

Introduction, general overviews.

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Consequentialism
Act versus Rule Utilitarianism
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Satisficing
Other Forms of Utilitarianism
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The History of Utilitarianism: John Stuart Mill
The History of Utilitarianism: Other Figures
Peter Singer
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Utilitarianism by Ben Eggleston LAST REVIEWED: 29 November 2022 LAST MODIFIED: 29 November 2022 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0431

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

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

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

DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195325911.003.0015

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

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

DOI: 10.1093/actrade/9780198728795.001.0001

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

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

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

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

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

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Introduction

Basic concepts

Methodologies.

Antecedents of utilitarianism among the ancients
Growth of classical English utilitarianism
Utilitarianism since the late 19th century
Effects of utilitarianism in other fields
Summary and evaluation

utilitarianism

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Santa Clara University - Markkula Center for Applied Ethics - Calculating Consequences:The Utilitarian Approach to Ethics
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Table Of Contents

utilitarianism , in normative ethics , a tradition stemming from the late 18th- and 19th-century English philosophers and economists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill according to which an action (or type of action) is right if it tends to promote happiness or pleasure and wrong if it tends to produce unhappiness or pain—not just for the performer of the action but also for everyone else affected by it. Utilitarianism is a species of consequentialism , the general doctrine in ethics that actions (or types of action) should be evaluated on the basis of their consequences. Utilitarianism and other consequentialist theories are in opposition to egoism , the view that each person should pursue his or her own self-interest, even at the expense of others, and to any ethical theory that regards some actions (or types of action) as right or wrong independently of their consequences ( see deontological ethics ). Utilitarianism also differs from ethical theories that make the rightness or wrongness of an action dependent upon the motive of the agent—for, according to the utilitarian, it is possible for the right thing to be done from a bad motive. Utilitarians may, however, distinguish the aptness of praising or blaming an agent from whether the action was right.

(Read Peter Singer’s Britannica entry on ethics.)

The nature of utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an effort to provide an answer to the practical question “What ought a person to do?” The answer is that a person ought to act so as to maximize happiness or pleasure and to minimize unhappiness or pain.

In the notion of consequences the utilitarian includes all of the good and bad produced by the action, whether arising after the action has been performed or during its performance. If the difference in the consequences of alternative actions is not great, some utilitarians would not regard the choice between them as a moral issue. According to Mill, acts should be classified as morally right or wrong only if the consequences are of such significance that a person would wish to see the agent compelled, not merely persuaded and exhorted, to act in the preferred manner.

In assessing the consequences of actions, utilitarianism relies upon some theory of intrinsic value : something is held to be good in itself, apart from further consequences, and all other values are believed to derive their worth from their relation to this intrinsic good as a means to an end. Bentham and Mill were hedonists ; i.e, they analyzed happiness as a balance of pleasure over pain and believed that these feelings alone are of intrinsic value and disvalue. Utilitarians also assume that it is possible to compare the intrinsic values produced by two alternative actions and to estimate which would have better consequences. Bentham believed that a hedonic calculus is theoretically possible. A moralist, he maintained, could sum up the units of pleasure and the units of pain for everyone likely to be affected, immediately and in the future, and could take the balance as a measure of the overall good or evil tendency of an action. Such precise measurement as Bentham envisioned is perhaps not essential, but it is nonetheless necessary for the utilitarian to make some interpersonal comparisons of the values of the effects of alternative courses of action.

As a normative system providing a standard by which an individual ought to act and by which the existing practices of society, including its moral code, ought to be evaluated and improved, utilitarianism cannot be verified or confirmed in the way in which a descriptive theory can, but it is not regarded by its exponents as simply arbitrary. Bentham believed that only in terms of a utilitarian interpretation do words such as “ought,” “right,” and “wrong” have meaning and that, whenever people attempt to combat the principle of utility , they do so with reasons drawn from the principle itself. Bentham and Mill both believed that human actions are motivated entirely by pleasure and pain, and Mill saw that motivation as a basis for the argument that, since happiness is the sole end of human action, the promotion of happiness is the test by which to judge all human conduct.

One of the leading utilitarians of the late 19th century, the Cambridge philosopher Henry Sidgwick , rejected such theories of motivation as well as Bentham’s theory of the meaning of moral terms and sought to support utilitarianism by showing that it follows from systematic reflection on the morality of “ common sense .” Most of the requirements of commonsense morality , he argued, could be based upon utilitarian considerations. In addition, he reasoned that utilitarianism could solve the difficulties and perplexities that arise from the vagueness and inconsistencies of commonsense doctrines.

Most opponents of utilitarianism have held that it has implications contrary to their moral intuitions—that considerations of utility, for example, might sometimes sanction the breaking of a promise. Much of the defense of utilitarian ethics has consisted in answering these objections, either by showing that utilitarianism does not have the implications that its opponents claim it has or by arguing against the opponents’ moral intuitions . Some utilitarians, however, have sought to modify the utilitarian theory to accommodate the objections.

One such criticism is that, although the widespread practice of lying and stealing would have bad consequences, resulting in a loss of trustworthiness and security, it is not certain that an occasional lie to avoid embarrassment or an occasional theft from a rich person would not have good consequences and thus be permissible or even required by utilitarianism. But the utilitarian readily answers that the widespread practice of such acts would result in a loss of trustworthiness and security. To meet the objection to not permitting an occasional lie or theft, some philosophers have defended a modification labelled “ rule ” utilitarianism. It permits a particular act on a particular occasion to be adjudged right or wrong according to whether it is in keeping with or in violation of a useful rule, and a rule is judged useful or not by the consequences of its general practice . Mill has sometimes been interpreted as a “rule” utilitarian, whereas Bentham and Sidgwick were “ act” utilitarians.

Another objection, often posed against the hedonistic value theory held by Bentham, holds that the value of life is more than a balance of pleasure over pain. Mill, in contrast to Bentham, discerned differences in the quality of pleasures that make some intrinsically preferable to others independently of intensity and duration (the quantitative dimensions recognized by Bentham). Some philosophers in the utilitarian tradition have recognized certain wholly nonhedonistic values without losing their utilitarian credentials. Thus, the English philosopher G.E. Moore , one of the founders of contemporary analytic philosophy , regarded many kinds of consciousness —including friendship, knowledge, and the experience of beauty—as intrinsically valuable independently of pleasure, a position labelled “ ideal ” utilitarianism. Even in limiting the recognition of intrinsic value and disvalue to happiness and unhappiness, some philosophers have argued that those feelings cannot adequately be further broken down into terms of pleasure and pain and have thus preferred to defend the theory in terms of maximizing happiness and minimizing unhappiness. It is important to note, however, that, even for the hedonistic utilitarians, pleasure and pain are not thought of in purely sensual terms; pleasure and pain for them can be components of experiences of all sorts. Their claim is that, if an experience is neither pleasurable nor painful, then it is a matter of indifference and has no intrinsic value.

Another objection to utilitarianism is that the prevention or elimination of suffering should take precedence over any alternative act that would only increase the happiness of someone already happy. Some modern utilitarians have modified their theory to require this focus or even to limit moral obligation to the prevention or elimination of suffering—a view labelled “negative” utilitarianism.

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Understanding Utilitarianism: A Guide
Types of philosophy

Throughout history, philosophers have long sought to answer the fundamental question: What makes an action right or wrong? Utilitarianism is one of the most influential ethical theories that provides an answer to this question. It is based on the idea that an action is right if it promotes happiness and wrong if it causes suffering. Utilitarianism has been used to justify a variety of policies, from welfare reforms to the abolition of slavery. In this guide, we'll explore the basic tenets of utilitarianism, discuss its implications for moral decision-making, and examine its place in contemporary ethical debates.

Profs online philosophy tutors can help you gain a deeper understanding of utilitarianism and how it can be used to make ethical decisions. Utilitarianism is a type of philosophy and ethical theory that focuses on maximizing overall benefit and minimizing harm. This philosophy was first developed in the 18th century by British philosopher Jeremy Bentham and is still widely discussed today. Utilitarianism is based on the concept of utility, which states that the best action is that which produces the most good and the least harm. It is distinct from other ethical theories such as deontology, which focuses on moral duties, and virtue ethics, which focuses on character traits. Act utilitarianism is one of the main forms of utilitarianism.

This approach states that when making a decision, one should consider the consequences of each option and choose the action that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people. For example, a doctor might opt to give a patient a life-saving medication even if it is expensive, because it would be beneficial for more people in the long run. Rule utilitarianism, on the other hand, suggests that decisions should be made based on rules that have been established to produce the greatest good for the most people. In practice, utilitarianism has been used to make difficult ethical decisions in areas such as health care, criminal justice, and animal rights. In health care, for example, utilitarianism might suggest that a doctor should prioritize treatments that are most effective in helping many patients rather than those treatments that are most expensive.

Similarly, in criminal justice, utilitarianism might suggest that harsh punishments should be given to individuals who commit serious crimes in order to deter others from committing similar offenses. Despite its popularity, utilitarianism has also been criticized by some philosophers. One main criticism is that utilitarianism lacks an intrinsic moral code; instead it relies on external factors like consequences to determine what is right or wrong. Additionally, some argue that utilitarianism can be used to justify immoral actions in certain situations. For instance, a government might use utilitarianism to justify sacrificing a few individuals for the greater good of society. In conclusion, utilitarianism is a type of ethical theory that seeks to maximize overall benefit and minimize harm.

Criticisms of Utilitarianism

This means that an immoral action could be justified if it resulted in a greater good. For example, a utilitarian might argue that it is acceptable to lie if it leads to a better outcome than telling the truth. This lack of an intrinsic moral code can lead to ethical dilemmas , as it can be difficult to determine which action will result in the greatest good. It also makes utilitarianism vulnerable to manipulation, as those in power can justify their own interests as being for the “greater good”.

Justification of Immoral Actions Another criticism of utilitarianism is that it can be used to justify immoral actions. This argument ignores the fact that lying is generally seen as morally wrong and can have serious consequences. This means that utilitarianism can be used to justify immoral behavior if it results in a greater good. This potential for immoral behavior has led some philosophers to reject utilitarianism as a basis for ethical decision-making.

History of Utilitarianism

He believed that an action should be judged solely on its consequences, and that the best action was one that maximized the total utility of the situation. He proposed that happiness could be quantified and measured, and used this as the basis for his moral framework. Since then, utilitarianism has been expanded and modified by other philosophers, such as John Stuart Mill. Mill argued that utilitarianism should focus more on individual rights and autonomy, and that it should prioritize higher-order pleasures over lower-order ones. He also argued that it was important to consider the context of an action, rather than just its consequences. Utilitarianism has also been adapted to fit different contexts.

Principles of Utilitarianism

This means that utilitarianism seeks to promote the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people, while minimizing any negative consequences. This makes utilitarianism a type of consequentialist theory, as it seeks to weigh the outcomes of an action in order to make the best decision. The most basic principle of utilitarianism is the “greatest happiness principle” or “greatest good for the greatest number.” This means that when making a decision, one should consider how it will affect the most people, and prioritize the greatest amount of benefit for the most people. For example, if an action could bring a great amount of benefit to one person but very little benefit to many people, a utilitarian would not prioritize that action. Another principle of utilitarianism is the “principle of utility.” This means that actions should be judged based on their utility, or usefulness.

An action can be judged on its ability to bring about the greatest amount of benefit, or cause the least amount of harm. Utilitarianism can also be used to evaluate various ethical dilemmas. For example, one might use utilitarianism to evaluate whether or not it is ethical to lie in certain situations. A utilitarian might decide that lying is unethical if it causes more harm than good, while it might be ethical if it brings about a greater amount of good than harm. Utilitarianism can also be used to make decisions about public policy.

When considering a policy, one should consider how it affects the greatest number of people and weigh the benefits against any potential negative consequences. For example, a policy that seeks to reduce poverty may have an overall positive effect on society, even though some individuals may be adversely affected by it. Finally, utilitarianism can be used to make decisions in everyday life. When making decisions such as whether or not to take a certain job or buy a certain product, one should consider how it will affect not just themselves but also those around them.

Types of Utilitarianism

In this case, the doctor is using act utilitarianism to make their decision. Rule utilitarianism, on the other hand, suggests that an action is right if it follows a rule or set of rules that produce the most amount of happiness or pleasure for the greatest number of people. For instance, a businessperson may choose to follow an ethical code of conduct when making decisions in order to ensure that their decisions create the most amount of benefit for the greatest number of people. In this case, the businessperson is using rule utilitarianism to make their decisions. It is important to note that both act and rule utilitarianism seek to maximize pleasure and minimize harm. However, they differ in terms of how they approach making decisions.

Act utilitarianism focuses on making decisions in the moment while rule utilitarianism looks at the bigger picture and considers how actions will impact people in the long-term. In order to understand how these different types of utilitarianism can be applied in real-world situations, consider the example of a factory producing shoes. Under act utilitarianism, a manager might choose to produce shoes as quickly as possible in order to maximize profit and bring pleasure to shareholders. Under rule utilitarianism, however, a manager might choose to produce shoes more slowly in order to reduce energy consumption and bring pleasure to customers who would be pleased with a more sustainable product. In conclusion, act and rule utilitarianism both seek to maximize pleasure and minimize harm. Act utilitarianism focuses on making decisions in the moment while rule utilitarianism looks at the bigger picture and considers how actions will impact people in the long-term. In this article, we discussed the history of utilitarianism, the principles of utilitarianism, the types of utilitarianism, and the criticisms of utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism is a type of philosophy and ethical theory that focuses on maximizing overall benefit and minimizing harm. It is important to understand utilitarianism and its implications for society as it can help us make more informed decisions that will benefit all involved. Utilitarianism has been subject to criticism in many areas, such as its emphasis on collective well-being over the individual, its lack of sensitivity to individual preferences and needs, and its difficulty in determining what constitutes a ‘good’ outcome. Despite these criticisms, utilitarianism remains an important ethical framework that can be used to make decisions with a focus on achieving the best possible outcome for all involved.

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Utilitarianism: Simply Explained

Elements and Types of Utilitarianism

Introduction.

As explained in Chapter 1: Introduction to Utilitarianism , the core idea of utilitarianism is that we should want to improve the well-being of everyone by as much as possible. Utilitarian theories share four elements: consequentialism, welfarism, impartiality, and aggregationism. Classical utilitarianism is distinctive because it accepts two additional elements: first, hedonism as a theory of well-being ; second, the total view of population ethics . There are several further important distinctions between utilitarian theories: we can distinguish scalar from maximizing or satisficing utilitarianism, expectational from objective utilitarianism, multi-level from single-level utilitarianism, and global from hybrid utilitarianism.

The Definition of Utilitarianism

Utilitarian theories share four defining elements:

Consequentialism

Impartiality, aggregationism.

Combining these, we can define utilitarianism as follows:

Utilitarianism is the view that one ought always to promote overall well-being.

Sometimes philosophers talk about “welfare” or “utility” rather than “well-being”, but they typically mean the same thing.

The Four Elements of Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism , which we define as follows:

Consequentialism is the view that one ought always to promote overall value.

Consequentialism claims that the value of the outcome is what ultimately matters, from a moral perspective. So, to evaluate whether to perform an action, we should look at its overall consequences, rather than any of its other features (such as the type of action that it is). For instance, when breaking a promise has bad consequences—as it usually does—consequentialists oppose it. However, breaking a promise is not considered wrong in itself. In exceptional cases, breaking a promise could be the morally best action available, such as when it’s necessary to save a life. The ends in this case justify the means.

Consequentialism’s rivals offer alternative accounts of what one morally ought to do that depend on features other than the value of the resulting outcome. For example, according to deontology , morality is about following a system of rules, like “Do Not Lie” or “Do Not Steal”. And according to virtue ethics , morality is fundamentally about having a virtuous character. Much of consequentialism’s appeal may stem from the conviction that making the world a better place is simply more important than any of these competing moral goals.

Even some who think that morality is fundamentally about following the right rules might appreciate a consequentialist account of which rules are the right ones to follow.

Direct and Indirect Consequentialism: Explaining The Difference between Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism

When offering a consequentialist account of rightness, a common distinction in the philosophical literature is between two views called direct consequentialism and indirect consequentialism .

According to the direct view, the rightness of an action (or rule, policy, etc.) depends only on its consequences. On this view, to determine the right action from among a set of feasible options, we should directly evaluate which option has the best consequences. Act utilitarianism (or act consequentialism more generally) directly assesses the moral rightness of actions.

According to indirect consequentialism, we should instead evaluate the moral status of an action indirectly , based on its relationship to something else (such as a rule), which is in turn assessed in terms of its consequences. The most famous indirect view is known as rule utilitarianism (or rule consequentialism more generally). According to rule utilitarianism, what makes an action right is that it conforms to the set of rules that would have the best utilitarian consequences if they were generally accepted or followed. Since an action’s morality depends on its conformity to a rule, rather than its own consequences, rule utilitarianism is a form of indirect consequentialism.

On our definition of consequentialism, only the direct view is a genuinely consequentialist position, and rule consequentialism, despite the name, is not a type of consequentialism. 1 As Brad Hooker, a prominent rule consequentialist, argues, rule consequentialism is not plausibly motivated by a consequentialist commitment to outcomes being as good as possible: the case for rule consequentialism is instead that it impartially justifies intuitively plausible moral rules. 2 This marks an important difference from foundationally consequentialist theories.

Though act utilitarianism assesses only actions (rather than rules) in terms of “rightness”, it nevertheless also recognizes the importance of having strong commitments to familiar moral rules. Rules such as “don’t lie” and “don’t kill” are regarded as useful guidelines that we should almost always follow in practice —precisely so that our actions better achieve good outcomes and avoid harm. For further discussion and clarification, see the section on “ multi-level utilitarianism ”, below.

Consequentialists differ in what they take to be the good to be promoted. Utilitarians endorse welfarism , which we define as follows:

Welfarism is the view that the value of an outcome is wholly determined by the well-being of the individuals in it. 3

Specifically, welfarism holds that positive well-being is the only intrinsic good, and negative well-being is the only intrinsic bad. Philosophers use the term “well-being” to refer to what’s good for a person , as opposed to what’s good per se , or “from the point of view of the Universe” (to use Sidgwick’s poetic phrase). So, for example, one might coherently think that the punishment of an evil person is good, and moreover it’s good precisely because that punishment is bad for him . But that would be to reject the kind of welfarism that utilitarianism accepts, on which positive well-being is always intrinsically good, and negative well-being is always intrinsically bad.

Different theories of well-being regard different things as the basic constituents of well-being. The three main theories are hedonism , desire theories and objective list theories . Chapter 4 explains these different theories of well-being in more detail.

While every plausible view recognizes that well-being is important, some philosophers reject welfarism by claiming that other things matter in addition. For example, egalitarians may hold that inequality is intrinsically bad, even when it benefits some and harms none. Others might hold that environmental and aesthetic value must be considered in addition to well-being. Welfarists claim that these other things matter only insofar as they contribute to someone’s well-being.

Impartiality and the Equal Consideration of Interests

Utilitarianism is committed to a conception of impartiality that builds in the equal consideration of interests :

Impartiality is the view that a given quantity of well-being is equally valuable no matter whose well-being it is.

As utilitarian philosopher Henry Sidgwick states: “the good of any one person is no more important from the point of view… of the universe than the good of any other”. 4 Utilitarians value the well-being of all individuals equally, regardless of their nationality, gender, where or when they live, or even their species. According to utilitarianism, in principle you should not even privilege the well-being of yourself or your family over the well-being of distant strangers (though there may be good practical reasons to do so). 5

Not all philosophers agree that impartiality is a core feature of morality. They might hold that we are allowed, or even required, to be partial towards a particular group, such as our friends and family. Or they might advance an alternative conception of “impartiality” that does not require the equal consideration of interests. For example, prioritarianism gives extra weight to the interests of the worst-off, whoever they might be.

The final common element of utilitarianism is aggregationism , which we define as follows:

Aggregationism is the view that the value of an outcome is given by the sum 6 value of the lives it contains. 7

When combined with welfarism and impartiality, this implies that we can meaningfully “add up” the well-being of different individuals, and use this total to determine which trade-offs are worth making. For example, utilitarianism claims that improving five lives by some amount is five times better than improving one life by the same amount.

Some philosophers deny any form of aggregationism. They may believe, for instance, that small benefits delivered to many people cannot outweigh large benefits to a few people. To illustrate this belief, suppose you face the choice between saving a given person’s life or preventing a large group of people from experiencing mild headaches. An anti-aggregationist might hold that saving the life is more morally important than preventing the headaches, regardless of the number of headaches prevented . Utilitarians would reason that if there are enough people whose headaches you can prevent, then the total well-being generated by preventing the headaches is greater than the total well-being of saving the life, so you should prevent the headaches. 8 The number of headaches we have to relieve for it to be better than saving a life might be, in practice, extremely high—but utilitarians, nonetheless, believe there is some number of headaches at which this trade-off should be made.

In practice, many individuals and policymakers appear to endorse these kinds of trade-offs. For example, allowing cars to drive fast on roads increases the number of people who die in accidents. Imposing extremely low speed limits would save lives at the cost of inconveniencing many drivers. Most people demonstrate an implicit commitment to aggregationism when they judge it worse to impose these many inconveniences for the sake of saving a few lives.

The Two Elements of Classical Utilitarianism

Above we have explained the four elements accepted by all utilitarian theories: consequentialism, welfarism, impartiality, and aggregationism. While this is useful for distinguishing utilitarian from non-utilitarian moral theories, there are also important distinctions between utilitarian theories. Depending on how a utilitarian theory is spelled out, it might have widely differing practical implications and may be more or less compelling.

The oldest and most prominent utilitarian theory is classical utilitarianism , which can be defined as follows:

Classical utilitarianism is the view that one ought always to promote the sum total of happiness minus suffering.

Classical utilitarianism can be distinguished from the wider utilitarian family of views because it accepts two additional elements: first, hedonism , the view that well-being consists only of conscious experiences; and second, the total view of population ethics, on which one outcome is better than another if and only if it contains a greater sum total of well-being, where well-being can be increased either by making existing people better off or by creating new people with good lives.

Theories of Well-Being: Hedonism

→ Main article: Theories of Well-Being

Classical utilitarianism accepts hedonism as a theory of well-being, which we define as follows:

Hedonism is the view that well-being consists in, and only in, the balance of positive minus negative conscious experiences.

Ethical hedonists believe that the only things good in themselves are the experiences of positive conscious states, such as enjoyment and pleasure; and the only things bad in themselves are the experiences of negative conscious states, such as misery and pain. Happiness and suffering are commonly used by philosophers as shorthand for the terms positive conscious experience and negative conscious experience respectively.

We discuss the arguments for and against hedonism—and its two major rivals, desire theories and objective list theories —in Chapter 4: Theories of Well-Being .

Population Ethics: The Total View

→ Main article: Population Ethics

Classical utilitarianism accepts a population ethical theory known as the total view , which holds that:

One outcome is better than another if and only if it contains greater total well-being.

The total view implies that we can improve the world in two ways: 9 either we can improve the quality of life of existing people, or we can increase the number of people living positive lives. 10 In practice, there are often trade-offs between making existing people happier and creating additional happy people. On a planet with limited resources, adding more people to an already large population may at some point diminish the quality of life of everyone else severely enough that total well-being decreases.

The total view’s foremost practical implication is giving great importance to ensuring the long-term flourishing of civilization. Since the total well-being enjoyed by all future people is potentially enormous, according to the total view, the mitigation of existential risks —which threaten to destroy this immense future value—is one of the principal moral issues facing humanity.

Alternatives to the total view in population ethics include the average view , variable value theories , critical level (and range) theories, and person-affecting views . We explain and discuss these theories in Chapter 5: Population Ethics .

Further Distinctions Among Utilitarian Theories

After selecting your preferred theory of well-being and population ethics view, you should also consider:

how (or whether) to construct a conception of rightness;
whether to focus on actual or expected consequences;
the role of simple heuristics, derived from utilitarianism, to guide our actions in everyday life; and
what forms of moral evaluation apply to rules, motives, character, and other objects of moral interest beyond actions.

Reconstructing Rightness: Maximizing, Satisficing, and Scalar Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is most often stated in its maximizing form: that, within any set of options, the action that produces the most well-being is right, and all other actions are wrong.

Though this is the most common statement of utilitarianism, 11 it may be misleading in some respects. Utilitarians agree that you ideally ought to choose whatever action would best promote overall well-being. That’s what you have the most moral reason to do. But they do not recommend blaming you every time you fall short of this ideal. 12 As a result, many utilitarians consider it misleading to take their claims about what ideally ought to be done as providing an account of moral “rightness” or “obligation” in the ordinary sense. 13

To further illustrate this, suppose that Sophie could save no-one, or save 999 people at great personal sacrifice, or save 1,000 people at even greater personal sacrifice. From a utilitarian perspective, the most important thing is that Sophie saves either the 999 people or the 1,000 people rather than saving no-one; the difference between Sophie’s saving 999 people and 1,000 people is comparatively small. However, on the maximizing form of utilitarianism, both saving no-one and saving the 999 people would simply be labeled as “wrong”. While we might well accept a maximizing account of what agents ideally ought to do, there are further moral claims to make in addition.

Satisficing utilitarianism instead holds that, within any set of options, an action is right if and only if it produces enough well-being. 14 This proposal has its own problems and has not yet found wide support. 15 In the case given in the previous paragraph, we still want to say there is good reason to save the 1,000 people over the 999 people; labeling both actions as right would risk ignoring the important moral difference between these two options. So while we may be drawn to a satisficing account of what agents are obliged to do in order to meet minimal moral standards, 16 this view, too, requires supplementation.

Instead, it’s more popular among leading utilitarians today to endorse a form of scalar utilitarianism , which may be defined as follows:

Scalar utilitarianism is the view that moral evaluation is a matter of degree: the more that an act would promote well-being, the more moral reason one has to perform that act. 17

On this view, there is no fundamental, sharp distinction between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ actions, just a continuous scale from morally better to worse. 18

Philosophers have traditionally conceived of maximizing, satisficing, and scalar utilitarianism as competing views. But more recently, one of the authors (Chappell) has argued that utilitarians could fruitfully accept all three, by constructing multiple different senses of ‘should’ or ‘right’. 19 On Chappell’s “deontic pluralism” view, (i) maximizers are correct to hold that Sophie ideally should save all 1,000 people; (ii) satisficers may be correct to hold that saving 999 is minimally acceptable in a way that saving no-one is not; and (iii) scalar utilitarians are correct to hold that it’s ultimately a matter of degree, and that the gain from saving 999 rather than zero dwarfs the gain from saving 1,000 rather than 999.

Expectational Utilitarianism Versus Objective Utilitarianism

Given our cognitive and epistemic limitations, we cannot foresee all the consequences of our actions. Many philosophers have held that what we ought to do depends on what we (should) believe at the time of action. The most prominent example of this kind of account is expectational utilitarianism . 20

Expectational utilitarianism is the view we should promote expected well-being.

Expectational utilitarianism states we should choose the actions with the highest expected value . 21 The expected value of an action is the sum of the value of each of the potential outcomes multiplied by the probability of that outcome occurring. This approach follows expected utility theory , the most widely-accepted theory of rational decision making under uncertainty. So, for example, according to expectational utilitarianism we should choose a 10% chance of saving 1,000 lives over a 50% chance of saving 150 lives, because the former option saves an expected 100 lives (= 10% x 1,000 lives) whereas the latter option saves an expected 75 lives (= 50% x 150 lives). This provides an account of rational choice from a moral point of view.

Objective utilitarianism , by contrast, takes the extent to which we ought to perform an action to depend on the well-being it would in fact produce. The contrast between the two views may be illustrated using a thought experiment:

The risky treatment: A patient has a chronic runny nose that will leave her, if untreated, with a mildly lower well-being for the rest of her life. The only treatment for her condition is very risky, with only a 1% chance of success. If successful, the treatment will cure her completely, but otherwise it will lead to her death. Her doctor gives her the treatment, it succeeds and she is cured.

The doctor’s action has—as a matter of pure chance and against overwhelming odds—led to the best outcome for the patient, and not treating the patient would have left her worse off. Thus, according to objective utilitarianism, the doctor has acted rightly. However, the action was wrong from the perspective of expectational utilitarianism. The expected value of giving the treatment, with its overwhelming odds of killing her, are much worse for the patient than not treating her at all. The doctor’s decision turned out to be immensely fortunate, but it was extremely reckless and irrational given their available information.

When there is a conflict in this way between which act would be actually best versus which would be expectably best, is there a fact of the matter as to which act is “really” right? Many philosophers are drawn to the view that this is a merely verbal dispute. We can talk about the actually-best option as being “objectively right”, and the expectably-best option as “subjectively right”, and each of these concepts might have a legitimate theoretical role. 22 For example, subjective rightness seems more apt to guide agents, since in real life we are often uncertain what consequences will actually result from our actions. Subjective rightness is also relevant to assessing the quality of an agent’s decision-making. (We think poorly of the reckless doctor, for example.) But we should presumably prefer that the actually-best outcome be realized, and so will be glad that the doctor did as they “objectively ought”, even if they acted subjectively wrongly. Objective rightness thus tracks what a fully informed, morally ideal spectator would want you to do .

On this understanding, objective and expectational utilitarianism aren’t truly rival views at all. Objective utilitarianism tells us which choices are objectively preferable, and expectational utilitarianism tells us how to make rational moral decisions under conditions of uncertainty. 23 Their respective claims are mutually compatible.

Multi-level Utilitarianism Versus Single-level Utilitarianism

In the literature on utilitarianism, a useful distinction is made between a criterion of rightness and a decision procedure . A criterion of rightness tells us what it takes for an action (or rule, policy, etc.) to be right or wrong. A decision procedure is something that we use when thinking about what to do. 24

Utilitarians believe that their moral theory is the correct criterion of rightness (at least in the sense of what “ideally ought” to be done, as discussed above). However, they almost universally discourage using utilitarianism as a decision procedure to guide our everyday actions. This would involve deliberately trying to promote aggregate well-being by constantly calculating the expected consequences of our day-to-day actions. But it would be absurd to figure out what breakfast cereal to buy at the grocery store by thinking through all the possible consequences of buying different cereal brands to determine which one best contributes to overall well-being. The decision is low stakes, and not worth spending a lot of time on.

The view that treats utilitarianism as both a criterion of rightness and a decision procedure is known as single-level utilitarianism . Its alternative is multi-level utilitarianism , which only takes utilitarianism to be a criterion of rightness, not a decision procedure. It is defined as follows:

Multi-level utilitarianism is the view that individuals should usually follow tried-and-tested rules of thumb, or heuristics , rather than trying to calculate which action will produce the most well-being.

According to multi-level utilitarianism we should, under most circumstances, follow a set of simple moral heuristics—do not lie, steal, kill etc.—expecting that this will lead to the best outcomes overall. Often, we should use the commonsense moral norms and laws of our society as rules of thumb to guide our actions. Following these norms and laws usually leads to good outcomes, because they are based on society’s experience of what promotes overall well-being. The fact that honesty, integrity, keeping promises, and sticking to the law generally have good consequences explains why in practice utilitarians value such things highly , and use them to guide their everyday actions. 25

In contrast, to our knowledge no one has ever defended single-level utilitarianism, including the classical utilitarians. 26 Deliberately calculating the expected consequences of our actions is error-prone and risks falling into decision paralysis.

Sometimes, philosophers claim that multi-level utilitarianism is incoherent. But this is not true. Consider the following metaphor provided by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong: The laws of physics govern the flight of a golf ball, but a golfer does not need to calculate physical forces while planning shots. 27 Similarly, multi-level utilitarians regard utilitarianism as governing the rightness of actions, but they do not need to calculate expected consequences to make decisions. To the extent that following the heuristics recommended by multi-level utilitarianism results in better outcomes, the theory succeeds.

A common objection to multi-level utilitarianism is that it is self-effacing . A theory is said to be (partially) self-effacing if it (sometimes) directs its adherents to follow a different theory. Multi-level utilitarianism often forbids using the utilitarian criterion when we make decisions, and instead recommends acting in accordance with non-utilitarian heuristics. However, there is nothing inconsistent about saying that your criterion of moral rightness comes apart from the decision procedure it recommends, and it does not mean that the theory fails.

The Difference Between Multi-Level Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism

Multi-level utilitarianism sounds similar to the position known as rule utilitarianism, which we discussed above, and it’s easy to confuse the two. Yet, the two theories are distinct and it’s important to understand how they differ.

Multi-level utilitarianism takes utilitarianism to be the criterion of moral rightness. This means it does not regard recommended heuristics as the ultimate ethical justification of any action, which is instead determined by the action’s tendency to increase well-being. In contrast, for rule utilitarianism, conformity to a set of rules is the criterion of moral rightness: the reason an action is right or wrong is that it does or does not conform to the right set of rules.

Insofar as you share the fundamental utilitarian concern with promoting well-being, and you simply worry that deliberate pursuit of this goal would prove counterproductive, this should lead you to accept multi-level utilitarianism rather than any kind of rule utilitarianism.

Global Utilitarianism and Hybrid Utilitarianism

Most discussions of utilitarianism revolve around act utilitarianism and its criterion of right action. But we can just as well consider the tendency of other things—like motives, rules, character traits, policies and social institutions—to promote well-being. Since utilitarianism is fundamentally concerned with promoting well-being, we should not merely want to perform those actions that promote well-being. We should also want the motives, rules, traits, policies, institutions, and so on, that promote well-being.

This aspect of utilitarianism has sometimes been overlooked, so those who seek to highlight its applicability to things besides just actions sometimes adopt the label “global utilitarianism” to emphasize this point: 28

Global utilitarianism is the view that the utilitarian standards of moral evaluation apply to anything of interest.

Global utilitarianism assesses the moral nature of, for example, a particular character trait, such as kindness or loyalty, based on the consequences that trait has for the well-being of others—just as act utilitarianism morally evaluates actions. This broad focus can help the view to explain or accommodate certain supposedly “non-consequentialist” intuitions. For instance, it captures the understanding that morality is not just about choosing the right acts but is also about following certain rules and developing a virtuous character.

All utilitarians should agree with this much. But there is a further question regarding whether this direct utilitarian evaluation is exhaustive of moral assessment, or whether there is a role for other (albeit less important) kinds of moral evaluation to be made in addition. For example, must utilitarians understand virtue directly as a matter of character traits that tend to promote well-being, 29 or could they appeal to a looser but more intuitive connection (such as representing a positive orientation towards the good)? 30

A challenge for pure global utilitarianism is that it fails to capture all of the moral evaluations that we intuitively want to be able to make. For example, imagine a world in which moral disapproval was reliably counterproductive: if you blamed someone for doing X, that would just make them stubbornly do X even more in future. Since we only want people to do more good acts, would it follow that only good acts, and not bad ones, were blame- worthy ?

Here it’s important to distinguish two claims. One is the direct utilitarian assessment that it would be good to blame people for doing good acts, and not for doing bad ones, since that would yield the best results (in the imagined scenario). But a second—distinct—claim is that only bad acts are truly blame- worthy in the sense of intrinsically meriting moral disapproval. 31 Importantly, these two claims are compatible. We may hold both that gratuitous torture (for example) warrants moral disapproval, and that it would be a bad idea to express such disapproval if doing so would just make things worse.

This argument may lead one to endorse a form of hybrid utilitarianism , which we define as follows:

Hybrid utilitarianism is the view that, while one ought always to promote overall well-being, the moral quality of an aim or intention can depend on factors other than whether it promotes overall well-being.

In particular, hybrid utilitarians may understand virtue and praise-worthiness as concerning whether the target individual intends good results, in contrast to global utilitarian evaluation of whether the target’s intentions produce good results. When the two come into conflict, we should prefer to achieve good results than to merely intend them—so in this sense the hybrid utilitarian agrees with much that the global utilitarian wants to say. Hybridists just hold that there is more to say in addition. 32 For example, if someone is unwittingly anti-reliable at achieving their goals (that is, they reliably achieve the opposite of what they intend, without realizing it), it would clearly be unfortunate were they to sincerely aim at promoting the general good, and we should stop them from having this aim if we can. But their good intentions may be genuinely virtuous and admirable nonetheless.

Purists may object that hybrid utilitarianism is not “really” a form of utilitarianism. And, indeed, it’s a hybrid view, combining utilitarian claims (about what matters and what ought to be done) with claims about virtue, praise- and blame-worthiness that go beyond direct utilitarian evaluation. But so long as these further claims do not conflict with any of the core utilitarian claims about what matters and what ought to be done, there would seem no barrier to combining both kinds of claims into a unified view. This may prove a relief for those otherwise drawn to utilitarianism, but who find pure global utilitarian claims about virtue and blameworthiness to be intuitively implausible or incomplete.

All ethical theories belonging to the utilitarian family share four defining characteristics: they are consequentialist, welfarist, impartial, and aggregationist. As a result, they assign supreme moral importance to promoting overall well-being.

Within this family, there are many variants of utilitarian theories. The most prominent of these is classical utilitarianism. This theory is distinguished by its acceptance of hedonism as a theory of well-being and the total view of population ethics.

There are several further distinctions between utilitarian theories: we can distinguish scalar from maximizing and satisficing utilitarianism, expectational from objective utilitarianism, multi-level from single-level utilitarianism, and hybrid from pure global utilitarianism. These distinctions can make a significant difference to how plausible one finds the resulting view, and how vulnerable it is to various objections .

The next chapter discusses arguments for utilitarianism, and for consequentialism more broadly.

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Resources and Further Reading

Julia Driver (2011). Consequentialism, New Problems of Philosophy . José Luis Bermúdez (ed.). Abingdon: Routledge.
Samuel Scheffler (1994). The Rejection of Consequentialism: A Philosophical Investigation of the Considerations Underlying Rival Moral Conceptions . Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (2015). Consequentialism . Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Welfarism & Theories of Well-Being

Roger Crisp (2017). Well-Being . The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
Nils Holtug (2003). Welfarism – The Very Idea . Utilitas . 15(2): 151–174.
Shelly Kagan (1992). The Limits of Well-being . Social Philosophy & Policy. 9(2): 169–189.
Robert Goodin (1988). What is so special about our fellow countrymen? Ethics , 98 (4): 663-686.
Troy Jollimore (2018). Impartiality . The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
John Broome (1991). Weighing Goods: Equality, Uncertainty, and Time . London: Wiley-Blackwell. Chapters 4 and 10.
Krister Bykvist (2010). Utilitarianism: A Guide for the Perplexed . London: Continuum. Chapter 5: Utilitarian Aggregation.
Alastair Norcross (1997). Comparing Harms: Headaches and Human Lives . Philosophy & Public Affairs . 26(2): 135–167.
Roger Crisp (2006). Hedonism Reconsidered . Philosophy and Phenomenological Research . 73(3): 619–645.
Fred Feldman (2004). Pleasure and the Good Life: Concerning the Nature, Varieties and Plausibility of Hedonism . Oxford University Press.
Ole Martin Moen (2016). An Argument for Hedonism . The Journal of Value Inquiry . 50: 267–281.
Andrew Moore (2019). Hedonism , The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Population Ethics

Gustaf Arrhenius, Jesper Ryberg, & Torbjörn Tännsjö (2017). The Repugnant Conclusion . The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
Gustaf Arrhenius (2000). Future generations: A challenge for moral theory . PhD Dissertation, Uppsala University.
Hilary Greaves (2017). Population Axiology . Philosophy Compass . 12(11).
Johan E. Gustafsson (2022). Our Intuitive Grasp of the Repugnant Conclusion . In Gustaf Arrhenius, Krister Bykvist, Tim Campbell, and Elizabeth Finneron-Burns (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Population Ethics . Oxford University Press.
Michael Huemer (2008). In Defence of Repugnance . Mind . 117(468): 899-933.
Derek Parfit (1984). Reasons and Persons . Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Maximizing, Satisficing and Scalar Utilitarianism

Ben Bradley (2006). Against Satisficing Consequentialism . Utilitas . 18(2): 97–108.
Richard Y. Chappell (2020). Deontic Pluralism and the Right Amount of Good . In Douglas W. Portmore (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism . Oxford University Press. pp. 498–512.
Richard Y. Chappell (2019). Willpower Satisficing . Noûs 53(2): 251–265.
Alastair Norcross (2020). Morality by Degrees: Reasons Without Demands . Oxford University Press.
Alastair Norcross (2006). The Scalar Approach to Utilitarianism . In Henry West (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Mill’s Utilitarianism . Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 217–32.
Neil Sinhababu (2018). Scalar consequentialism the right way . Philosophical Studies . 175: 3131–3144.
Roger Crisp (1997). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Mill on Utilitarianism . Routledge, pp. 99–101.
Peter A. Graham (2021). Subjective Versus Objective Moral Wrongness . Cambridge University Press.
Frank Jackson (1991). Decision-theoretic consequentialism and the nearest and dearest objection . Ethics , 101(3): 461–482.
Roger Crisp (1997). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Mill on Utilitarianism . Routledge, pp. 105–112.
Richard M. Hare (1981). Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point . Oxford University Press.
Peter Railton (1984). Alienation, consequentialism, and the demands of morality . Philosophy and Public Affairs . 13(2): 134–171.
Brian McElwee (2020). The Ambitions of Consequentialism . Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy . 17(2).
Richard Y. Chappell (2012). Fittingness: The Sole Normative Primitive . Philosophical Quarterly . 62(249): 684–704.
Richard Y. Chappell. Consequentialism: Core and Expansion , forthcoming in D. Copp, C. Rosati, and T. Rulli (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Normative Ethics . Oxford University Press.
Toby Ord (2009). Beyond Action: Applying Consequentialism to Decision Making and Motivation . DPhil Thesis, University of Oxford.
Philip Pettit & Michael Smith (2000). Global Consequentialism . In Hooker, B., Mason, E. & Miller, D. (eds.). Morality, Rules and Consequences: A Critical Reader . Edinburgh University Press.

Some other cases where labels can be misleading: herbal tea is not a type of tea; a plastic flower is not a type of flower; and the flying lemur is not a lemur and does not fly. ↩︎

For instance, Hooker writes: “The viability of this defense of rule-consequentialism against the incoherence objection may depend in part on what the argument for rule-consequentialism is supposed to be. The defense seems less viable if the argument for rule-consequentialism starts from a commitment to consequentialist assessment. For starting with such a commitment seems very close to starting from an overriding commitment to maximize the expected good. The defence against the incoherence objection seems far more secure, however, if the argument for rule-consequentialism is that this theory does better than any other moral theory at specifying an impartial justification for intuitively plausible moral rules.”

Hooker, B. (2016). Rule Consequentialism , In Zalta, E. N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . ↩︎

Assigning further value to (for instance, more equal) distributions of well-being goes beyond welfarism, by treating something other than well-being itself as intrinsically valuable. ↩︎

Sidgwick, H. (1874). The Methods of Ethics . Bennett, J. (ed.), p. 186. ↩︎

See The Special Obligations Objection for further discussion. ↩︎

In principle, other aggregation methods (like multiplication or something more complex) are conceivable. But we focus here on the additive form of aggregationism, since that is by far the most common view. ↩︎

This definition applies to a fixed-population setting, where one’s actions do not affect the number or identity of people. There are aggregationist theories that differ in how they deal with variable-population settings. This is a technical issue, relevant to the discussion of population ethics in Chapter 5. ↩︎

Derek Parfit further argues that anti-aggregative principles implausibly endorse choices that, when iterated sufficiently many times across the population, would make everyone worse off.

Parfit, D. (2003). Justifiability to each person . Ratio , 16(4): 368–390. ↩︎

Technically, a third possibility would be to reduce the number of negative lives. Indeed, many utilitarians support (voluntary) euthanasia, based on the recognition that a life of suffering may be worse than no life at all.

See, e.g., Singer, P. (2011). Chapter 7: Taking Life: Humans, Practical Ethics , 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press. ↩︎

The notion of a positive life, which is crucial for the total view, only makes sense relative to a zero point on the well-being scale. This zero point is the threshold above which life becomes “worth living”. A “neutral life”, at well-being level 0, is neither “worth living” nor “not worth living”. This may be either a life with no value or disvalue, or a life with exactly as much value as disvalue.

For discussion of the subtleties surrounding the concept of a life “worth living”, see Broome, J. (2004). Weighing Lives . Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 66–68. ↩︎

But note that it does not straightforwardly match what Bentham and Mill meant by utilitarianism. For example, Bentham said that actions should be evaluated “according to the tendency” by which they increase or decrease well-being. Similarly, Mill argued that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness”.

Bentham, J. (1789). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation . Bennett, J. (ed.), p. 7.

Mill, J. S. (1863). Utilitarianism . Bennett, J. (ed.), p. 5. ↩︎

Blame can be thought of as either an attitude (of moral disapproval) or an action (expressing such disapproval). Blaming actions are, for utilitarians, like any other action in that they should only be performed if they serve to promote well-being. Excessive blame would likely have bad consequences, because it discourages people from even trying. Instead, we should usually praise people who take steps in the right direction. On the moral assessment of attitudes, see the discussion of global vs hybrid utilitarianism below. ↩︎

Railton, P. (1988). How Thinking about Character and Utilitarianism Might Lead to Rethinking the Character of Utilitarianism . Midwest Studies in Philosophy 13 (1): 398-416, p.407.

Norcross, A. (2020). Morality by Degrees: Reasons Without Demands . Oxford University Press. ↩︎

For a discussion of this view, see Slote, M. & Pettit, P. (1984). Satisficing Consequentialism . Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , Supplementary Volumes. 58: 139–163 & 165–176. ↩︎

In particular, traditional satisficing accounts struggle to offer a non-arbitrary specification of the threshold for doing “enough” good, and are vulnerable to the objection that they permit the gratuitous prevention of goodness above this threshold. Both objections are addressed in Chappell, R.Y. (2019). Willpower Satisficing . Noûs 53(2): 251–265. ↩︎

See, e.g., Chappell, R.Y. (2020). Deontic Pluralism and the Right Amount of Good . In Douglas W. Portmore (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism . Oxford University Press. pp. 498–512. ↩︎

Sinhababu (2018) advances a form of scalar consequentialism that takes right and wrong to themselves be matters of degree, but the boundary point between the two is determined by conversational context rather than anything morally fundamental (or indeed genuinely significant in any way). As a result, this seems to be a merely verbal variant on the definition that we use here.

Sinhababu, N. (2018). Scalar Consequentialism the Right Way . Philosophical Studies . 175: 3131–3144. ↩︎

Chappell, R.Y. (2020). Deontic Pluralism and the Right Amount of Good . In Douglas W. Portmore (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism . Oxford University Press. pp. 498-512. ↩︎

Jackson, F. (1991). Decision-theoretic consequentialism and the nearest and dearest objection . Ethics , 101(3): 461–482. ↩︎

In line with the above explanation of welfarism, utilitarians of any type understand “value” in terms of well-being. ↩︎

Compare the analogous distinction between what is prudentially rational versus what is objectively best for you. Obviously, both of these normative concepts have a role to play in philosophical reflections about the perspective of self-interest. There’s no inherent barrier to using the term “ought” in relation to either normative role, subjective or objective, so long as one is clear about which meaning is intended. ↩︎

These are both genuine normative properties. We can ask which option has the normative property of being what a fully informed, morally ideal spectator would want the agent to do . And we can ask which option has the normative property of being instrumentally rational, relative to the correct moral goals, given the evidence available to the agent . Someone who thinks there is a real dispute between the two must think that there is some third normative property, of being what you really ought to do , that might coincide with just one of the above two properties. If we doubt that there is any such third property, then there is nothing more to dispute. We just need to be clear about which of the above two properties we mean to pick out with our “ought” talk. ↩︎

Bales, R. E. (1971). Act-Utilitarianism: Account of Right-Making Characteristics or Decision-Making Procedure? American Philosophical Quarterly . 8(3): 257–265.

For a discussion of the multi-level view in the context of Mill’s Utilitarianism , see Crisp, R. (1997). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Mill on Utilitarianism . Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 105–112. ↩︎

Hare, R. M. (1981). Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Railton, P. (1984). Alienation, consequentialism, and the demands of morality . Philosophy and Public Affairs . 13(2): 134–171. ↩︎

Jeremy Bentham rejected single-level utilitarianism, writing that “it is not to be expected that this process [of calculating expected consequences] should be strictly pursued previously to every moral judgment.”

Bentham, J. (1789). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation . Bennett, J. (ed.), p. 23.

Henry Sidgwick concurs, writing that “the end that gives the criterion of rightness needn’t always be the end that we consciously aim at; and if experience shows that general happiness will be better achieved if men frequently act from motives other than pure universal philanthropy, those other motives are preferable on utilitarian principles”.

Sidgwick, H. (1874). The Methods of Ethics . Bennett, J. (ed.), p. 201. ↩︎

Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (2019). Consequentialism , The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Zalta, E. N. (ed.). ↩︎

Advocates of global consequentialism have framed it as marking a departure from traditional act consequentialism, but there has been subsequent dispute over this claim. For advocacy of global consequentialism as a distinct view, see:

Pettit, P. & Smith, M. (2000). Global Consequentialism , in Brad Hooker, Elinor Mason & Dale Miller (eds.), Morality, Rules and Consequences: A Critical Reader . Edinburgh University Press.

Ord, T. (2009). Beyond Action: Applying Consequentialism to Decision Making and Motivation . DPhil Thesis, University of Oxford.

For criticism, see:

McElwee, B. (2020). The Ambitions of Consequentialism . Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy . 17(2).

Chappell, R. Y. (2012). Fittingness: The Sole Normative Primitive . Philosophical Quarterly . 62(249): 684–704.

The latter argues that Global Consequentialism is best understood as a merely verbal variant of Act Consequentialism. ↩︎

Driver, J. (2001). Chapter Four: A Consequentialist Theory of Virtue. Uneasy Virtue . Cambridge University Press, 63–83. ↩︎

Hurka, T. (2001). Virtue, Vice, and Value . Oxford University Press. ↩︎

This mirrors Parfit’s distinction between ‘state-given’ vs ‘object-given’ reasons. See Parfit, D. (2011) On What Matters , vol 1. Oxford University Press, p. 50. ↩︎

For further defense of this view, see Chappell, R.Y. Consequentialism: Core and Expansion, forthcoming in D. Copp, C. Rosati, and T. Rulli (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Normative Ethics . ↩︎

Utilitarianism Theory Essay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Principles of Utilitarianism
Machiavelli and a Notion of Virtue as an Innovation
A Critique of Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism Critique From Kantian Perspective
Moral Relativism and Moral Universalism
Ethics in Philosophy: Discussing Theories, Evaluating Key Concepts. In Search for the Truth
Ethics is not Based on Religion
Euthyphro: Concept of Holiness and Piety
Humanity Theories: Utilitarianism
Famine, Affluence, and Morality
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

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Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham, jurist and political reformer, is the philosopher whose name is most closely associated with the foundational era of the modern utilitarian tradition. Earlier moralists had enunciated several of the core ideas and characteristic terminology of utilitarian philosophy, most notably John Gay, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Claude-Adrien Helvétius and Cesare Beccaria, but it was Bentham who rendered the theory in its recognisably secular and systematic form and made it a critical tool of moral and legal philosophy and political and social improvement. In 1776, he first announced himself to the world as a proponent of utility as the guiding principle of conduct and law in A Fragment on Government . In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (printed 1780, published 1789), as a preliminary to developing a theory of penal law he detailed the basic elements of classical utilitarian theory. The penal code was to be the first in a collection of codes that would constitute the utilitarian pannomion , a complete body of law based on the utility principle, the development of which was to engage Bentham in a lifetime’s work and was to include civil, procedural, and constitutional law. As a by-product, and in the interstices between the sub-codes of this vast legislative edifice, Bentham’s writings ranged across ethics, ontology, logic, political economy, judicial administration, poor law reform, prison reform, punishment, policing, international law, education, religious beliefs and institutions, democratic theory, government, and administration. In all these areas he made major contributions that continue to feature in discussions of utilitarianism, notably its moral, legal, economic and political forms. Upon this rests Bentham’s reputation as one of the great thinkers in modern philosophy.

1. Life and Writings

2. philosophical foundations, 3.1 interests, 3.2 felicific calculus, 3.3 diminishing marginal utility, 4.1 disappointment-prevention principle, 4.2 greatest happiness principle, 4.3 universal interest, 5. subordinate ends, principles and maxims, 6. civil law and political economy, 7. penal law and punishment, 8. panopticon, 9.1 securities against misrule, 9.2 sovereignty, 9.3 public opinion tribunal, 10. influence, 11. critics and commentators, primary sources, secondary sources, other internet resources, related entries.

Jeremy Bentham was born on 15 February 1748 and died on 6 June 1832 in London. He was the elder son of an attorney, Jeremiah Bentham (1712–92) and his first wife, Alicia Whitehorn (d. 1759), and brother to Samuel (1757–1831), a naval architect and diplomat. Bentham’s later interest in educational reform was rooted in his unhappy experiences at Westminster School (1755–60) and Queen’s College, Oxford (BA 1763, MA 1766). He described Westminster as “a wretched place for instruction” (1838–43, X, 30), while his three years at Queen’s, which he entered at the age of twelve, were no more stimulating. He viewed the Oxbridge colleges as seats of privilege, prejudice and idleness. His Oxford experience left him with a deep distrust of oaths and sparked a general antipathy toward the Anglican establishment (2011, 35–40). In the early 1770s, he jotted down notes for a critical work on “Subscriptions [to articles of faith]” (UC v, 1–32; xcvi, 263–341), and returned to the same theme in the controversial tract Swear Not at All (1817).

Following Oxford Bentham attended the Court of King’s Bench, Westminster Hall as part of his preparation for a law career. There he heard cases argued before Lord Mansfield, including the proceedings against the radical journalist and politician John Wilkes. He returned briefly to Oxford in 1763–64 to attend lectures given by William Blackstone, the first Vinerian Professor of English Law, which were published in four celebrated volumes as Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69). Bentham was not impressed, detecting glaring fallacies in Blackstone’s natural law reasoning. In the years following other aspects of Blackstone’s theory received his critical attention, notably his defence of England’s “mixed and balanced” government and English common law. Thereafter Blackstone was associated in Bentham’s mind with the “every-thing-as-it-should-be” school of legal and political apologetics.

Bentham was called to the Bar in 1769, but his legal career lasted only one brief. In that year he discovered the utility principle and related ideas in the writings of Hume, Helvétius and Beccaria and chose instead a career dedicated to analytic jurisprudence, law reform, and social and political improvement. Unaware of Hutcheson’s version of the utilitarian formula in An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1729), Bentham was occasionally deceived by faulty memory into thinking he had discovered it in Priestley’s Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768). More plausible, however, are his claims to have found it in Beccaria’s Dei Delitti e delle Pene (1764), where the Italian law reformer announced that the only valid criterion for evaluating the merits of a law is “la messima felicità divisa nel maggior numero”—the greatest happiness of the greatest number. In reading Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40)—which declared that all social inquiry should be based on the “experimental Method of Reasoning”—Bentham found virtue equated with utility, at which he “felt as if scales had fallen from my eyes” (1776 [1977, 440n]). Having borrowed the nomenclature of utility from Hume, Bentham then turned to De l ’ esprit (1758), in which Helvétius delineated the potential for utility to act as a guide to human conduct by making a connection “between the idea attached to the word … ‘happiness’ … and the ideas attached to the words ‘pleasure’ and ‘pain’”. This meant, as he recalled in the “Article on Utilitarianism” (1829), that “attached to the words ‘utility’ and ‘principle of utility’ were now ideas in abundance”, from which “a commencement was made of the application of the principle of utility to practical uses” (1983a, 290).

Bentham’s writings present distinct challenges for the historian of ideas: the dates of publication are not always consistent with the time of composition, in some instances with many intervening years; a good number were published posthumously, and some have still to appear in authoritative editions; many were produced, edited or translated by other hands from original manuscripts with little authorial control.

Bentham launched his career as a legal theorist in 1776 with the anonymously published A Fragment on Government . This slim volume is an offshoot of a larger critique of Blackstone that was not published until the twentieth century, and is now known as A Comment on the Commentaries . In the Fragment Bentham stated the “fundamental axiom” that “it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong”, and “the obligation to minister to general happiness, was an obligation paramount to and inclusive of every other” (1776 [1977, 393, 440n]). In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation ( IPML ), his major work of this early period, he described utility as “that property in any object” which “tends to produce benefit, advantage, good or happiness” (all commensurate terms in Bentham’s moral vocabulary), and the utility principle as “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” (1789 [1970, 12]). Bentham would give these basic postulates exposition, argumentative support, and further refinement in the decades following, but it was the operationalization of the utility principle that absorbed most of his energy and time during a long and highly productive working life.

In 1781, Bentham—who delighted in inventing new terminology to describe philosophical concepts—coined the name “utilitarian” in recording a dream he had while a guest at the country estate of his patron, the Whig politician William Petty, 2 nd Earl of Shelburne (1737–1805). In this dream he imagined himself “a founder of a sect; of course a personage of great sanctity and importance. It was called the sect of the utilitarians ” (text of the dream in Crimmins 1990, 314). It was through Shelburne that he became acquainted with the Genevan exile Étienne Dumont (1759–1829), who was to play a critical role in making Bentham’s name and philosophy known in continental Europe and elsewhere through the publication of a number of translations and redactions of his early writings (1829–30; see Blamires 2008). The most important of these were the three volumes of Traités de législation civil et pénale (1802) assembled from early manuscript drafts, parts of IPML and other works. The first two volumes on civil and penal law were later re-translated into English by the American utilitarian Richard Hildreth and published as The Theory of Legislation (1840 [1864]), a text that remained at the centre of utilitarian studies in the English-speaking world through to the middle of the twentieth century.

In 1786–87 Bentham visited Russia, where his brother Samuel was in the pay of Prince Potemkin, the favourite of Empress Catherine. There he wrote A Defence of Usury (1787), his first contribution to economic affairs, in which he rejected Adam Smith’s defence of a legal maximum for interest rates. Bentham argued that Smith’s position was inconsistent with his general advocacy of freedom of trade and would restrict economic growth and national prosperity by deterring investment and innovation. The volume later received high praise from J.S. Mill, who thought it “the best extant writing on the subject” (1963–91, II, 923). It received its widest audience in America, where it was reprinted on many occasions and frequently cited in the debates over the usury laws (Crimmins 2022, 53–54, 75, 209–11). It was in Russia, too, that Bentham took an idea of Samuel’s and developed it into the “panopticon”, the full dimensions of which he explained in Panopticon; Or, The Inspection House (1791). The panopticon is a building of circular design intended for any institutional arrangement where the “inmates” required constant supervision—such as hospitals, schools, workhouses and poor houses—but the panopticon became most well-known as a prison for “grinding rogues honest and idle men industrious” (1838–43, IV, 342). Appalled by the inefficiency and inhumane conditions in Britain’s penal regime, Bentham developed the idea of the panopticon penitentiary as a substitute penal system, in which convicted criminals would be subject to a disciplinary regime based on the maxim (penned in relation to his poor law writings of 1797, but not then published) that “the more strictly we are watched, the better we behave” (2001, 277). In achieving the ends of punishment it represented a significant advance on the dilapidated condition of England’s gaols, the rat-infested hulks anchored in the Thames and the practice of transporting convicts into penal servitude in the colonies. In the years following, Bentham used this critique as a platform to expand upon his general disdain for colonies, first enunciated in Emancipate Your Colonies! in 1793 (2002, 289–313), to argue for a free, self-governing community of settlers in southern Australia in “Colonization Company Proposal” (1831 [2022]; see also Causer, Finn and Schofield 2022).

Upon his return from Russia, Bentham was encouraged by Shelburne to turn his attentions to foreign policy and international law. The term “international” was coined by Bentham. He drafted short papers on several topics that were later published under the general title Principles of International Law . This work included, as was then the philosophical vogue, “A Plan for Perpetual Peace” and, uniquely, a proposal for an international court of arbitration (1838–43, II, 535–71). Sympathetic to both Russia and France at this time, in 1789 he issued a critique of Prime Minister William Pitt’s war-like stance towards these countries in a series of letters in the Public Advertiser under the nom-de-plume “Anti-Machiavel” (1838–43, X, 201–11).

The political upheaval in France provided Bentham with an opportunity to put certain of his ideas into practice and also the context in which he first developed the utilitarian logic of democracy based on the identification of interests between the ruler and the ruled. He nevertheless stopped short of publicly advocating parliamentary reform in Britain and at this stage was very far from the republicanism he adopted in later life (Dinwiddy 1975; Crimmins 1994; Schofield 2006). With Dumont’s assistance, in 1788 Bentham began sending pamphlets of suggestions to the Comte de Mirabeau. In 1790 he wrote a Draught of a New Plan for the Organisation of a Judicial Establishment in France which, together with Dumont’s translation of parts of Panopticon and parts of An Essay on Political Tactics dealing with the organisation of legislative proceedings, was also placed before the French National Assembly. The bloody excesses of the Terror reinforced his criticism of the abstract and slippery nature of natural and imprescriptible rights, which he famously dismissed as “nonsense on stilts” (1795 [2002, 330])—a disposition formed while listening to Blackstone’s lectures and which shaped his contribution to John Lind’s An Answer to the Declaration [of Independence] of the American Congress (1776). Nevertheless, Bentham’s efforts to stimulate reform in France were recognised in the granting of honorary citizenship in September 1792.

When war broke out between England and revolutionary France, Pitt’s security measures made it precarious to engage in reform activities at home, but Bentham’s caution also stemmed from the need to curry favour in official circles for the panopticon penitentiary (Semple 1993, 187–90). The building of a new prison in London had been authorised by the Penitentiary Act 1794 and Bentham’s plan initially received the support of the Pitt administration. Over the years he devoted considerable sums of his own money to the project, and published further material comparing the merits of the panopticon with the disadvantages of the transportation system (2022). In 1802, however, he admitted defeat, and in 1812 the government officially closed the books on the whole sorry affair, paying Bentham £23,000 in compensation.

In the intervening years Bentham turned his attentions to poor law reform, the reform of policing, economic and financial questions, judicial administration and the rules of evidence—the last of these being a product of his critique of the archaisms and confusions of common law and the arbitrary character of “judge-made law” (Postema 1989).

The essays on poor law reform from 1796–98 (2001, 2010a) were partly stimulated by rising food prices and the resultant debate about the treatment of the poor. The essays contained a plan for a system of “industry houses” run by a joint-stock company (named the National Charity Company) to house the indigent, provide them with employment, and provide welfare services for the working poor, the short-term unemployed and disabled or unwell (Bahmueller 1981). On police reform, Bentham was in advance of the age in advocating preventive policing and evidence-based crime analysis (see the essays in Jacques and Schofield 2021). Bentham’s writings on political economy include A Manual of Political Economy (1790–95), A Protest Against Law Taxes (1795), Supply without Burthen; or Escheat Vice Taxation (1795), “Circulating Annuities” (1799–1800), “Paper Mischief” (1800–1), The True Alarm (1801), Institute of Political Economy (1800–4), and Defence of a Maximum (1801). Few of these were published during Bentham’s lifetime, and some only became known in the mid-twentieth century (Stark 1952–54), which explains their relative neglect compared to the attention given the writings of other political economists of the period. New editions are now in progress (two volumes so far, 2016a, 2019, with more to come) which will provide abundant material for a reassessment of Bentham’s contributions to this field. The writings on monetary matters, in particular, contain original and innovative solutions to practical financial and currency difficulties. While many of the economic policies recommended and defended in these writings derive from Bentham’s reading of Adam Smith—with the notable exception of the prescriptions contained in Defence of a Maximum —they are also expressly based on the subordinate ends of his theory of civil law (Kelly 1989), as were his ideas for poor law reform (Quinn 2008).

After ruminating on the subject for several years, Bentham took up the reform of judicial administration in Scotch Reform (1808), while the voluminous manuscripts on evidence from this time were later edited and published by J.S. Mill as Rationale of Judicial Evidence (1827). In the latter, Bentham laid down practical guidelines on the forms and admissibility of evidence, favouring “natural” over “technical” procedures as most apt to produce truth in court proceedings and to rid the system of vexation, expense, and delay, which he attributed to the vested interest of lawyers in maintaining an arrangement designed to maximize legal fees. In courts open to the public, judges were to be charged with following basic principles that would allow for the most complete and accurate testimony available (Twining 1985, 42, 70; Schofield 2006, 119–31; Resnick 2011). Adjudication in Bentham’s reformed courts would require the strict application of the utilitarian codes of law. The overriding consideration was the subordination of the judge to the lawmaker, though the judge may (if empowered) suspend the execution of the law where utility demanded, pending a final decision by the legislature (Dinwiddy 1989a).

Despite these wide and varied interests, the government’s betrayal over the panopticon continued to anger Bentham for many years, generating a deep-seated scepticism of the motives of those in positions of power and influence. Added to his own first-hand experience of the maneuvers of aristocratic landowners determined to prevent the erection of a panopticon in the vicinity of their London estates, there was also a suggestion that the King himself, outraged by Bentham’s “Anti-Machiavel” letters and disturbed by rumours of his Jacobinism, may have directly intervened to thwart the project (1830–31 [1838–43, XI, 96–105]). In Bentham’s mind such actions were representative of the “sinister interests” typically ranged against beneficial schemes of reform. This insight served to draw Bentham into an open engagement with parliamentary reform. A further catalyst came from his association with James Mill, whom he met in late 1808, and who for many years thereafter acted as his philosophical and political aide-de-camp .

With Mill’s encouragement, Bentham returned to his earlier manuscripts on political reform and refined and significantly expanded his critique to encompass the forms of “influence” at work in British political institutions. The drafts he wrote in 1809–10 provided the outlines for his first public statement in support of representative democracy in Plan of Parliamentary Reform in the Form of a Catechism with Reasons for Each Article (1817). Based on the arithmetic of interests, aimed at limiting the sinister interests of those in positions of power while promoting the interests of those without power, Bentham advocated a comprehensive set of reforms. These included: the elimination of royal patronage, a substantial extension of the franchise, annual elections by secret ballot, the election of intellectually qualified and independent members of parliament with a system of fines to ensure regular attendance, and the accurate and regular publication of parliamentary debates. Without these reforms Bentham believed Britain risked revolution. From this point on, he became widely recognised as the foremost philosophical voice of political radicalism.

Other political writings from this time include Defence of Economy against the Right Honourable Edmund Burke and Defence of Economy against the Right Honourable George Rose , both written in 1810 but not published until 1817 (1993, 39–155). These essays attacked waste and corruption in government and were later reissued, with other previously published essays, in Official Aptitude Maximized, Expense Minimized (1830), the overall aim of which was to optimize the competence of public servants while reducing government expenditure. In 1824, Bentham’s Book of Fallacies appeared, in which he employed a humorous vein of barbs to lay bare the fallacious reasoning frequently used to bolster sinister interests and stymie proposals for reform (2015).

Bentham’s position on female suffrage at this time was nuanced (Boralevi 1984, Ch.2): he objected to the exclusion of women from the vote in James Mill’s 1820 essay “On Government” (UC xxxiv, 303), an exclusion he had long ago condemned as founded on nothing but prejudice (2002, 247; 1838–43, III, 463), Nevertheless, in public he argued that women were to be excluded until such time as universal male suffrage had been achieved (1838–43, IX, 108).

Closely related to Bentham’s critique of the political establishment were his substantial criticisms of religious institutions, practices and beliefs in Church–of–Englandism and its Catechism Examined (1818), An Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind (1822), and Not Paul, but Jesus (1823). In these works he brought to bear with telling scepticism his reasoning on logic, language and ontology from the same period (1838–43, VIII, 193–338; Crimmins 1990). At about the same time, he also wrote at length on private ethics in Deontology , published posthumously in two volumes in 1834. Education was another topic that occupied Bentham in these years. In Church–of–Englandism he was highly critical of the education offered in the schools run by the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church. When Mill, Francis Place and others became involved in a scheme to establish a non-sectarian school in London, Bentham busied himself with ideas for its curriculum, stressing science and vocational subjects over the classics, the first part of which (printed in 1815) appeared in 1816 in Chrestomathia (meaning “conducive to useful learning”) and a second part in 1817 (Itzkin 1978). While the Chrestomathic school was never built, in 1826 the same reformers, with support from a number of Evangelicals and Nonconformists, formed the nucleus of a group that succeeded in founding University College London, England’s first secular university. An important supplement to Bentham’s educational theorizing is contained in a long appendix to the Chrestomathia on logic and classification, later translated and edited by his nephew George Bentham and published as Essai sur la nomenclature et la classification des principles branches d’art-et-science (1823).

In his final years Bentham revisited aspects of his utilitarian philosophy and sought to define his place in the utilitarian tradition in the “Article on Utilitarianism”. However, more often than not his thoughts were focused on constitutional questions, including the administrative structures and the formal and informal arrangements of a viable representative democracy—in short, the ways and means of limiting and controlling political authority or, as Bentham termed them, “securities against misrule”. Codification Proposal, Addressed … to all Nations Professing Liberal Opinions (1822) was intended to advertise his credentials as a codifier of law to politicians and statesmen around the world, first by setting down the utilitarian principles of an “all-comprehensive” code, and second by providing testimonials to his aptitude for the task of codification (1998, 241–384; see also Lieberman 2011). The testimonials came from far and wide in the years 1814–22, in the form of extracts from speeches, requests for information, and letters of support, from the likes of Francis Burdett and Henry Brougham in England, government ministers and representatives of the Cortes in Spain and Portugal, Italian and French liberals, state governors and other political representatives in the “Anglo-American States”, the Russian Emperor Alexander, and the influential Polish statesman Prince Czartoriski. In the years following, Bentham produced draft upon draft of elements of the Constitutional Code , only the first of three volumes of which was published during his lifetime. In these writings he unequivocally pinned his colours to the republican cause, but also demonstrated an acute sense of the growing importance of the administrative functions of the modern state (Rosenblum 1978; Hume 1981; Rosen 1983).

In old age Bentham liked to style himself “the hermit of Queen’s Square Place” (the location of his home in London), but he was anything but a hermit. In December 1823 he provided funds to start the Westminster Review , a periodical dedicated to radical views. He also assumed a leadership role in the movement for law reform and political reform, maintained regular contact with similarly inclined reformers, publishers and intellectuals at home and abroad, and was surrounded by disciples who acted as secretaries, collaborators, and editorial assistants. The Mills, Place, George Grote, Richard Smith, Peregrine Bingham, Thomas Southwood Smith, Edwin Chadwick, and John Bowring all worked with Bentham in this way. Together with others, such as Thomas Perronet Thompson, Charles Buller, John Roebuck and Joseph Hume, these later came to be known as the “philosophic radicals” (a coinage of J.S. Mill’s), though in reality the group was far less cohesive than is sometimes thought (Thomas 1979). Bentham had a telling influence on the Irish socialist utilitarian William Thompson and for a time he maintained close ties with the Irish “Liberator” Daniel O’Connell, whom he sought to bind, with limited success, to the radical cause in parliament (Crimmins 2013, Ch.7). Burdett and Brougham were also treasured acquaintances, though this did not prevent Bentham from expressing scepticism about the dedication to radical reform of the former, or from criticising the latter’s proposals to reform the Chancery Court in Lord Brougham Displayed (1832 [1838–43, V, 549–612).

Bentham never married, and died in the company of friends on the eve of the signing of the Great Reform Act. Convinced that even the dead should serve a utilitarian purpose, in his last will he directed that his body be publicly “anatomised” in order to publicize the benefits of donating bodies for medical research (Richardson 1986). The sanitary reformer and physician Thomas Southwood Smith (1832) delivered the eulogy over Bentham’s dissected remains. In preparation for this final act, in an unpublished pamphlet written in the year before his death, Auto-Icon; or Farther Uses of the Dead to the Living (printed 1842, but not then published), he proposed the display of auto-iconized bodies and heads as a means to public instruction. He requested that his own mummified head and skeleton, dressed in his habitual garments, be displayed, and it can still be viewed today at University College London. Bentham’s (admittedly eccentric and somewhat humorous) ideas about “auto-iconism” can also be understood as an attempt to find a secular substitute for the rituals and practices of conventional religion.

Preliminary to the analysis of existing legal systems and the construction of the utilitarian pannomion , in 1776 Bentham began drafting “Preparatory Principles” (of censorial jurisprudence or what the law ought to be). In these over 600 pages of manuscript, now published in authoritative form in the Collected Works (2016b), he offered a series of disquisitions on the definitions, distinctions, axioms, and aphorisms intended as tools for demystifying the “fictions” of English law and legal practice, fictions which he found uncritically reiterated in Blackstone’s Commentaries . In these and other early writings we see Bentham striving to emulate in the moral world the great advances made in physical science. In the process he consciously allied himself with the more progressive elements of the Enlightenment and made plain the intellectual influences that shaped his thought, notably Bacon, Locke, Hume, and the French philosophes .

Influenced by the empiricism of Bacon and Locke, Bentham held that all knowledge is derived from sensation: the intellect has no material to work with apart from that obtained by the senses. In the second half of the 17 th century, the Royal Society had emphasized the role of experiment and empiricist epistemology in the development of the natural sciences. Suitably impressed by the progress made in this department of knowledge, Bentham carried over into moral science the basic principle that people can only know, in any certain or scientific sense of that term, that which can be observed and verified. He argued that legal science ought to be built on the same immovable basis of sensation and experience as that of medicine, declaring “what the physician is to the natural body, the legislator is to the political: legislation is the art of medicine exercised upon a grand scale” (UC xxxii, 168).

This was the core of the “experimental method” for Bentham; it was an approach implicitly associated in his mind with a materialist ontology and a representational theory of meaning. He rejected all forms of idealism in philosophy and insisted that in principle all matter is quantifiable in mathematical terms, and this extends to the pains and pleasures that we experience—the ultimate phenomena to which all human activity (and social concepts, such as rights and duty) could be reduced and explained.

In Bentham’s theory of language general terms have no corresponding reality: words, ideas and propositions must represent or describe “real entities”, which may be either “perceptions” or “substances” (UC lxix, 62–63), otherwise they are “fictitious entities”. This was a distinction Bentham learnt from d’Alembert (1838–43, III, 286), though he turned it to a more radical ontological purpose. He defined a fictitious entity as “a mere nothing” and “no proposition by which any property is ascribed to it can therefore be in itself and of itself a true one, nor therefore an instructive one”. If there is any truth associated with a fictitious entity it “can not belong to it in any other character than that of the intended and supposed equivalent of … some proposition having for its subject some real entity” (1838–43, VIII, 246). The technique of “paraphrasis” was the key instrument Bentham employed to demystify fictitious entities. Some fictitious entities are necessary for human discourse, but their meaning can only be revealed through their connection to real entities (1977, 495n; 2010b, 287–88, 317–18); if a fictitious entity proves impervious to this paraphrastic technique it is shown to be a meaningless abstraction unrelated to demonstrable reality. Concepts such as “obligation” and “ interests”, for example, can be rendered meaningful in terms of the perceptible pains and pleasures experienced and anticipated by specific individuals. Concepts like “community” derive their meaning from the sum of individuals that compose an actual community, and the happiness of a community is nothing but the aggregate happiness of the individuals that constitute the community in question. On the other hand, theological propositions, having no correlation with material reality, deal not with the facts of ordinary experience but with a supposed “reality” that transcends the physical world, and just as the language of opinion ought to have no place in the discourse of physical science, so the untestable and unverifiable propositions of theology have no place in moral science.

In IPML , Bentham directed this analysis against a host of ethical propositions he sought to eliminate as competing alternatives to the utility principle, such as “moral sense”, “common sense”, “law of reason”, “natural justice”, and “natural equity”. All are dismissed on the grounds that they are merely empty phrases that express nothing beyond the sentiment of the person who advocates them. Not representing verifiable reality, such phrases could not be considered useful. Indeed, they were surely pernicious, serving as a “pretense, and aliment, to despotism; if not … in practice, a despotism however in disposition” (1970, 28n). By comparison, “utility” was a principle rooted in the empirical and verifiable facts of the felt experience of pains and pleasures.

3. Pains and Pleasures

At the beginning of IPML Bentham offered the famous declamation that underscores the primacy of pains and pleasures in utilitarian theory:

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. (1970, 11)

There are two forms of hedonism expressed in this seminal passage: (1) psychological hedonism, which states that all motives of action are grounded in the apprehension of pain or the desire for pleasure; and (2) ethical hedonism, which holds that pleasure is the only good and actions are right in so far as they tend to produce pleasure or avoid pain. As Bentham went on to explain, allowing for “immunity from pain”, pleasure is “the only good”, and pain “without exception, the only evil” (1970, 100). As such, pain and pleasure are the final cause of individual action and the efficient cause and means to individual happiness.

Nor were these observations restricted to humankind in Bentham’s view—the proposed penal code was to include a section on cruelty to animals. As he explained, “the question is not, Can they reason ? Nor, can they talk ? But, can they suffer?” (1970, 283n)—a proposition that lies at the beginnings of utilitarian arguments for the ethical treatment of animals (see Singer 1975).

Since each person’s happiness is constituted of the aggregate balance of pleasures over pains, this is “the sole end which the legislator ought to have in view: the sole standard in conformity to which each individual ought, as far as depends upon the legislator, to be made to fashion his behaviour” (1970, 34). But how is the legislator to influence individual actions and gain conformity to his decisions? Bentham delineated four “sanctions” or sources of pain and pleasure, which he may have learnt from Gay’s essay Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality (1731): physical, political, moral, and religious. These sanctions (he later added sympathy to the list) are available to the moralist and to the legislator in guiding and determining an individual’s moral conduct, and they explain how an essentially self-interested individual may be encouraged and, where necessary, directed to perform actions that promote the greatest happiness of both himself and others. It is incumbent on the utilitarian legislator, therefore, to understand the “value” of the pains and pleasures he must employ to achieve this objective.

While the consequences of an act often depend on the motives which give rise to the act (and partly on the agent’s intentions and the circumstances in which the act is performed), in Bentham’s theory the utility of an act is independent of its originating motive(s). In effect, there is no such thing as a good or bad motive. The utility of an act—its goodness or badness—is determined solely by its consequences: the benefits and/or costs that result. When deciding whether to act or which act to undertake, a person must calculate as best as he can the pains and pleasures that may reasonably be expected to accrue to the persons (including himself) affected by the acts under consideration. A similar calculation should guide the legislator in formulating laws. However, Bentham recognised that it was not normally feasible for an individual to engage in such a calculation as a preliminary to undertaking every act. For this reason he spoke of the general tendencies of actions to enhance happiness (suggested by past experience) as a sufficient guide in most situations. On the other hand, the implicit consequentialism of utilitarian theory is central to Bentham’s theory of punishment, in which the objective was to ensure that a punishment is in proportion to the mischief produced by a crime and sufficient to deter others from committing the same offence. To this end he developed rules to guide the lawmaker in the construction of a penal code, including the elements involved in the calculation of the mischief caused by offences and the appropriate punishments.

In Helvétius’ account “interest” lies at the epicentre of moral science, but Bentham recognised that the concept only had meaning, like other fictitious entities in ethics such as “desire” and “motive”, when redefined in terms of the avoidance of pains and acquisition of pleasures (1970, 12; 1838–43, VIII, 290). In general he followed Adam Smith in believing the individual to be the best judge of his or her own interests, but the simplicity of this proposition is deceptive (see Engelmann 2001).

First, a person’s consideration of her interest involves expectations or mental projections of the future, not actually existing material interests. This involves the individual in imagining what will occur if she were to act in a certain manner. The specific expectations that attend the consideration of an action may be shaped by a myriad of external considerations, as well as the agent’s own predilections and preferences. For Bentham, the most important elements of the external environment in which a person imagines outcomes are the penalties and rewards laid down by law and those deriving from other educative and moral institutional arrangements and practices, including the sanction exercised by public opinion. In this sense, law and other agencies may be used to construct interests by providing individuals with the motives to pursue courses of action beneficial to the community. It is the individual who then must correctly perceive where her interests lie; she must imagine the expected outcomes the legislator has determined. The result is that Bentham’s material view of pains and pleasures as the factors which define “interest” tends to evaporate in favour of interests composed of imagined (though not imaginary) apprehensions and expectations about the future.

Second, Bentham recognised that explaining action in terms of interest is potentially circular. If we mean by acting according to interest, acting selfishly, then the statement “Agents act in accordance with their self-interest”, is false. If we mean, acting to pursue our interest in the widest sense, then the statement is tautological (2010b, 93n). In this respect, the validity of the “self-preference principle”—the assumption that self-interest is the motivation of all human action—is questionable. Bentham recognised the possibility of altruistic actions, and frequently alluded to his own philanthropy when recommending schemes to further the public good. Moreover, in IPML he held that sympathy was a “primeval and constant source” of pleasure and action (1970, 61), and later, in Deontology , elevated it to his list of sanctions as a source of pain and pleasure (1983a, 84, 183, 201, 203–4). However, if not all action is motivated by self-interest in the narrow or strict meaning of the term, then how far can the self-preference principle be considered a reliable guide for the legislator in constructing motives? Bentham’s answer, probably influenced by Hume’s view of the matter, is that the self-preference principle is a sound generalisation. While it is not true that everyone always acts in his or her self-interest, it is best that the legislator design institutions and law as if this were in fact true. Self-interested acts are the norm; altruism is the exception. As he explained it in the Constitutional Code (1830), even if the self-preference principle “held good in no more than a bare majority, of the whole number of instances, it would suffice for every practical purpose, in the character of a ground for all political arrangements” (1838–43, IX, 6).

Third, although individuals may in general be the best judges of their own interests, they may not always judge wisely. This creates a disjunction between the perception of their interest and their “real” interest. Since the “public interest” is a fictitious entity which represents nothing more than the aggregate of individual interests (1970, 12), an effective legislator must have a fairly accurate understanding of the interests of those individuals that constitute the community, of what will motivate them to act in the desired ways (especially in criminal law). But if people incorrectly perceive their interests, then the legislator may be misled in constructing the appropriate motivation. Clearly, the knowledge needed by the legislator (in order to be effective in constructing adequate motives to direct individual actions) is of people’s apparent interests, while the legislator’s objective is to further their “real” interests, that is, what they would choose if they were fully rational and informed. This means that assessing the value of the constituent elements of interest (pains and pleasures) is a tricky business for the legislator; he must accurately observe the ways people behave, deduce the motives behind their actions, and encompass this knowledge in the sanctions of law. Yet these same observations of human behaviour may not also be reliable guides to the “real” interests of individuals, which must be determined on other grounds. This is why some modern day utilitarians focus on “preferences”, that is on the subjectively expressed opinion of the individual as to what she thinks will be pleasurable or painful (see Bykvist 2013).

Bentham addressed the potential disjunction between an agent’s perception of her interest and her real interest in his writings on indirect law, which he described as “a secret plan of connected and long-concerted operations to be executed in the way of a stratagem or petite guerre ” (2010b, 233). The aim is to tell individuals what they should not do, but also to provide them with motives (pains and pleasures in prospect) sufficient to divert their desires into channels best designed to serve the public interest. Codes of behaviour and other “implements of moral instruction”, such as texts of “history, biography, novels and dramatic compositions” (UC lxxxvii, 18–19), could be utilised to divert people from inclinations damaging to themselves and others and to teach them to derive pleasure from benevolence. In this way government could educate its citizens to make more effective choices, or at least guide them into more appropriate paths to achieve their real interests (1838–43, I, 161).

Though Bentham did not use this terminology, the calculus he devised—commonly known as the “felicific calculus”—describes the elements or dimensions of the value of a pain or pleasure. To an individual the value of a pain or pleasure will be more or less according to its “intensity”, “duration”, “certainty or uncertainty”, and its “propinquity or remoteness”. Where the object is to measure the value of a pleasure or pain in terms of the tendency of an act, there are two additional circumstances to be taken into account: “fecundity” or “the chance it has of being followed by sensations of the same kind”, and “purity” or “the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind”. Where there are a number of persons, with reference to whom the value of a pleasure or a pain is considered, a further circumstance must be factored into the calculus, that is the “extent” or the number of persons who are affected by the pleasure or pain (1970, 38–39). Although Bentham believed there was nothing in what he had proposed “but what the practice of mankind, wheresoever they have a clear view of their own interest, is perfectly conformable to”, it has often been said that applying the felicific calculus is impractical. Bentham recognised that neither the individual nor the legislator could strictly follow the process he described. Rather, he presented it as a model of the ideal calculation, 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” (1970, 40).

As is well known, while adhering to the basic Benthamic analysis of motives, in Utilitarianism (1861) J. S. Mill introduced the concept of“higher pleasures”, by which he meant aesthetic and spiritual gratification and the pleasures of the intellect, and claimed these were intrinsically more desirable than other pleasures. This tended to undermine the aggregative dimension of the theory laid down by Bentham, since the depth of feeling associated with such pleasures resist quantification. Recent commentators, however, have questioned whether the distance between Bentham and Mill is as large as commonly supposed, arguing for example that “intensity” and “purity” are qualities of pains and pleasures that, in principle, are still subject to measurement, at least when comparing alternative actions on the same index (Warke 2000; Rosen 2003, Ch. 10).

Bentham occasionally suggested that pains and pleasures might be evaluated in relation to income or wealth, but he was aware of the limitations of this approach. While we might plausibly assume that, of two individuals with unequal fortunes, the richer of the two would be the happier, it does not follow that adding increments to that person’s wealth will continue to make him happier in the same proportion. It is in the nature of the case that the amount of increase in happiness will not be as great as the increase in wealth; the addition of equal increments of money will eventually bring successively less of an increase in happiness. Modern economists know this analysis as the law of “diminishing marginal utility”. One of its practical consequences for a utilitarian such as Bentham is that, where choices present themselves between giving an additional increment to a rich man or to a poor man, more happiness will result from giving it to the poorer of the two. Also, the analysis underscores why money cannot be a direct measure of utility, since the utility represented by a particular sum of money will vary depending on the relative wealth of the person who receives it. Moreover, it is evident that diminishing marginal utility is also a feature of the additional increments of pleasure a person may experience beyond a certain point; equal increments of pleasure will not necessarily add to the stockpile of happiness if a person has reached a saturation point.

4. Later Improvements

In the 1829 “Article on Utilitarianism” Bentham pointed to two later “improvements” to his understanding of the utility principle—the “disappointment-prevention principle” and the “greatest happiness principle” (a substitute for the “greatest happiness of the greatest number” formula).

For Bentham, the unhappiness created by the loss of something will usually have a greater impact on a person than the happiness brought about by its gain to someone else (1838–43, I, 304–7). All other things being equal, the reduction of utility to one person caused by theft will have a greater bearing on that person’s happiness than the gain in utility to another person from a lottery win of the same monetary value. Of course, if the loser is a wealthy person and the gainer a poor man, this will not hold. But in the normal run of things, this is why Bentham gave a higher priority to the protection of property by law and why he held that the alleviation of suffering demands more immediate attention than plans to produce wealth (1952–54, III, 324, 342). It is also the rationale for what Bentham later called the “disappointment-prevention principle” (1838–43, V, 416), which requires that the security of legitimate expectations take precedence over other ends, save where the public interest manifestly justifies government intervention, such as raising funds through taxation for vital services and the emergency expropriation of property in times of war or famine, usually with compensation paid to the property owner.

For Bentham, the significance of this principle as a practical guide could hardly be overstated. It is, he says, the “one all-comprehensive rule” upon which all property arrangements ought to be based (1983a, 308), and by this, “the first application, or say emanation, of the greatest happiness principle”, all the arrangements of the law of property “in its most extensive sense”, meaning “all objects of general desire”, ought to be ordered (295–96; see also 1838–43, III, 312).

Bentham detected a serious and potentially debilitating defect in rendering the utility principle as the “greatest happiness of the greatest number”. He came to see that such a principle could justify inordinate sacrifices by a minority, however that minority might be composed, in the interest of enhancing the happiness of a majority. He considered this a false conclusion, but one that needed to be addressed. “Be the community in question what it may”, he writes, “divide it into two unequal parts, call one of them the majority, the other the minority, lay out of the account the feelings of the minority, include in the account no feelings but those of the majority, the result you will find is that to the aggregate stock of the happiness of the community, loss, not profit, is the result of the operation”. The less the numerical difference between the minority and majority, the more obvious the deficiency in aggregate happiness will be (1983a, 309). Logically, then, the closer we approximate the happiness of all the members of the community, the greater the aggregate of happiness.

As an additional improvement in the manner in which Bentham conceived the utility principle, he might have included the “universal interest”, an idea initially stated in Plan of Parliamentary Reform where it appears as a more particular conception of the greatest happiness principle aimed at the “ maximum … of comfort and security” for all (1838–43, III, 452). The universal interest relates to interests that are shared by everyone, and only when it is impossible for government to contrive policies to achieve this end is a distribution of happiness less than universal or less than equal justified (1983b, 136). However, the number of decisions made by governments that are genuinely of universal reach are relatively few and may be limited to national defence and the framework of individual rights (securities). Beyond that, redistributive policies invariably involve unequal sacrifices and benefits. This means that the legislator must employ a utilitarian calculation in which the pain experienced by the few is reduced to the minimum necessary to produce benefits for the many; only on this basis may pleasures be summed and pains subtracted in order to produce the rationale to justify the best policy.

Related to this conception of the universal interest is the egalitarian commitment that in arriving at the appropriate law or policy the interests of each and all must count, and count equally (1840 [1864], I, 144). This does not mean that optimal utility is not the goal, but simply stresses that optimal utility is more likely achieved where there is an approximate equality in the distribution of the basic requirements of happiness (Postema 1998).

This aspect of Bentham’s theory has often been ignored or dismissed as irrelevant by critics who, from T. H. Green forward, argue that calculations of total utility fail to respect the distinctiveness of persons and thereby place their interests at perpetual risk (Rawls 1971, 22–27; Nozick 1974, 28–35; see the discussions in Ten 1987, 13–37; Rosen 2003, Chs. 12–13; and Bykvist 2010, Ch. 5). If deterrence can be achieved by punishing an innocent bystander when the real culprit cannot be caught or brought to justice, then why should the bystander not be punished? Because public utility would be maximised by making an example of an innocent bystander just as much as by punishing the person who was actually guilty of the offence but who has not been apprehended, it seems the utilitarian ought to support the punishment. But this is not only intuitively wrong, it is also wrong because there is a real danger that violations of security would lead to other such violations, with no principled basis to cease inflicting them. Bentham was emphatic on this score: “If it is a good thing to sacrifice the fortune of one individual to augment that of others, it will be yet better to sacrifice a second, a third, a hundred, a thousand, …; for whatever may be the number of those you have sacrificed, you will always have the same reason to add one more. In one word, the interest of everybody is sacred, or the interest of nobody” (1840 [1864], I, 144). Basic securities must be afforded to each and every member of the community, and violations of these vital interests are not justified, whether they be perpetrated by other individuals or government, since they contravene the distributive elements of utilitarian theory. To this extent, at the very least, each person’s happiness must count.

From early on in his utilitarian theorizing, Bentham understood that the achievement of utilitarian objectives in practice required the translation of the utility principle into elements amenable to implementation in ways that the philosophically abstract principle itself could not be. Concrete manifestations of happiness, for example, could be found in personal security and reduced crime rates, enhanced health and declining death rates, broader opportunities for education, the reduction of diseases caused by sewage pollution, and so on. The statistical measurement of these and other issues would provide a solid basis for the dissection of existing law and the development of new law, but Bentham’s thirst for such information was always well in advance of the available data. This deficiency did not, however, prevent him from developing the theoretical apparatus to direct the formulation of such laws.

In founding a system of law upon the principle of utility, Bentham announced near the beginning of his career, “I do no more than found it upon a set of rules” (UC lxix, 38). This was more than the Humean observation that utility is embedded in customary rules that have evolved over time. The maximization of utility required that the jurist cast a “censorial” eye on existing practices to test their capacity to enhance the greatest happiness. Where the jurist detects deficiencies, new rules and precepts must be developed that demonstrably accord with the utility principle. In Bentham’s hands this took the form of a multitude of subordinate or secondary ends, principles and maxims designed to give practical direction to the utility principle in each and every aspect of the law. The greatest happiness principle sets the over-arching objective and is the critical standard against which existing practices are to be judged. As such, it stands ever ready to be summoned forth whenever new guidelines are needed, subordinate ends conflict, or existing laws require amendment, refinement, or further elaboration. However, in practice it is the secondary elements of the theory that do the work of producing beneficial outcomes. In this way, they give practical concreteness to the philosophically abstract end of the greatest happiness.

The subordinate ends of civil law are security, subsistence, abundance, and equality, in this order of priority. “The more perfect enjoyment is in all these respects”, Bentham wrote, “the greater is the sum of social happiness: and especially of that happiness which depends upon the laws” (1840 [1864], I, 96). As we have seen, security is maintained by laws that protect property and the expectations derived from ownership, and uphold the contracts that facilitate the trade in goods and services. Subsistence and abundance are also derived from this source. When an overall abundance exists but not all enjoy the necessary means of subsistence, then legislative intervention may be conducted in accordance with the “disappointment-prevention principle”, such as when the state takes ownership of an estate for which there is no legitimate heir (122–23), or when a tax on income or property can be introduced without materially detracting from a person’s expectations, and the funds accrued used to provide food and basic services to those in need. Based on this redistribution of wealth, a degree of equalization is also achieved (Kelly 1990, 191–97), an objective entirely consistent with the view that, properly understood, the utility principle entails a presumption in favour of an equal distribution, unless there is compelling empirical evidence that utility would not be served by such a policy. As Bentham put it in Leading Principles of a Constitutional Code , “the more remote from equality are the shares … the less is the sum of felicity produced by the sum of those shares” (1838–43, II, 276).

The theory of “diminishing marginal utility” also lends support to equalization policies, dictating that decreases to the wealth of a rich man cause less pain than similar decreases to a poor man, while additions to the wealth of the poor man bring happiness in a greater amount than they would to a rich man (1840 [1864], I, 103–9). In First Principles Preparatory to Constitutional Code , written 1822 but not then published, Bentham went further, to postulate that the greatest happiness of the people “requires that the external instruments of felicity, whatsoever they may be, be shared by the whole number in a proportion so near to equality as is consistent with universal security” (1989, 16; see also 1840 [1864], I, 104). However, he refused to countenance the idea that policies to redistribute wealth at the cost of security would be beneficial either to social prosperity or individual wellbeing. Proposals to alter the distribution of wealth in line with diminishing marginal utility must, therefore, be conducted in accordance with the “disappointment-prevention principle”.

On the other hand, Bentham believed that a system of laws based on the utility principle would gradually and “indirectly” evolve towards greater equality in the distribution of goods, and pointed to the historical evidence of post-feudal Europe in support of his position. In the long run the key to achieving a more equal distribution of property lay in abundance: “in a nation prosperous in its agriculture, its manufactures and its commerce, there is a continual progress towards equality” (1840 [1864], I, 123). The important caveat Bentham introduced to justify this optimism is the proviso that government must not impede this tendency by allowing monopolies, putting “shackles” on trade and industry, or placing obstacles in the path of the division of property on inheritance.

Bentham believed that facilitating individuals in the pursuit of their interests in a free market is what government should do, because this is the proven best way to maximise the public good. Where laissez-faire does not produce the best result, however, the legislator must act in other direct and indirect ways to produce the optimal outcome. The question, as Bentham explained in Manual of Political Economy , “is to know what ought and what ought not to be done by government. It is in this view, and in this view only that the knowledge of what is done and takes place without the interference of government can be of any practical use” (1952–54, I, 224). In the Institute of Political Economy , he argued that past experience provided sufficient evidence to convince us that governments should not act in the economic realm as much as they often do, hence the motto “Be quiet” and the lists of “Non-agenda” items. Where departures from this general rule are required—such as when vital subsistence goods would be priced beyond the reach of many—they become “Agenda” items for government (1952–54, III, 333; see also 247–302). But radical schemes for property re-distribution are ruled out; the axiomatic requirement that each be treated equally, that the happiness of each be counted, justified policies to equalize the distribution of goods only where this could be achieved without disappointing legitimate expectations.

Civil and penal law are inextricably connected in Bentham’s legal theory. Just as the primary purpose of civil law is economic security and national prosperity, so it draws powerful support from the protection afforded persons, property and expectations by the threat of punishment (1838–43, III, 203). To this end, utilitarian penal law is framed in terms of the principal objective of deterrence, but it also embraces the secondary ends of disablement, moral reformation, and compensation (see Crimmins 2011). The effectiveness of the theory in practice depends on two additional features: offences must be classified solely on the basis of the harm perpetrated, and there must be an appropriate proportion between crimes and punishments. It is because of its failure to satisfy the first feature that Bentham (2014) rejected the prevailing criminalization of consensual sexual acts, and developed the first systematic defence of sexual liberty in the English language.

In settling the required proportions of punishment, Bentham recognised he had burdened the legislator with a vastly complex task—the calculation of the correct quantity and type of pain needed to achieve the desired ends, in particular the objective of deterrence. To guide the legislator in proportioning punishments to offences he stipulated thirteen rules or “canons”, such as that the punishment must outweigh the profit of the offence, venture more against a great offence than a small one, punish for each particle of the mischief, and the like (1970, 167–71; see also Bedau, 2004; Draper, 2009). The delineation of such guidelines to protect against “unfrugal” or excessive punishments is indicative of his attempt to be as comprehensive and as exact as possible while attending to practicalities. This is nowhere more apparent than in Bentham’s critical analysis of the death penalty.

Bentham first examined the utility of the death penalty in the 1770s when he delineated the principles of penal law (1838–43, I, 441–50; see also 1970, Ch. XV), and followed this with an unpublished essay in 1809 in which he presented a critique of William Paley’s defence of the death penalty in his Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), and in particular the use of discretionary pardons (UC cvii, 193–277; Crimmins 1987). A further short essay “On Death-Punishment”, published in 1830, repeats many of the arguments from the first essay (1838–43, I, 525–32). Arguably, Bentham’s utilitarian analysis of the issues raised by the death penalty in the first of these essays stands as the most thoroughgoing examination of the question up to this time (Bedau 1983). In sum, it is a special application of his utilitarian theory of punishment. The framework of analysis is presented as an objective, neutral exercise, by which the benefits and costs of the death penalty in cases of murder are assessed in comparison with life imprisonment with hard labour. All things considered, Bentham believed the weight of the calculation worked against the death penalty on the grounds of deterrence, the fact that it is inequable in its application, falling mainly on the shoulders of the poor, and because it is a form of punishment that is irremissible in the face of judicial error. Nevertheless, at that time he thought the death penalty might reasonably be maintained for murder with aggravating circumstances and for cases of treason “in which the name of the offender, so long as he lives, may be sufficient to keep a whole nation in a flame” (1970 183). By 1809, however, he abandoned the exceptions and argued that no offence warranted capital punishment (UC cvii. 201).

Subordinate ends are also evident in the design and management of the panopticon prison: security and economy are foremost, but tempered by humanity and accountability. Impressed by the dynamic of its circular architecture which allowed the warden, obscured from view in the shuttered watchtower, to observe the activities of prisoners day and night, Michel Foucault took the perspective that “panopticism” defined a “new physics of power”, an experimental “laboratory of power” in which behaviour could be modified, and he viewed the panopticon—that “cruel, ingenious cage”—as a symbol of the repressive, disciplinary society, the modern “society of surveillance” (Foucault 208). This view of the panopticon has opened up some interesting lines of discourse on the encroaching methods of control and surveillance in contemporary liberal societies (Brunon-Ernst 2012). However, as a critique of Bentham’s proposals it hardly does justice to the intricacies of the project, as Semple (1993) has shown.

The end of economy determined that the panopticon prison should be a private self-sustaining operation not requiring financial assistance from the public purse. Security determined that the community be protected from convicted criminals, and severity in punishment was to serve the ends of deterrence and reformation. But security also required that the inmate be protected from cruel treatment, and humanity determined that prisoners should be deprived only of liberty not health or life. Prisoners were to be kept clean and their labour made productive and profitable, including the development of skills that might be useful to them when released. In support of these objectives, Bentham invoked several devices to effect transparency and accountability in prison government. The chief mechanism intended to bring the interest of the prison owner/administrator in line with his duty to be humane is publicity, described as “the most effectual means of applying the force of moral motives, in a direction tending to strengthen the union between his interest and the humane branch of his duty; by bringing to light, and thus exposing to the censure of the law and of public opinion … every instance of contravention” (1838–43, VIII, 380). To the seemingly “constant” but unseen surveillance of the inmates by the warden, Bentham added the observation of the warden and his subordinates by the public. Interested members of the public and members of parliament were to be guaranteed free access to the prison, making the panopticon subject to “the great open committee of the tribunal of the world” (1838–43, IV, 46). This was the prototype for Bentham’s later ruminations on the benefits of the Public Opinion Tribunal in a system of representative democracy.

9. Administration, Government, Constitutional Law

As with the panopticon, economy, transparency and accountability were equally important in Bentham’s innovative account of administration, as were devices to ensure the maximization of “intellectual”, “moral”, and “active” aptitude in public officials. In government utilitarian outcomes required various democratic procedures that function as “securities against misrule”. These procedures include: “virtual” universal suffrage, annual parliaments, the secret ballot, and provisions for transparency, publicity and unconstrained public debate.

Much of what Bentham recommended in relation to administrative and political institutions is governed by “the interest-junction-prescribing principle”, designed to ensure that the interests of those with power would be reconciled with the public interest, the interests of the governed. This idea was prominent in A Fragment on Government , where he argued that effective government was not to be had on the foundation of abstract formulas such as “mixed and balanced” institutions, but required “the frequent and easy changes of condition between govern ors and govern ed ; whereby the interests of one class are more or less indistinguishably blended with those of the other” (1977, 485). In the later constitutional writings Bentham added many more administrative devices to ensure aptitude, transparency and accountability, none more important than the “Public Opinion Tribunal”, or the open court of public opinion founded on the freedom of the press, by which government actions could be held up to public scrutiny (1983b, 36). And, just as the panopticon was to be monitored by the publication of regular reports, so reports of government activity were required to keep the democratic polity informed and facilitate the accountability of public officials.

When Bentham turned his thoughts to constitutional law in earnest in the 1820s, partly inspired by constitution-making in parts of southern Europe, it was with the conviction that all states in which the institutions of representative democracy already existed or in which they could be introduced were fertile soil for the utilitarian pannomion . “Of this constitution”, he announced near the beginning of the Constitutional Code , “the all-comprehensive object, or end in view, is, from first to last, the greatest happiness of the greatest number; namely, of the individuals, of whom, the political community, or state, of which it is the constitution, is composed” (1983b, 18). The administrative, electoral and legislative details of this project occupied much of the last decade of his life, with its core ideas discussed in the pages of a variety of works in addition to the Code , such as Securities Against Misrule , First Principles Preparatory to Constitutional Code , and Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized . The subsidiary principles of accountability, efficiency, and economy underpinned the institutional design and procedural operations elaborated in these writings. In essence, these principles provided the grounding for the “securities against misrule” that Bentham thought essential to ensure that the greatest happiness would be the sole objective of government in a republican representative democracy.

Bentham held that those who hold the “operative power” in government, administration, and judiciary are, like everyone else, motivated by personal interest. It is imperative, therefore, to devise mechanisms that will ensure that only by acting in the public interest could they promote their own interests. So, for example, under representative democracy the members of the legislature, as the representatives of the “constitutive power” of the people, could be counted on to promote the greatest happiness and hold other functionaries to account, since elected legislators only serve at the will of their constituents and risk not being re-elected if they fail to do their duty (Schofield 1996, 226–28; see also Lieberman 2008). Given the extensive powers Bentham envisaged the thirteen ministries of the reformed government would possess—far more power in the areas of public health, education, and relief of the poor and indigent than existed at the time—further safeguards would be required. Refining and expanding the suggestions contained in his Plan of Parliamentary Reform , he stipulated that public officials must possess the required “moral aptitude” (the disposition to promote the greatest happiness), “intellectual aptitude” (divided into scientific aptitude or knowledge, and judicial aptitude or judgement), and “active aptitude” (the conscientious performance of assigned responsibilities) (1990, 272). Intellectual and active aptitude were to be tested through an examination process, though this would come to naught if the appointed official did not possess the appropriate moral aptitude (1838–43, IX, 128). Other devices designed to ensure, encourage, and test the required aptitude of public officials include: (1) the precise definition of responsibilities attached to each office, against which the actions of officials could be judged by either a superordinate official or the public; (2) the principle of subordination, according to which every official was subordinate to another who could punish him for inefficiency in the performance of his tasks; (3) complete exposure to legal prosecution of all officials for wrong-doing; (4) the elimination of the practice of handing out unwarranted titles of honour to party supporters and other favourites; (5) complete publicity of government business and the elimination of secrecy; and (6) freedom of the press, speech and association (see Rosen 1983, Ch. 8).

The popular dimensions of the constitutional code appear to run contrary to the legal positivism commonly associated with Bentham’s utilitarianism, which implies a theory of sovereignty that requires that power be located in the hands of the legislator, however constituted, and stipulates that all laws are imperative and depend for their enforcement on coercive sanctions. Rosen has argued that as early as A Fragment on Government , Bentham rejected the Hobbesian idea of sovereignty based on simple command and obedience, in which the sovereign is necessarily a single, unified supreme power, in favour of “the notions of the legal limitation and division of sovereign power” (Rosen 1983, 41, 44).

Generally, by the term “sovereignty” Bentham meant the power to legislate (legal sovereignty), but he also employed it in relation to the power of the people to limit or control government and public officials (political or popular sovereignty). In the first sense of the term it is seemingly impossible for there to be a law that deliberately functions contrary to the will of the legislature. All law emanates from the will of the sovereign and the will of the sovereign “cannot be illegal” (2010b, 38). However, Bentham also held that all political authority, no matter what form it takes, is necessarily limited by its capacity to compel obedience from the people. As he put it in A Fragment on Government , “By a sovereign I mean any person or assemblage of persons to whose will a whole political community are (no matter on what account) supposed to be in a disposition to pay obedience” (1977, 18). And in Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence he explained that this implies two volitions, both of which are necessary components of a complete theory of sovereignty: on the one hand, the enactments of a legislature and, on the other, the will of the people to obey those enactments. In effect, the will of the people to disobey amounts to a permanent constitutional check on the authority of the sovereign, and in this sense “the submission and obedience of the people” acts as the “constituent cause” of sovereignty (2010b 150n). The legislature may be “supreme” but it “can never of itself be absolute and unlimited” or “amount to the entire power of imperation” (113). The result is a “split concept” of sovereignty defined by a dynamic interaction between the legislature and the people, subject to changing times and the reflection of this in the public’s attitude to law, to what is admissible and inadmissible (see Ben-Dor 2000, Ch. 2). The process of public deliberation and accountability this requires is greatly facilitated by the communicative freedoms of the “liberty of the press” and the “liberty of public association” (1977, 485)—crystalized in Bentham’s conception of the “Public Opinion Tribunal” (POT).

Based on his earlier enunciation of “the motto of the good citizen”in A Fragment on Government —“ To obey punctually, to censure freely ” (1776 [1977, 399])—in the Constitutional Code Bentham conceived the POT as a “fictitious tribunal” or public court of opinion, argument, and debate. “Able rulers lead it”, he advised, “prudent rulers use or follow it; foolish rulers disregard it”. The POT would scrutinize the actions of elected representatives, public and judicial officials, prosecuting charges where they are found remiss in their responsibilities, censoring misrule and imposing penalties when applicable. Penalties would generally take the form of the “moral sanction”—the broadcasting of the shame and disgrace of bad conduct and the imputation of the reputation of the person responsible (1830 [1983b, 35–39]; 1989, 283). In these terms, the POT would be the leading security against the misuse and abuse of power (1989, 125). Operating on a continuing basis, and therefore not constrained as a check in the same limited way as periodic elections, it would act as “the only force … [by] which … government when operating in a sinister direction can experience any the least impediment to its course” (1990, 121).

Vital to the functioning of the POT is the dissemination of information. In the first instance this would require the establishment of a public archive of government actions and activities containing records of law, policy, legislative debate, and statistics, which the government would be constitutionally required to make available to the public by a freedom of information provision in the constitutional code to ensure transparency. Secondly, it would require an unshackled press to ensure widespread publicity and the freedom to criticize unimpeded by censorship or gagging orders. Here Bentham drew upon his essay On the Liberty of the Press, and Public Discussion (1821) to point out the dangers of laws designed to limit these liberties. The liberty of the press is an indispensable check on arbitrary government, and therefore “necessary to the maintenance of good government” (1838–43, II, 277, 279). Publicity is vital in this process, since “the greater the number of the members of the whole community to whom the existence of an act of oppression has been made known, the greater is the number of those by whom … not only may obedience be withholden, but resistance opposed” (1990, 30).

Bentham did not consider that the effectiveness of the POT as a check on misrule could be undermined by secret government methods to limit the flow of information, nor did it occur to him that a press dominated by the views of one class or by special interests could subvert the veracity of the information it disseminated. He pinned his faith on transparency and publicity (Postema 2014, 49). Ideally, the public would be adequately informed, and the POT would be constituted by those among the public who were both knowledgeable and concerned about the issues before it. Its judgements could change as new evidence came to light or as new arguments were enunciated, and it could be fragmented or unified in its view in proportion to the variety of individual opinions expressed.

Before the publication of Dumont’s edition of the Traités de législation in 1802, Bentham’s writings had a very limited distribution. During the revolutionary years in France, Dumont fed his ideas into the debates over judicial, legal, penal and legislative reform, and if his proposals had little impact on the social and political improvements undertaken they yet contributed to the direction of French liberalism (Champs 2015). With the publication of the Traités de législation Bentham’s stock as a legal philosopher increased dramatically. 3000 copies of the Traités were sold almost immediately (1838–43, I, 388), the Emperor Alexander ordered a Russian translation, and this was followed by translations (or partial translations) into Spanish, German, Polish, Portuguese and Hungarian, with particularly impressive sales in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America (1838–43, XI, 33, 88; see Avila-Martel 1981; McKennon 1981; Luño 1981). The 1820 edition of the Traités lists nineteen booksellers in eleven European countries from whom the book could be purchased. It was from this platform that Bentham was able to promote himself as a potential codifier of the laws in countries near and far. Despite the herculean efforts of Dumont, however, his ideas received a mixed reception in France (see Champs 2015, Ch.15). The aging André Morellet was keen to see the principles of utilitarian legal philosophy implemented in French law and administration, and Marc-Antoine Jullien and Jean-Baptiste Say among others appealed to Bentham in their attempt to ground political economy on scientific principles. On the other hand, self-interest and the utility principle was rejected by Germaine de Stael as an impoverished grounding for moral duty, and rejected by other reformers such as Benjamin Constant who grounded their liberalism on natural rights.

Bentham’s ideas began circulating in Spain in 1810 through the London-based El Español (Dinwiddy 1984, 20), but interest increased during the liberal triennium of 1820–23. In 1820, Toribio Núñez published a two-volume account of utilitarian legal philosophy based on the Traités —titled Espiritu de Bentham ó sistéma de la ciencia social, ideado por Jeremías Bentham —and his own writings on moral and political philosophy were greatly influenced by Bentham’s ideas. In 1821–22, Ramón de Salas produced the first Spanish translation of the Traités in five volumes, which received a scathing critique by José Vidal, a Dominican theologian at the University of Valencia, who condemned the work as an encouragement to revolution ( Orígen de los errores revolucionarios de Europe, y su remedio 1827). Earlier, in 1793, Bentham had counselled the French National Convention to divest itself of its colonies on the grounds of their disutility (though the text Emancipate Your Colonies! was only published in 1830; Bentham 2002, 289–315). In the 1820s he directed his arguments towards Spain in “Rid Yourselves of Ultramaria” and “Emancipation Spanish” (1995, 3–276), and was gratified to see his ideas gaining traction in its former colonies in Latin America.

Andrés Bello used Salas’ translation as the basic text for his law lectures at the Colegio de Santiago in Chile, as did Pedro Alcántra de Somellera, Professor of Civil Law at the University of Buenos Aires. In 1825 Francisco de Paula Santander, the Vice-President of Gran Colombia, decreed that the work be required reading for all law students in the vast territories of the new republic, but in 1828 its President Simón Bolívar, the legendary “Liberator”, after previously embracing the principles and purpose of Bentham’s legal philosophy, bowed to clerical pressure and banned its teaching as detrimental to religion, morality, and social order (1838–43, X, 552–54). Santander, who was more inclined to resist the influence of the Catholic Church, restored it to the curriculum of the universities when he became President of the newly constituted state of Colombia in 1832.

Following the Greek revolution against Ottoman rule, the historian and legal scholar Anastasios Polyzoides, who had a hand in drafting its new constitution in 1822, translated an extract on “publicity” from Dumont’s Tactiques des assemblée legislatives for a Missolonghi newspaper in 1824, promoting transparency in legislative proceedings and in government more broadly. A year later he published in Greek A General Theory of Administrative Systems and especially of the Parliamentary One, Accompanied by a Short Treatise on Justices of the Peace and Juries in England (1825), containing a defense of representative government and advocating a judicial system based on utilitarian principles, replete with references to Bentham (Peonidis 2009).

In the United States, the dissemination of utilitarianism was initially hampered by the absence of an English translation of the Traités , but there too Bentham’s influence was not long in being felt. David Hoffman first introduced utilitarian ideas into legal education in America at the University of Maryland in the early 1820s. John Neal, who studied law under Hoffman’s guidance, described Hoffman as one of Bentham’s “most enthusiastic admirers” (Neal 1830, 300). In his bibliographic A Course of Legal Study (1817), Hoffman recommended students read parts of Dumont’s redaction of Bentham, Théorie des peines et des récompenses (2 vols., 1811), and it was Hoffman who encouraged Neal to translate the Traités into English, a task he began during the eighteen months he stayed with Bentham in London in 1825–26. In the event, only the introductory sections of the Traités appeared in Neal’s Principles of Legislation (1830), parts of which had first appeared in a series of articles in The Yankee , a journal he edited under the banner heading “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”.

It was Richard Smith, a government tax officer and one of Bentham’s young London disciples, who eventually translated the civil and penal law parts of the Traités into English for The Works of Jeremy Bentham in 1838 (1838–43, I, 297–580). While Smith was at work in England, the historian and anti-slave propagandist Richard Hildreth, Bentham’s foremost American disciple, was busy translating the same material on the other side of the Atlantic, convinced that the widespread interest in legal reform in the United States would benefit greatly from utilitarian ideas. The reviews of Hildreth’s translation praised Bentham’s legal philosophy while objecting to its underlying moral assumptions and disdain for religion, a position frequently adopted by early critics—even Hildreth took this less than consistent view (1840 [1864], I, iii). The reviews paid particular attention to the systematic presentation of the theory of civil law, which also impressed itself on the teaching of law in the newly independent states of South America, where property rights were a matter of considerable importance in the aftermath of the collapse of the Spanish and Portuguese empires.

Hildreth, whose own Theory of Morals (1844) drew substantially on the Traités , was correct in thinking that law reformers in the United States would find sustenance in Bentham’s critical jurisprudence. Thomas Cooper, who left England for the United States in 1794 with Joseph Priestley, from whom he initially derived his utilitarianism, was a confirmed Benthamite by the 1820s and the intended recipient of writings Bentham entrusted to John Quincy Adams. Thereafter Cooper employed utilitarian principles in his writings on law and political economy, most notably in the Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy (1826), based on the lectures he gave at South Carolina College in Columbia, the first course of lectures on the subject in America. Edward Livingston, the famous author of codes of law for Louisiana, corresponded with Bentham, who sent him books for his research. Livingston acknowledged it was his reading of the Traités which “fortified me in a design to prosecute the subject” of a code of penal law (1838–43, XI, 51). In its final comprehensive and systematic version, Livingston’s System of Penal Law (1833) was celebrated by many continental jurists and became the centrepiece of the codification campaign in the United States—a campaign Bentham had attempted to launch himself some years earlier by directing copies of his Papers Relative to Codification and Public Instruction (1817) to a number of well-placed American politicians. The freethinker Gilbert Vale used his position as editor of the radical periodical The Diamond (1840–42)—like The Yankee , published with the banner heading “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”—to disseminate Bentham’s criticisms of the vagaries, chicanery, and technicalities of the law. Inspired by Bentham, Vale was in favour of humane penal laws that proportioned penalties to the objective of deterrence and an advocate of state intervention to alter the social circumstances that fostered crime. John O’Sullivan, the quixotic editor of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review , wrote sympathetic reviews of Bentham, Livingston, and Hildreth, and followed them in advocating utilitarian law reform, particularly the abolition of the death penalty. Bentham’s influence on these figures is discussed in detail in Crimmins (2022).

Bentham’s influence continued throughout the century in America, where the Traités paved the way for the reception of other editions and versions of his writings, which in turn led to sympathetic responses to the more amenable forms of utilitarian moral and legal theory offered by John Austin, J. S. Mill, and Henry Sidgwick . On the other hand, Bentham’s political prescriptions made little impact in the United States, which was, by comparison to aristocratic England, already an advanced democracy. If the utilitarian Constitutional Code was directed “for the use of all nations and all governments professing liberal opinions”, as its title page declared, the political positions it embraced were recommended, in the first instance, for adoption at home.

For all Bentham’s success abroad, in the early years of the nineteenth century he was little known in his own country. The April 1804 issue of the Edinburgh Review announced his arrival on the British stage in a substantial critical review of Dumont’s Traités , though his main appeal was initially confined to a small band of law reformers determined to tackle the antiquated and notoriously harsh punishments meted out by English penal law. In the years following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, however, when calls for legal, social, and political reform were becoming commonplace, Bentham’s reputation in Britain was transformed from that of an eccentric and often misunderstood oracle on the periphery of the intellectual and political world to that of a venerable sage situated at the center of a broad reform movement. Throughout the following century his influence continued to be felt, particularly in discussions of moral and legal philosophy and economic theory and practice.

John Austin became acquainted with Bentham’s utilitarian legal philosophy during his undergraduate years at Cambridge. In 1821 he was hired to tutor J.S. Mill in Roman law, began attending meetings of the Utilitarian Society established by the younger Mill in 1823, and in 1826 was appointed to the Chair of Jurisprudence at the newly founded University of London, where he was the first in England to introduce utilitarian ideas into legal education. Building on Bentham’s science of legislation, Austin imported its leading ideas into his own jurisprudence, none more so than Bentham’s distinction between the law as it is and the law as it ought to be , an idea that stands at the foundation of the doctrine of legal positivism (1977, 397). With the posthumous publication of Lectures on Jurisprudence or The Philosophy of Positive Law (1863), Austin’s legal philosophy was to have a major impact on English and American jurisprudence—in the latter context his conceptualization of the nature of sovereignty proved especially influential.

Bentham’s most important influence was on John Stuart Mill. In his Autobiography (1873) Mill relates that when he first encountered Bentham’s ideas in the Traités “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 which could be made the principal outward purpose of a life” (1963–91, I, 67–68). It was in the flush of his early commitment to utilitarianism that Mill edited the five volumes of Bentham’s writings on evidence, Rationale of Judicial Evidence (1838–43, VI, 189–585, VII 1–644). Around this time, however, partly in response to the challenge of T. B. Macaulay’s criticism of his father’s “On Government” and partly the result of his own reflections on his intellectual inheritance, Mill developed a revised version of utilitarian theory. This revisionism was first announced to the world in the essay “Bentham” (1838) and received definitive expression in Utilitarianism (1861), in which he introduced the notion of higher pleasures. Though, like Bentham, an advocate of representative democracy based on universal suffrage, Mill also made several proposals to temper the potential excesses of unconstrained majoritarian institutions. In other respects, including his defence of individual freedom and individuality in On Liberty (1859), Mill’s utilitarianism remained within the Benthamic framework.

Bentham’s influence has been felt to a considerable extent in the field of economics, in which the felicific calculus provided the groundwork for the development of policy based on cost-benefit analysis. As we have seen, he shared Adam Smith’s view that the route to a nation’s prosperity is by individuals pursuing their interests in ways of their own choosing, with government intervention limited accordingly. However, he also developed the theory of diminishing marginal utility, furnishing the legislator with a conceptual tool by which to address the uneven distribution of social happiness. The collectivist conclusions Bentham drew from this principle were modest in scope, but later reformist economists like W. S. Jevons (1871), impressed by the idea that social utility could be calculated based on the aggregate of individual interests, developed the theory in the direction of modern welfare economics. F. Y. Edgeworth (1881) thought Bentham’s formula of the “greatest happiness of the greatest number” a mathematical absurdity, and reformulated the goal in terms of the greatest total happiness (or greatest average happiness for a fixed number of people). The Fabian socialist Sidney Webb also applied utilitarian ideas to maximize and better distribute “total utility”—Webb’s wife Beatrice once described Bentham as her husband’s “intellectual godfather” (Mack 1955). Graham Wallas, another of the Fabians, was deeply impressed by Bentham’s legal, political and administrative innovations and hailed him as “Britain’s greatest political inventor” (Wallas 1926).

On the other side of the ledger we find the libertarian Herbert Spencer who deployed the utility principle in Man versus the State (1884) and other writings to underwrite the liberty of the individual, defend the existing social order, and attack the drift towards socialism and “slavery”. James Fitzjames Stephen, Henry Sidgwick, and A.V. Dicey all advocated versions of utilitarian individualism, although Sidgwick occasionally gave voice to “socialist” sentiments in developing his intuitional utilitarian theory in The Methods of Ethics (1874). Reform-minded liberals such as J.A. Hobson and L.T. Hobhouse viewed themselves as “new” utilitarians, finding in the protean nature of utilitarianism a justification for distinctly non-individualist policies. Thus Hobhouse in Liberalism (1911) incorporated utilitarianism into a new liberal discourse that, in addition to laissez-faire economics (and notwithstanding Herbert Samuel’s quasi-Benthamic motto “the greatest liberty of the greatest number”) also included elements of socialism, social Darwinianism, and the reformist idealism of T. H. Green.

Once Bentham’s ideas began to take hold in the early nineteenth century, critics were not hard to find. In his Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments (1810), Benjamin Constant, who admired Bentham’s originality and praised his contributions to political economy and penal law, questioned the vagueness of the concept of utility, which he thought susceptible to many different definitions and pregnant with danger as a principle of policy. Constant preferred the prescriptions of natural law as the philosophical basis for government. William Hazlitt, who was for a time Bentham’s tenant, satirised him as a venerable anchorite in the quiet of his cell reducing law to a system and the mind of man to a machine, divorced from the life of spirit, imagination, passion and sentiments of love, a philosophy “fit neither for man nor beast” (1826, 184). Thomas Carlyle summed up the general perception of the crassness of “Benthamee utility” as the “pig-philosophy”, nothing more than “virtue by Profit and Loss” (1840, 65). Other critics, like the Whig reformers James Mackintosh and T.B. Macaulay, ready to follow Bentham’s lead in law reform, were also dismayed by the diminished view of human nature that underpinned his philosophy and attacked the radical proposals for political reform that emanated from the utilitarian camp (Lively and Rees 1978). The Anglican divine John Colls, for a time Bentham’s secretary before he took holy orders, published an intemperate exposé of his former employer as a selfish and bigoted subversive in Utilitarianism Unmasked (1844), a work which proved popular among his fellow clergymen.

As the nineteenth century wore on assailants came forth from all points across the philosophical spectrum. Marx considered Bentham an “arch-philistine” and utilitarianism a superficial and ephemeral bourgeois ideology ( Capital I, Ch. XXIV, sect. 5). Sundry religionists, including those of a philosophical bent like the classicist J.B. Mayor, intuitionists like William Whewell, and idealists like Green, F.H. Bradley, Bernard Bosanquet and D.G. Ritchie combined to attack its atomism, crude materialism, narrowly construed theory of motivation, and lack of appreciation of the spiritual dimension of the human condition. The legal scholar Henry Maine could admire the bravado and ambition of Bentham’s science of jurisprudence, but also deplored his failure to appreciate the historical and evolutionary nature of law; he further objected to Bentham’s faith that the ignorant masses could truly know what is in their best interest. As we have seen, on the other side of the Atlantic, Bentham’s legal philosophy made some headway but the underlying moral ideas met stiff resistance, and his supposed atheism added fuel to the fire of outrage bellowing from evangelical critics. In a different vein, the Pragmatists, notably William James and John Dewey, may have shared Bentham’s ontological misgivings about the meaning and misrepresentation of fictions and fictitious entities (Quinn 2012) and recognised the critical value of the utility principle to the development of Liberalism as a philosophy of action (Dewey 1935, 13–17), but they rejected the claim that all motivation may be reduced to a drive to seek pleasure and avoid pain, which they viewed as a self-defeating commitment to materialist individualism (Dewey and Tufts 1908, 271–74; see also Crimmins 2022, Epilogue). Like J. S. Mill, the Pragmatists also dismissed the idea that any single form of the summum bonum could account for the many goods that people seek (James 1891, 186–200). There have been many critics of Bentham since.

Numerous commentaries on Bentham’s philosophy have also appeared, from the early general accounts of Leslie Stephen (1900) and Elie Halévy (1901–4), to more recent introductions to his ideas (Harrison 1983; Dinwiddy 1989b; Crimmins 2004, 2013; Schofield 2009; Quinn 2022) and a wide range of revisionist disquisitions on discrete aspects of his thought. In addition to the themes and issues already addressed in this article, Hart (1982) and Postema (1989) have penned important studies of Bentham’s jurisprudence, while topics that have engaged contemporary commentators include his critical views on race and slavery (Jones 2005; Rosen 2005), colonialism and empire (Pitts 2005; Cain 2011; Causer, Finn and Schofield 2022), marriage, divorce, adultery, desertion and wife-beating (Sokol 2011), and sexual liberty (Dabhoiwala 2010, 168–74; Schofield 2014). Schofield (2013) provides an overview of some new directions in Bentham studies, to which may be added essays on the global Bentham (Armitage 2011; Zhai and Palmer 2021), Bentham and the arts (Julius, Quinn and Schofield 2020), and policing (Jacques and Schofield 2021). Many of these commentaries have been inspired by the publication of the authoritative volumes in The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham that began appearing in 1968 to replace the poorly edited and incomplete Bowring edition (1838–43). The Collected Works continues to bring to light new and more complete versions of Bentham’s writings and previously unpublished material. At the time of writing, 35 of the projected 80 volumes have been published. As new volumes appear the topics of discussion and debate will continue to increase, burnishing the reputation of a philosopher whose ideas remain relevant in a great number of areas of interest to moralists, psychologists, economists, historians, legal and political philosophers.

Manuscripts

Bentham Manuscripts at University College London (UC followed by box and page/folio no.).

Collected Editions of Bentham’s Works

1829–30, Œuvres de Jérémie Bentham , 3 volumes, E. Dumont (ed.), Bruxelles: Hauman.
1838–43, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring , 11 vols., Edinburgh: William Tait.
1952–54, Jeremy Bentham’s Economic Writings , 3 volumes, W. Stark (ed.), London: George Allen & Unwin.
1970, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation , J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (eds.).
1977, A Comment on the Commentaries and A Fragment on Government , J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (eds.).
1983, Chrestomathia , M. J. Smith and W. H. Burston (eds.).
1983a, Deontology together with A Table of the Springs of Action and the Article on Utilitarianism , A. Goldworth (ed.).
1983b, Constitutional Code , volume 1, F. Rosen and J. H. Burns (eds.).
1989, First Principles Preparatory to Constitutional Code , T. P. Schofield (ed.).
1990, Securities Against Misrule and other Constitutional Writings for Tripoli and Greece , T. P. Schofield (ed.).
1993, Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized , P. Schofield (ed.).
1995, Colonies, Commerce, and Constitutional Law: Rid Yourselves of Ultramaria and other writings on Spain and Spanish America , P. Schofield (ed.)
1998, “Legislator of the World”: Writings on Codification, Law, and Education , P. Schofield and J. Harris (ed.).
1999, Political Tactics , M. James, C. Blamires and C. Pease-Watkin (eds.).
2001, 2010a, Writings on the Poor Laws , 2 volumes, M. Quinn (ed.).
2002, Rights, Representation, and Reform: Nonsense upon Stilts and other Writings on the French Revolution , P. Schofield, C. Pease-Watkin and C. Blamires (eds.).
2010b, Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence , ed. P. Schofield.
2011, Church-of-Englandism and its Catechism Examined , J. E. Crimmins and C. Fuller (eds.).
2012, On the Liberty of the Press, and Public Discussion, and other Legal and Political Writings for Spain and Portugal , C. Pease-Watkin and P. Schofield (eds.).
2013, “ Not Paul, But Jesus Part III. Doctrine ”, Bentham Project.
2014, Of Sexual Irregularities, and other writings on Sexual Morality , P. Schofield, C. Pease-Watkin, and M. Quinn (eds.).
2015, The Book of Fallacies , P. Schofield (ed.).
2016a, 2019, Writings on Political Economy , Volume 1: including “Defence of Usury”; “Manual of Political Economy”; and “Protest against Law Taxes”), and Volumes 2: including “Supply without Burthen” and “Proposals Relative to Divers Modes of Supply”, M. Quinn (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2016b, Preparatory Principles , D. G. Long and P. Schofield (eds.).
2022, Panopticon versus New South Wales and Other Writings on Australia , T. Causer and P. Schofield (eds.).

Other Cited Works by Bentham

1795, “Nonsense upon Stilts, Or Pandora’s Box Opened, Or The French Declaration of Rights prefixed to the Constitution of 1791 laid open and exposed–with a Comparative Sketch of what has been done on the same subject in the Constitution of 1795”, in Collected Works , 2002, 317–401.
1830–31, “History of the War between Jeremy Bentham and George the Third. By one of the Belligerents”, in The Works of Jeremy Bentham , 1838–43, XI, 96–105.
1831, “Colonization Company Proposal: Being a proposal for the formation of a joint-stock company by the name of the Colonization Company on the entirely new principle intituled the vicinity-maximizing or dispersion-preventing principle”, in Collected Works , 2022, forthcoming.
1840 [2nd edn 1864], Theory of Legislation; by Jeremy Bentham. Translated from the French of Etienne Dumont, by Richard Hildreth , 2 vols., rept. with an introduction, appendix and index by James E. Crimmins, Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004.
1842, Auto-Icon; or Farther Uses of the Dead to the Living ; in James E. Crimmins (ed.), Jeremy Bentham’s Auto-Icon and Related Writings , Bristol: Thoemmes, 2002.

Other Primary Sources

Carlyle, T., 1840, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History , M.K. Goldberg, J.J. Brattin, and M. Engel (eds.), Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993.
Edgeworth, F. Y., 1881, Mathematical Psychics: An Essay on the Application of Mathematics to the Moral Sciences , London: C. Kegan Paul & Co.
Hazlitt, W., 1826, “The New School of Reform: A Dialogue between a Rationalist and a Sentimentalist”, in The Complete Works of William Hazlitt , 21 vols., P. P. Howe (ed.), London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1930–4, vol. 12, pp. 179–95.
Jevons, W. S., 1871, The Theory of Political Economy , London: Macmillan and Co.
Mill, J. S., 1963–91, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill , J. M. Robson (general editor), Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Neal, J., 1830, Principles of Legislation: From the Ms. of Jeremy Bentham ; … By M. Dumont …; With Notes and a Biographical Notice of Jeremy Bentham and of M. Dumont , Boston, MA: Wells and Lilly.
Smith, T. S., 1832, Lecture Delivered over the Remains of Jeremy Bentham, Esq., in the Webb-Street School of Anatomy & Medicine, on the 9 th June, 1832 , London: Effingham Wilson.
Armitage, D., 2011, “Globalizing Jeremy Bentham”, History of Political Thought , 32 (1): 63–82.
Avila-Martel, A. de, 1981, “The Influence of Bentham on the Teaching of Penal Law in Chile”, The Bentham Newsletter , 5: 22–8.
Bahmueller, C. F., 1981, The National Charity Company: Jeremy Bentham’s Silent Revolution , Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Bedau, H. A., 1983, “Bentham’s Utilitarian Critique of the Death Penalty”, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology , 74 (3): 1033–65.
–––, 2004, “Bentham’s Theory of Punishment: Origin and Content”, Journal of Bentham Studies , 7: n.p. [ Bedau 2004 available online ].
Ben-Dor, O., 2000, Constitutional Limits and the Public Sphere , Oxford & Portland, OR: Hart Publishing.
Blamires, C., 2008, The French Revolution and the Creation of Benthamism , London: Palgrave.
Boralevi, L. C., 1984, Bentham and the Oppressed , Berlin: W. de Gruyter.
Brunon-Ernst, A. (ed.), 2012, Beyond Foucault: New Perspectives on Bentham’s Panopticon , Farnham: Ashgate.
Bykvist, K., 2010, Utilitarianism: A Guide for the Perplexed , London: Continuum.
–––, 2013, “Preferences (Preferentialism),” in J.E. Crimmins (ed.), Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism , London & New York: Bloomsbury; reprinted 2017, pp. 440–45.
Cain, P. J., 2011, “Bentham and the Development of the British Critique of Colonialism”, Utilitas , 23 (1): 1–24.
Causer, T., M. Finn and P. Schofield (eds.), 2022, Bentham and Australia: Convicts, Utility and Empire , London: University College London Press.
Champs, E. de., 2015, Enlightenment and Utility: Bentham in French, Bentham in France , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crimmins, J. E., 1987, “‘Strictures on Paley’s Net’: Capital Punishment and the Power to Pardon”, The Bentham Newsletter , 11: 23–34.
–––, 1990, Secular Utilitarianism: Social science and the critique of religion in the thought of Jeremy Bentham , Oxford: Clarendon.
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Michael Quinn and David Lieberman, generous and wise colleagues, gave careful attention to an earlier draft of this article and I am greatly indebted to them for the important improvements they recommended. I am also grateful to the SEP’s anonymous reviewer for correcting stylistic infelicities in the article.

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On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays (2 ed.)

John stuart mill , mark philp , and frederick rosen.

‘it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well developed human beings’ Mill's four essays, 'On Liberty', 'Utilitarianism', 'Considerations on Representative Government', and 'The Subjection of Women' examine the most central issues that face liberal democratic regimes - whether in the nineteenth century or the twenty-first. They have formed the basis for many of the political institutions of the West since the late nineteenth century, tackling as they do the appropriate grounds for protecting individual liberty, the basic principles of ethics, the benefits and the costs of representative institutions, and the central importance of gender equality in society. These essays are central to the liberal tradition, but their interpretation and how we should understand their connection with each other are both contentious. In their introduction Mark Philp and Frederick Rosen set the essays in the context of Mill's other works, and argue that his conviction in the importance of the development of human character in its full diversity provides the core to his liberalism and to any defensible account of the value of liberalism to the modern world. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Acknowledgements
Introduction
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology Of John Stuart Mill
I Introductory John Stuart Mill
II Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion John Stuart Mill
III Of individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being John Stuart Mill
IV Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Individual John Stuart Mill
V Applications John Stuart Mill
I General Remarks John Stuart Mill
II What Utilitarianism is John Stuart Mill
III Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility John Stuart Mill
IV Of What Sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible John Stuart Mill
V On the Connection between Justice and Utility John Stuart Mill
Preface John Stuart Mill
I To What Extent Forms of Government are a Matter of Choice John Stuart Mill
II The Criterion of a Good Form of Government John Stuart Mill
III That the Ideally Best Form of Government is Representative Government John Stuart Mill
IV Under What Social Conditions Representative Government is Inapplicable John Stuart Mill
V Of the Proper Functions of Representative Bodies John Stuart Mill
VI Of the Infirmities and Dangers to Which Representative Government is Liable John Stuart Mill
VII Of True and False Democracy; Representation of All, and Representation of the Majority Only John Stuart Mill
VIII Of the Extension of the Suffrage John Stuart Mill
IX Should there be Two Stages of Election? John Stuart Mill
X Of the Mode of Voting John Stuart Mill
XI Of the Duration of Parliaments John Stuart Mill
XII Ought Pledges to be Required from Members of Parliament? John Stuart Mill
XIII Of a Second Chamber John Stuart Mill
XIV Of the Executive in a Representative Government John Stuart Mill
XV Of Local Representative Bodies John Stuart Mill
XVI Of Nationality, as Connected with Representative Government John Stuart Mill
XVII Of Federal Representative Governments John Stuart Mill
XVIII Of the Government of Dependencies by a Free State John Stuart Mill
I John Stuart Mill
II John Stuart Mill
III John Stuart Mill
IV John Stuart Mill
Explanatory Notes
Oxford University Press

date: 15 September 2024

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> THE INTERPRETATION OF MAXIMIZING UTILITARIANISM

Article contents

The interpretation of maximizing utilitarianism.

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2008

Utilitarians and their critics commonly assume that maximizing utilitarianism necessarily aggregates over cardinal comparable personal utility rankings that are homogeneous in quality independently of their sources or objects, whether utility is conceived in terms of pleasure or preference satisfaction. Although familiar versions of utilitarianism, crude or sophisticated, do make such rich homogeneous utility information part of the very meaning of the doctrine, utilitarian philosophy loses credibility as a result. A more credible version of maximizing utilitarianism along John Stuart Mill's lines relies instead on plural kinds of ordinal non-comparable personal utilities that are heterogeneous in quality. One kind of utility is qualitatively superior to another if and only if the higher kind is more valuable than the lower kind irrespective of quantity. Given that the kind of utility associated with the moral sentiment of justice is qualitatively superior to any competing kinds, Mill's pluralistic ordinal utilitarianism gives absolute priority to a social code of equal rights and duties over competing considerations. Some key practical implications of this extraordinary utilitarianism are discussed with reference to various examples of the sort discussed in the literature.

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1 Mill , John Stuart , Utilitarianism, in Robson , John M. , ed., Collected Works of John Stuart Mill (hereafter CW ), 33 vols. ( London and Toronto : Routledge and University of Toronto Press , 1963– 1991 ), X , 257 Google Scholar .

2 Ibid. , 258.

3 Mill's condition that “proper allowance” must be made for different kinds of utilities is typically ignored by utilitarians and their critics because of a received opinion that such qualitative distinctions are logically incompatible with utilitarianism. I shall argue later in the essay that this received view is mistaken. Nonetheless, it is worth noting at this point that the received opinion is not restricted to hedonistic conceptions of utility. Its status as conventional wisdom may be due in large part to its immediate acceptance by influential utilitarian contemporaries of Mill's such as Alexander Bain, Henry Sidgwick, W. Stanley Jevons, and Francis Y. Edgeworth, who (like Mill) also happened to be ethical hedonists. But the view that Millian qualitative distinctions are illegitimate has persisted even as hedonistic conceptions of utility have been replaced by nonhedonistic conceptions in recent sophisticated versions of utilitarianism such as those proposed by Richard Hare and John Harsanyi. Anti-utilitarians have not had much incentive to take Mill's side or challenge a view that has always been endorsed by leading utilitarian philosophers as well as by neoclassical economists.

4 For a given population, maximizing the sum total is equivalent to maximizing the average pleasure per capita. But these two criteria diverge and neither is very appealing by itself if population is allowed to vary. The problems that arise under variable population must be faced by any plausible version of consequentialism, but I shall not address them here. For further discussion, see Blackorby , Charles , Bossert , Walter , and Donaldson , David , Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics, and Ethics ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2005 ) CrossRef Google Scholar .

5 Hare , Richard M. , Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point ( Oxford : Clarendon Press , 1981 ) CrossRef Google Scholar ; , Hare , Sorting Out Ethics ( Oxford : Clarendon Press , 1997 ) Google Scholar ; and , Hare , Objective Prescriptions and Other Essays ( Oxford : Clarendon Press , 1999 ) Google Scholar .

6 Dworkin , Ronald , Taking Rights Seriously ( London : Duckworth , 1977 ), 234 Google Scholar .

7 Dworkin rejects utilitarianism as unfair because he thinks that the self-oriented and external elements in any person's preference are sometimes “inextricably tied together” ( ibid. , 236). Prejudiced people may hold very intense preferences to avoid blacks or homosexuals, for example. In that case, “the personal preferences upon which a utilitarian argument must fix will be saturated with that prejudice,” because it is impossible to isolate and ignore the underlying external preferences ( ibid. , 237). Harsanyi admits that the self-oriented and external elements may be inseparable, but he nevertheless suggests that utilitarianism can be suitably reconstituted so as to ignore unfair choices. His view seems to be that some personal choices can be classified as morally impermissible on the basis of their content and that a rational utilitarianism can be consistently required not to count such impermissible choices, including choices that exhibit undue bias for or against others' interests. See Harsanyi , John C. , “Game and Decision Theoretic Models in Ethics,” in Aumann , Robert J. and Hart , Sergiu , eds., Handbook of Game Theory , vol. 1 ( Amsterdam : North Holland , 1992 ), 703 –6 Google Scholar . Hare is reluctant to ignore external preferences as he interprets them, although he struggles with the issue. See, for instance, Hare, Objective Prescriptions, 126–31, 158.

8 Harsanyi , John C. , “ Morality and the Theory of Rational Behavior ,” Social Research 44 ( 1977 ): 623 –56 Google Scholar ; reprinted in Sen , Amartya K. and Williams , Bernard A. O. , eds., Utilitarianism and Beyond ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 1982 ), 39 – 62 CrossRef Google Scholar . See also Harsanyi, “Game and Decision Theoretic Models in Ethics,” 669–707. Note that Hare's universalizability criterion is a more demanding condition for moral choice than Harsanyi's equiprobability criterion, because Hare assumes no veil of ignorance.

9 Hare, Moral Thinking, 117; emphasis in the original.

10 Ibid. , 93.

11 See, e.g., Harsanyi , , “Normative Validity and Meaning of Von Neumann and Morgenstern Utilities,” in Skyrms , Brian , ed., Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Game Theory ( Dordrecht : Kluwer , 1992 ) Google Scholar . For further discussion of Harsanyi's rational choice version of utilitarianism with examples of how the method of cardinalization works, see Binmore , Ken , Playing Fair ( Cambridge, MA : MIT Press , 1994 ), 259 – 315 Google Scholar .

12 Hare, Moral Thinking, 46.

13 Sidgwick , Henry 's The Methods of Ethics ( London : Macmillan , 1874 ) Google Scholar came out when the so-called marginalist revolution was beginning to transform classical economic theory into its neoclassical successor. Among other things, the revolution introduced the use of mathematical calculus to provide more precise models of hedonistic utilitarianism, which was the dominant ethical doctrine within normative economics, as Sidgwick urged. Perhaps the most influential work in this regard was Edgeworth , Francis Y. 's Mathematical Psychics: An Essay on the Application of Mathematics to the Moral Sciences ( London : Kegan Paul , 1881 ) Google Scholar , which makes the assumption that the analyst can speak meaningfully of interpersonally comparable natural units of pleasure. For further discussion of the evolving interpretations of utilitarianism within economic theory, see Riley , Jonathan , “Utilitarianism and Economic Theory,” in Durlauf , Steven and Blume , Lawrence , eds., New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics , 2d ed. , 4 vols. ( London : Palgrave Macmillan , 2008 ) Google Scholar .

14 Modern economists have proposed a more flexible, ordinal version of utilitarianism that abandons cardinal measure but retains interpersonal comparisons of utility based on the extended sympathy method. Utility represents preference orderings revealed by consistent choice behavior, and it is assumed that different persons' levels of preference-satisfaction can be meaningfully compared through sympathy. No commitment is made to hedonism. See, e.g., Arrow , Kenneth J. , “ Some Ordinalist-Utilitarian Notes on Rawls's Theory of Justice ,” Journal of Philosophy 70 ( 1973 ): 245 –63 Google Scholar ; Arrow , , “ Extended Sympathy and the Possibility of Social Choice ,” American Economic Review 67 ( 1977 ): 219 –25 Google Scholar ; and Gibbard , Allan F. , “Ordinal Utilitarianism,” in Feiwel , George R. , ed., Arrow and the Foundations of the Theory of Economic Policy ( London : Macmillan , 1987 ), 135 –53 CrossRef Google Scholar . But this ordinal variant is seen by some as a nonstandard version of the doctrine, which is perhaps better classified as something other than utilitarianism. See Sen , Amartya K. , “ Utilitarianism and Welfarism ,” Journal of Philosophy 76 ( 1979 ): 463 –89 CrossRef Google Scholar .

15 For evidence of Bentham's doubts about cardinal measurement and interpersonal comparison of utility in the sense of pleasure including freedom from pain, see Mitchell , Wesley C. , “ Bentham's Felicific Calculus ,” Political Science Quarterly 33 ( 1918 ): 161 –83 CrossRef Google Scholar .

16 Mill, Utilitarianism, 211; emphasis in the original.

18 Moore , G. E. , Principia Ethica ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 1959 ) Google Scholar . Unlike Sidgwick and the economists, Moore was a sharp critic of ethical hedonism, although he seems to have remained a utilitarian for whom utility or good is “one definite thing, absolutely indefinable, some one thing that is the same in all the various degrees and in all the various kinds of it that there may be” ( ibid. , 13; emphasis added).

19 Ibid. , 78.

20 See, e.g., Blackburn , Simon , Being Good ( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2001 ), 82 Google Scholar . John Dewey is another prominent figure in this tradition of criticizing Millian qualitative superiorities as incoherent. Indeed, like Moore and transcendental idealists such as Kant, Hegel, Thomas Hill Green, and Bernard Bosanquet, he rejects hedonism altogether. Nevertheless, he seems to endorse a nonstandard pragmatist version of rational preference utilitarianism. In an ideal Deweyan society, rational individuals would habitually resolve practical problems by cooperating in terms of a shared but evolving idea of the general welfare in which great importance is assigned to a code of justice that distributes equal rights and correlative duties. By cooperating successfully on these terms, reflective individuals would jointly satisfy their desires (“ends-in-view”) in harmony as they resolved an indefinite series of problematical situations arising over time in their natural environment. Among his many works, see Dewey , John and Tufts , James Hayden , Ethics, in Boydston , Jo Ann , ed., John Dewey: The Later Works: 1925–1953 , vol. 7 ( Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press , 1985 ), 191 –99, 240–52 Google Scholar .

21 Sen , Amartya K. , “ Plural Utility ,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81 ( 1980 ): 193 – 215 CrossRef Google Scholar .

22 Edwards , Rem B. , Pleasures and Pains: A Theory of Qualitative Hedonism ( Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press , 1979 ) Google Scholar . As will become obvious, I do not entirely agree with his view of the matter. But his discussion provides an excellent corrective to the conventional prejudice that utility (in this case, hedonistic utility) must be seen as homogeneous in quality independently of its sources or objects.

23 The term ‘infinite’ does not connote a real number or quantity. Rather, it properly refers to a hypothetical procedure of endless or unlimited expansion. True, the procedure might converge on a finite limit, but the procedure itself is endless and, strictly speaking, never actually reaches the limit. This is not incompatible with the invention of ideal objects such as ‘infinite sets’ for mathematical purposes, keeping in mind that nobody could ever observe the complete contents of an infinite set and, indeed, nobody can even conceive what such a completed set would look like in practice. For relevant discussion, see John Stuart Mill, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, in Mill, CW, IX, 37–49, 82–86, 425–29.

24 See, e.g., Norcross , Alastair , “ Comparing Harms: Headaches and Human Lives ,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 26 ( 1997 ): 135 –67 CrossRef Google Scholar .

25 See, among many others, Foot , Philippa , “ The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect ,” Oxford Review 5 ( 1967 ): 5 – 15 Google Scholar ; Williams , Bernard , “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” in Smart , J. J. C. and Williams , Bernard , Utilitarianism: For and Against ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 1973 ), 77 – 150 Google Scholar ; Thomson , Judith Jarvis , “ Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem ,” The Monist 59 ( 1976 ): 204 –17 CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed ; and Kamm , Frances , Intricate Ethics ( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2007 ) CrossRef Google Scholar . Mill discusses the case of Hannibal in a letter to William Thomas Thornton dated April 17, 1863, in Mill, CW, XV, 853–54. See also Mill's letter to E. W. Young dated November 10, 1867, in CW, XVI, 1327–28.

26 Scheffler , Samuel , Human Morality ( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 1992 ), 103 Google Scholar . See also Vallentyne , Peter , “Against Maximizing Act-Consequentialism,” in Dreier , James , ed., Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory ( Oxford : Basil Blackwell , 2005 ), 21 – 37 Google Scholar .

27 Scheffler apparently does not identify morality with deservingness of punishment for failure to do what we think is right. But I shall adopt Mill's view in Utilitarianism: “We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience” (184).

28 Scheffler notes that his notion of overridingness is stronger than Hare's linguistic thesis that an individual who competently uses moral language to make sincere moral judgments treats moral principles as overriding (Scheffler, Human Morality, 56 n. 4). Hare allows that a rational agent may know how to use moral language yet opt out of morality, whereas the claim of overridingness as Scheffler understands it implies that a rational agent must, in his own interest, give absolute priority to morality over competing considerations. Although Scheffler largely ignores the point, a society may take various steps to promote harmony between prudence and morality by threatening to duly punish by law or opinion any individual who fails to meet his moral obligations. Society need not take for granted that all of its members are rational and impartial agents who are always willing to do what is right even in the absence of external incentives.

29 Scheffler himself defends a conception of morality as pervasive but moderate and perhaps not overriding. I shall come back to his view of morality briefly in Section VII .

30 Critics of utilitarianism recognize that the utilitarian account of right action can be distinguished from the utilitarian account of optimal deliberation, but this does not lead them to endorse utilitarian ethics. See, e.g., Scheffler, Human Morality, 38–39. For criticisms of both Hare's and Harsanyi's versions of utilitarianism, see Sen , Amartya , Collective Choice and Social Welfare ( San Francisco, CA : Freeman , 1970 ), 131 –46 Google Scholar ; Williams , Bernard , Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy ( Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press , 1985 ), 71 – 119 Google Scholar ; and Seanor , D. and Fotion , N. , eds., Hare and Critics ( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 1988 ) Google Scholar .

31 Hare, Moral Thinking, 42–43.

32 Ibid. , 145.

33 Hare's claim that Kant might be read as a sophisticated utilitarian is no doubt controversial. Cf. Hare, Sorting Out Ethics, 147–65; and Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, 54–70, 82–92, 189–96.

34 Hare, Moral Thinking, 122.

36 Ibid. , 49. See also Hare, Objective Prescriptions, 161–63.

37 Hannibal apparently saved his fellow citizens from having to make a choice by fleeing into exile in Asia Minor.

38 Hare, Moral Thinking, 198–205.

39 Ibid. , 169–82.

40 Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, 86–87; emphasis in the original. As I have already indicated, Hare is reluctant to deal with this problem more directly by endorsing Harsanyi's move of excluding “external” preferences in Dworkin's sense. Utilitarians do seem unable to consistently make such a move, given that pleasures or satisfactions are homogeneous in quality.

41 Harsanyi presents his version of rule-utilitarianism as a two-stage game in which participants mutually cooperate to choose an optimal code at the first stage and then compete with each other by playing their permissible strategies to maximize their own advantage at the second stage. See Harsanyi, “Game and Decision Theoretic Models in Ethics,” 692–94.

42 For further discussion of this point, see Riley , Jonathan , “Rule Utilitarianism and Liberal Priorities,” in Fleurbaey , M. , Salles , M. , and Weymark , J. , eds., Justice, Political Liberalism, and Utilitarianism ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2008 ) Google Scholar .

43 Diamond , Peter A. , “ Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility: Comment ,” Journal of Political Economy 75 ( 1967 ): 765 –66 CrossRef Google Scholar .

44 Binmore , Ken , Natural Justice ( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2005 ) CrossRef Google Scholar . In Binmore's view, cultural evolution supplies standards of interpersonal comparison which participants in that culture typically believe are reasonable. For a critical discussion of Binmore's contractarian theory of justice, see Riley , Jonathan , “ Genes, Memes, and Justice ,” Analyse & Kritik 28 ( 2006 ): 32 – 56 CrossRef Google Scholar .

45 The considered appeal of various common moral intuitions has led many moral thinkers, including those who assess acts and omissions in terms of their utility consequences for other persons or sentient creatures, to reject even sophisticated versions of maximizing utilitarianism. Brad Hooker, for instance, defends a version of rule-consequentialism that admits some reductions in the sum total when needed to achieve a fair distribution of utilities: extra weight is given to the utilities of the worst-off members of society so that fairness may be attained. In his view, such a rule-consequentialism provides a systematic impartial justification for shared moral convictions that have their own independent credibility. See Hooker , Brad , Ideal Code, Real World ( Oxford : Clarendon Press , 2000 ) Google Scholar . One serious worry, however, among others, is that Hooker's consequentialism continues to rely, in principle, on rich cardinal and interpersonally comparable utility information.

46 Mill, Utilitarianism, 214; emphasis added.

47 In his discussion of the “desire to be in unity” that he considers “a natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality,” Mill admits that even in fairly advanced societies “a person cannot indeed feel that entireness of sympathy with all others, which would make any real discordance in the general direction of their conduct in life impossible” ( Utilitarianism, 233). He says that “differences of opinion and of mental culture [may] make it impossible for him to share many of their actual feelings—perhaps make him denounce and defy those feelings” ( ibid. , emphasis added). Even so, he suggests that at least some individuals have some sympathy for “promoting” other people's “own good,” that is, their personal happiness correctly perceived in point of quantity and quality, as opposed to what they may actually desire and take pleasure in. The implication seems to be that sympathy for others' actual feelings is not necessary for an individual to develop the desire for social unity. A fortiori, utilitarianism, as Mill conceives it, does not depend on interpersonal comparisons based upon sympathy.

48 Mill, Utilitarianism, 213.

49 On the link between utilitarianism and majority rule in the context of interpersonally noncomparable ordinal utility information, see Riley , Jonathan , “ Utilitarian Ethics and Democratic Government ,” Ethics 100 ( 1990 ): 335 –48 CrossRef Google Scholar . Majority rule is subject to inconsistencies, unfortunately, as Arrow's impossibility theorem implies. See Arrow , Kenneth J. , Social Choice and Individual Values , 2d ed. ( New Haven, CT : Yale University Press , 1963 ) Google Scholar . One way to remove the inconsistencies is to employ a positional rule or scoring function such as Borda count. Under Borda count, each person ranks the m feasible outcomes from best to worst, and m − 1, m − 2,…,1,0 points are assigned to the best, next-best, …, second-worst, and worst outcomes, respectively. The procedure then selects an outcome with the greatest aggregate point total. More generally, to escape from the Borda method's insistence on equal spacing of points awarded for first choice, second choice, and so forth, a generalized scoring rule could be employed whose point assignments are unique only up to a positive monotonic transformation so long as such transformations are applied to every person's ordering. Although it has the formal appearance of an interpersonally comparable ordinal utility function, this generalized scoring function is really just a way to consistently count one person's preference ordering for exactly as much as another's. There is no attempt to justify the scoring function in terms of interpersonal comparisons of actual pleasures or satisfactions. It does not reflect the results of the extended-sympathy method applied to different people's enjoyments as estimated in their respective preference orderings. Despite its possible attractions as a way of achieving the utilitarian aim of impartially counting everyone for one and only one, however, this scoring approach does occasionally fail to choose Condorcet winners when they exist; that is, it may fail to select an outcome that is majority-preferred to every other outcome in a series of binary contests. In any case, I shall henceforth assume that such a generalized scoring procedure is used to remove any inconsistencies otherwise associated with majority voting. (For recent critical surveys of the vast literature relating to scoring rules, including Borda count, see Brams , Steven J. and Fishburn , Peter C. , “Voting Procedures,” in Arrow , K. J. , Sen , A. K. , and Suzumura , K. , eds., Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare , vol. 1 [ Amsterdam : Elsevier , 2002 ], 173 – 236 CrossRef Google Scholar ; and Prasanta K. Pattanaik, “Positional Rules of Collective Decision-Making,” in ibid. , 361–94.) Needless to say, Bentham and Mill never discuss such a scoring procedure, but it is arguably in the spirit of utilitarianism as they conceive it. For further discussion, see Jonathan Riley, “Classical Ordinal Utilitarianism,” unpublished working paper.

50 Mill, On Liberty, in CW, XVIII, 252–57. See also Riley , Jonathan , Mill on Liberty ( London : Routledge , 1998 ), 67 – 68 Google Scholar .

51 Bentham's awkward phrase “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” makes more sense if he is interpreted as referring to possibly distinct notions of personal happiness held by the majority rather than to some independent notion of collective happiness based on rich utility information.

52 Mill, Utilitarianism, 213.

53 On the use of majoritarian voting procedures as epistemic devices for providing maximum-likelihood estimates of some objective good, such as aggregate net pleasure, see Young , H. Peyton , “ Condorcet's Theory of Voting ,” American Political Science Review 82 ( 1988 ): 1231 –44 CrossRef Google Scholar .

54 Mill, Utilitarianism, 211.

55 For an extended discussion of this interpretation of Millian qualitative superiorities as infinite superiorities, see Riley , Jonathan , “ Millian Qualitative Superiorities and Utilitarianism, Parts 1 and 2 ,” Utilitas 20 ( 2008 ) CrossRef Google Scholar . It is important to keep in mind that infinity is not a real number or quantity: there is no such thing as a completed infinity in nature. Thus, it cannot be maintained that a higher pleasure is equal in value to an actual infinite amount of lower pleasure.

56 Mill, Utilitarianism, 213; emphasis in the original.

57 Ibid. , 211.

58 This sketch of Mill's higher pleasures doctrine requires further clarification, but I cannot provide it here. For further discussion of the different kinds of pleasures and of why it may be reasonable to regard the higher kinds as infinitely superior in value to the lower kinds, see Jonathan Riley, “Millian Qualitative Superiorities and Rational Agency,” unpublished working paper.

59 In his excellent discussion of pluralistic or qualitative hedonism, Edwards suggests that Millian qualitative superiorities might be captured by a simple ordinal ranking of the different kinds or qualities of pleasant feelings (Edwards, Pleasures and Pains, 68–72, 111–19). Like Edwards, Wilson , Fred , in Psychological Analysis and the Philosophy of J. S. Mill ( Toronto : University of Toronto Press , 1990 ) Google Scholar , also interprets Mill as groping for an ordinal utility scale that orders different qualities of utility from higher to lower without trying to quantify how much a higher quality differs from a lower one ( ibid. , 220–23, 253, 275–93).

60 As a technical matter, the fact that a lexical preference ordering cannot be represented by a continuous real-valued mathematical function means that a utility function, in the purely formal sense of ‘utility’ used by modern economists, cannot be used to represent the information contained in the lexical preference. Thus, an unbridgeable gap is created in this case between the economists' purely formal sense of ‘utility’ and philosophical conceptions of utility as preference-satisfaction, whatever the motivations or reasons assumed to underlie the preferences. In particular, an ordinal utility function might be used to represent the information about the estimated quantities of pleasure to be expected from outcomes contained in an ordinary hedonistic preference ordering restricted to a given kind or quality of pleasure. But a utility function cannot be used to represent the information about the different qualities of pleasures to be expected from outcomes contained in the lexical preference ordering.

61 Given that higher intellectual, moral, and aesthetic capacities must be developed to appreciate higher pleasures such as that associated with the moral sentiment of justice, the majority competently acquainted with a higher kind of pleasure is not necessarily the same majority as the majority competently acquainted with a lower kind of pleasure. A fortiori, the majority competent to decide on a qualitative preference ordering may be an educated minority in some social contexts.

62 Mill, Utilitarianism, 250; emphasis added.

63 Ibid. , 251.

64 Ibid. ; emphasis added.

65 It should be recalled that a scoring function may be used to remove inconsistencies in majority rule. (See note 49 above.) Strictly speaking, majority rule per se does not give equal weights to different persons' preferences. Rather, it impartially counts the different noncomparable preference orderings without attempting to weigh them relative to one another, and it reflects the shared preferences of the greater number. A scoring function can be superimposed to mimic the way in which ballots are distributed to voters, so that one person's preferences may be counted for exactly as much as another's in the stronger sense that each gets equal weight in the political decision. But the ballot typically covers only the voter's top-ranked alternative instead of his entire ordering.

66 Mill was a firm defender of popular government with a universal franchise, although he was also far more inclined than either his father James Mill or Bentham to institute constitutional checks and balances against unrestrained majoritarianism. His notorious device of plural votes based on education should be regarded as a check against abuses by ignorant or tyrannical majorities. But the device as he describes it would not permit the educated minority to elect so many representatives that they could pass legislation opposed by the representatives of the popular majority, keeping in mind that he also advocates a system of proportional representation. In the special case of an ideal society of highly educated citizens, there would be no need for plural votes. For further discussion of his argument that a form of constitutional representative democracy is the best form of government for any civil society, see Riley , Jonathan , “Mill's Neo-Athenian Model of Liberal Democracy,” in Urbinati , Nadia and Zakaras , Alex , eds., J. S. Mill's Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment ( Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press , 2007 ), 221 –49 CrossRef Google Scholar .

67 Mill tells us that he regards “utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being” ( On Liberty, 224). With respect to the interest in security associated with justice, security is a kind of pleasure or satisfaction (including freedom from pain) which can only be had in the context of a code of equal rights. The amount of security experienced by any individual varies across different codes, depending on whether he is regarded as a member of the relevant community to whom equal rights are distributed and, if so, on the contents of the rights distributed to all members. If he is excluded from the group, then he experiences no security. For any given population, general security can be maximized only if equal rights are distributed to all individuals, none being excluded. Mill realizes that the idea of justice as equal rights has been clouded historically by mistaken notions of expediency that call for excluding this or that subset of people from the rights distribution. But this is simply another way of saying that history is a record of injustice, of unfair societies in which general security has not been maximized. See, e.g., Mill, The Subjection of Women, in CW, XXI.

68 For Mill, the lexical priority of a code of justice over competing considerations is justified by the infinite superiority of this higher kind of utility over competing kinds. In contrast, Kant and John Rawls in their different ways trace the absolute priority of the code to a self-justifying principle of practical rationality or procedure of public reasoning that transcends and constrains any person's idea of his utility or good. See, e.g., Rawls , John , Political Liberalism , expanded edition ( New York : Columbia University Press , 2002 ) Google Scholar .

69 Mill, Utilitarianism, 251.

70 Mill, On Liberty, 224–25.

71 I am ignoring the relatively rare occasions on which the scoring procedure may fail to select a Condorcet winner when it exists.

72 Unlike the sophisticated utilitarianisms discussed earlier, Millian utilitarianism supposes that any prudent and impartial individual must be willing to universalize his prescriptions of the rights which he thinks are best for promoting his own security. Thus, he is willing to assert a general rule that distributes equal rights and correlative duties which all rational agents might adopt with a view to promoting their own security. In addition, he must be willing to comply with the rule which emerges as the outcome of the impartial political process, even if the rule favored by the majority is not his personal favorite. In contrast, both Hare and Harsanyi require, in effect, that the individual must be willing to universalize his prescriptions so as to maximize an independent notion of general welfare which is fully understood only by a fictitious impersonal observer in possession of the requisite cardinal and interpersonally comparable utility information of homogeneous quality.

73 Instead of giving extra weight to the utilities of the worst-off people when calculating overall good, as in Brad Hooker's rule consequentialism, Mill's utilitarianism as interpreted protects the worst-off by impartially distributing an equal claim to subsistence or to some minimum level of income guaranteed by the general taxpayer. Security from abject poverty is certainly something that most rational and impartial agents can recognize as a part of justice, at least in societies where a threshold level of collective wealth has been achieved. In addition, the Millian doctrine prescribes moral duties of charity, which are imperfect in the sense that they do not correlate to anybody's rights, and thus, unlike perfect duties of justice, admit some personal discretion as to the occasions of their performance. Supererogatory acts of giving to others are also viewed as praiseworthy, although they are not morally required. This tripartite classification of acts of redistribution into just, charitable, and supererogatory is seen as a dynamic social construction that evolves as the members of society develop their intellectual, moral, and practical capacities. As society advances, competent majorities may choose to reclassify acts formerly seen as acts of charity into acts of justice, for instance, so that a right to some level of poor relief comes to be accepted as morally required. Or acts of sacrifice formerly viewed as supererogatory may come to be seen as morally obligatory on at least some occasions. For further discussion, see Riley , Jonathan , “ Mill's Extraordinary Utilitarian Theory of Morality ,” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 8 ( 2009 ) Google Scholar . Hooker's distinct approach to these matters is discussed in his Ideal Code, Real World, 147–74.

74 Recall that the qualitative difference implies a discontinuity of value in any list of pains or dissatisfactions such that any finite amount of injustice—the kind of suffering that is associated with violations of equal rights—is regarded by most rational people as incomparably worse than any competing finite amount of lower kinds of dissatisfactions or annoyances, however large.

75 Mill, Letter to Thornton, in CW, XV, 854.

76 As it turned out, the relentless Romans eventually did destroy Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 b.c.

77 Police, firefighters, medical personnel, and other professionals may well be much more likely than the ordinary person to find themselves in tragic situations akin to the runaway trolley case. A separate argument might be made for rules that distribute professional obligations to risk one's life to rescue a greater number of other people from accidental death in these situations. Such obligations would become part of the job description. In any case, it would not be surprising if professionals developed some such convention to govern interactions among themselves.

78 Brad Hooker also makes this point ( Ideal Code, Real World, 169).

79 This point about freedom does not require acceptance of Mill's doctrine of a moral right to absolute liberty of so-called purely self-regarding conduct. For a defense of the self-regarding liberty doctrine, see Riley, Mill on Liberty; and Riley , , Mill's Radical Liberalism ( London : Routledge , 2009 ) Google Scholar .

80 As a result, Millian utilitarianism as conceived can consistently endorse both “an Ideal of Purity and an Ideal of Humanity,” in Scheffler's terms ( Human Morality, 101–32). For Scheffler's claim about stringency, see Section III above.

81 For further discussion of my interpretation of Mill's utilitarian theory of justice, see Jonathan Riley, “Justice as Higher Pleasure,” to be published in John Stuart Mill: Thought and Influence, ed. Paul J. Kelly and Georgios Varouxakis; and Riley, “Mill's Extraordinary Utilitarian Theory of Morality.” For a Millian response to Sen's Paretian liberal impossibility result, see Riley , , “ Liberal Rights in a Pareto-Optimal Code ,” Utilitas 18 (March 2006 ): 61 – 79 CrossRef Google Scholar .

82 Mill, Utilitarianism, 218.

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Volume 26, Issue 1
Jonathan Riley (a1)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052509090128

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Can Utilitarianism Improve the US Criminal Justice System? An Evaluation of Punishment and the Utility Calculus

Utilitarianism is a philosophy that values the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people (Driver 2014). Utilitarianism was created by European philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. Bentham believed that when a government is based on utilitarianism, a system of law and reason is created that values happiness as its foremost principle (Bentham 1789). To provide a mechanism for utilitarianism to be applied to governmental policy, Benthem created the utility calculus. The utility calculus is a set of specific questions designed to evaluate a situation and propose the response or action a government should take to maximize happiness and minimize unnecessary pain.

Painting of Jeremy Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism, by Henry William Pickersgill 1829. https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/

As a philosophy and political science double major interested in political theory, I found Bentham and Mill’s goal of valuing happiness in government to be intriguing and inspiring. After hearing about Bentham’s theories of government in a Social and Political Philosophy class taught by Professor Nick Smith, I began contemplating how utilitarianism and the utility calculus could be implemented into governmental systems.

To support my research, I received funding from a Research Experience and Apprenticeship Program (REAP) grant through the University of New Hampshire’s Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research. Nick Smith, my research mentor and adviser, helped me narrow my research goal: to determine if the philosophy of utilitarianism, and specifically the utility calculus, could have a positive effect on drug sentencing in the United States criminal justice system.

I took particular interest in the ideological purpose behind US judicial laws. The US criminal justice system does not operate under a single clear ideology. Instead, multiple ideologies create inconsistency between the actions and stances the US criminal justice system takes. However, many of the actions the US takes, such as some states’ use of the death penalty, are justified using retributionist methodology. This means that punishments, mainly prison terms, are allotted because the individual is deemed to deserve punishment, not necessarily because society or the individual will benefit from the punishment.

I took issue with the concept of retribution, specifically when used in cases of nonviolent crimes, such as drug offenses, and found retribution morally questionable because of its reliance on punishment regardless of extenuating circumstances. I began contemplating whether the utilitarian goal to create happiness could provide a solution to problems such as high recidivism rates, a retributionist theme, and a lack of consideration for convicts’ futures. Given these problems, I wanted to see if Bentham’s utility calculus could provide a beneficial alternative to current policies for drug sentencing in the United States.

The Utility Calculus: Definition and Criticisms

Jeremy Bentham designed the utility calculus as a mechanism to apply utilitarian values to government policies; however, I discovered that the utility calculus is incredibly complex and relative. The utility calculus is a series of questions (see Appendix) that are circumstantial and subjective. For example, the calculus asks us to calculate the amount of pain someone will experience as a result of punishment. This becomes complicated in cases such as incarceration where, because of issues related to reintegrating into society with a criminal record, the pain that results from punishment lasts longer than the duration of the prison sentence. Moreover, the concept of pain is subjective; each person experiences pain differently. It is impossible for anyone to truly determine how much pain another person will experience as a result of punishment.

Because of its complexity and subjectivity, the utility calculus is impractical as a tool for every individual judicial case. As Bentham himself acknowledged, an accompanying set of sentencing guidelines, similar to modern mandatory minimums, must be used when applying utilitarianism to government policies (Burton 1843). I realized that although standard sentencing guidelines based on utilitarian values could not be applied uniformly to every individual case, they could effectively outline punishments for each category of crime and maximize utility in a practical manner.

Developing Utilitarian Sentencing Guidelines

The next step in my research was to formulate hypothetical utilitarian sentencing guidelines for the category of crime I wanted to focus on: drug crimes. I created hypothetical utilitarian guidelines based on my knowledge of how drug crimes are currently categorized (e.g., crimes for possession of drugs are separated from crimes for drug use) and punished (e.g., mandatory minimums and three-strikes laws). Next, by answering its questions, I determined whether the utility calculus would permit certain punishments. I answered these questions, such as those asking about the duration and extent of pain caused by each respective punishment, to the best of my ability, considering the subjectivity and difficulty associated with using the utility calculus. To compensate for this complexity, I kept an overarching utilitarian goal in mind: maximizing happiness. I then evaluated whether each proposed utilitarian punishment, recommended by the standard sentencing guidelines, would have a positive or negative effect on society.

A Hypothetical Utilitarian Guideline for Punishment

One type of punishment I considered was for people convicted of using a small amount of an illegal substance. For this crime, my hypothetical sentencing guideline would consist of three components: (1) a small fine, (2) education, and (3) minimal rehabilitation and medical care if needed. Although this approach differs from typical US punishments, which rely heavily on incarceration, utilitarians often believe “reform might be better achieved by early education and by drug rehabilitation than by incarceration” (Binder and Smith, 2000: 116).

Table showing how author organized the different aspects of a hypothetical utilitarian punishment

Figure 1: A table depicting how I organized the different aspects of a hypothetical utilitarian punishment for minimal amounts of substance abuse.

I included a fine in my hypothetical sentencing guideline to serve as a deterrent to engaging in substance abuse, both to prevent the offender from engaging in substance abuse in the future and to serve as a threat to prevent the general public from engaging in such criminal behavior. The fine would also be designed to cover the costs associated with the arrest and punishment of the convict to alleviate this financial burden on taxpayers. This punishment is supported by utilitarianism because the happiness of the taxpayers would increase in proportion to the decrease of their taxes. The happiness of the offender and people who would potentially consider committing a crime in the future would also increase because they would be deterred from consuming illegal substances.

Second, after undergoing governmental education programs on the harmful repercussions of consuming illicit drugs, the offender would be less likely to engage in substance abuse in the future. Education typically causes minimal pain and has the possibility of creating an extreme amount of long-term happiness if convicts learn to change their behavior. The financial cost of education typically is not extravagant and does not outweigh the long-term positives and happiness that education produces. Education as punishment would be justified under utilitarianism because there would be little financial harm and the possibility of the great positive effect of reducing crime.

The third component of my hypothetical guideline, rehabilitation or medical care, would be used in cases where the offender exhibited signs of addiction or suffered health problems related to drug use. The rehabilitation would be designed to stop the addiction before the onset of a more serious problem. Medical care would be provided to help the individual recover from any physical harm caused by the illicit substance, including withdrawal symptoms. After rehabilitation, the individual would be in an improved physical and mental state; therefore, the temptation to use the illicit drug would be reduced and the happiness of the offender would increase. Thus, the pain associated with the financial cost of such programs would be mitigated by the long-term happiness the offender experienced.

The Harms of Using Standard Guidelines

Despite the utility calculus’s appealing goal of creating happiness, I was unhappy with the results when I applied these hypothetical sentencing guidelines to specific examples of drug crimes. Even though I designed my sentencing guidelines using utilitarian principles, as described for a drug-use crime above, it is impossible for any standard sentencing guideline to properly address the complexities of every criminal case.

Consider how a utilitarian sentencing guideline for selling illegal drugs would punish a single mother in poverty who is coerced by gang members into selling drugs and is caught by law enforcement. Despite the extenuating circumstances of the case, a judge in a utilitarian system would have little choice but to issue the standard sentence recommended by the utility calculus. For instance, a reasonable utilitarian sentencing guideline for drug dealers could include a large fine to cover the rehabilitation costs of those to whom they sold drugs; however, it would be unreasonable and unethical to expect the single mother in poverty to pay this large fine when she was coerced into selling drugs. This situation ignores the complexities of the mother’s case, causing both her and her children a significant amount of unnecessary pain. Even in more simplistic cases, such as one in which no coercion is involved but a family relies upon the mother’s income, giving the mother a large fine would unjustly affect her dependents. Therefore, standard utilitarian sentencing guidelines should not be permitted because of their inability to provide ethical and just punishments for every complex and individual criminal case.

An Alternative Solution: The Implementation of Utilitarian Values

I came to the conclusion that implementing utilitarian values within the US justice system, rather than applying the utility calculus or utilitarian standard sentencing guidelines, would have the most beneficial effect. By integrating the utilitarian value of happiness and unconventional punishments, such as rehabilitation and education, the happiness of convicts and society in general could increase. This implementation would be drafted by legislators aiming to include the utilitarian value of creating happiness when possible as a comprehensive goal for the US criminal justice system, similar to how many Scandinavian countries have the goal of humane treatment and reintegration into society (Zoukis 2017). As a result, the focus of punishment would likely change from incarceration to rehabilitation. Treating offenders in a humane fashion dedicated to reintegration into society, by means such as education or job training, would result in happier offenders with lower recidivism rates and a better chance of future success (Zoukis 2017). Moreover, a low recidivism rate would increase the happiness of society because taxpayers do not have to pay for multiple prison sentences and can benefit from the offender becoming a productive member of society.

The author, Piper Gibson. Photo by Clarissa Williams.

Because of the influence that utilitarianism and drug-related problems have on the political and philosophical world, I hope that my research will help both fields address some of the complex issues the world is facing. I know that the knowledge I gained through REAP will contribute to my own understanding of these complexities in the political world, allowing me to bring a well-rounded understanding of utilitarianism to my studies as I pursue a double major in philosophy and political science.

I believe that the utilitarian perspective of looking at a situation holistically with the goal of creating happiness could have an overall positive effect on the United States criminal justice system, despite the problems associated specifically with the utility calculus. I hope that looking at the American people holistically and valuing their happiness will have an increasingly significant presence in United States policy. I also hope that by contemplating my conclusion, readers will have an increased investment in understanding the methodology of punishment and how this methodology could be improved and clarified in the United States.

I would like to thank the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research for their consistent dedication to ensuring that UNH students receive amazing research opportunities throughout their undergraduate experience. I would like to specifically thank the REAP program, Mr. Dana Hamel, and the Rogers Family Undergraduate Research Fund for supporting my research that made this article happen. I would also like to thank my mentor, Professor Nick Smith, who has been one of my most valued mentors. With Professor Smith’s help, I have had a rich academic experience at the University of New Hampshire that has featured a multitude of wonderful opportunities, including but not limited to the REAP, which led to the creation of this Inquiry commentary. Specifically, I would like to thank Professor Smith for his guidance throughout the REAP process, including mentoring me on the complexities of utilitarianism and the US criminal justice system and guiding me throughout the process of creating an extensive philosophical research paper. Lastly, I would like to thank my friends and family for always supporting me. Their continued love and support serves as my north star throughout every endeavor I undertake in life.

Jeremy Bentham’s System of Measuring Pain and Pleasure

As written in Bentham, Jeremy. “Principles of Morals.” Chapter 4:22-23

To a person (considered by himself) the value of a pleasure or pain (considered by itself) will be greater or less according to:

(1) its intensity.

(2) its duration.

(3) its certainty or uncertainty.

(4) its nearness or remoteness.

These are the circumstances that are to be considered when estimating a pleasure or a pain considered by itself. But when the value of a pleasure or pain is considered for the purpose of estimating the tendency of an act by which it is produced, two other circumstances must be taken into the account:

(5) its fecundity, i.e. its chance of being followed by sensations of the same kind (pleasure by pleasure, pain by pain), and

(6) its purity, i.e. its chance of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind (pleasure by pain, pain by pleasure).

These last two, however, are not strictly properties of the pleasure or the pain itself, so they aren’t strictly to be taken into the account of the value of that pleasure or pain. They are really only properties of the act or other event by which such pleasure or pain has been produced; so they are only to be taken into the account of the tendency of that act or event.

For many people the value of a pleasure or a pain will be greater or less according to seven circumstances—the six preceding ones and one other, namely

(7) its extent, i.e. the number of persons to whom it extends or (in other words) who are affected by it.

Works Cited

Bentham, Jeremy. “Principles of Morals.” Early Modern History , 1789. www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/bentham1780.pdf

Binder, Guyora, and Nicholas J Smith. “Framed: Utilitarianism and Punishment of the Innocent.” Rutgers Law Journal , vol. 32, no. 1, 2000.

Burton, John Hill. “The Works of Bentham.” The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) ,1843. Online Library of Liberty, https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/bentham-the-works-of-jeremy-bentham-vol-10-memoirs-part-i-and-correspondence

Driver, Julia. “The History of Utilitarianism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Stanford University, 22 Sept. 2014, plato.stanford.edu/entries/utilitarianism-history/.

Zoukis, Christopher. “Not the Worst, but Not Norway: US Prisons vs. Other Models.” HuffPost , 6 Sept. 2017, www.huffpost.com/entry/not-the-worst-but-not-norway-us-prisons-vs-other_...

Author and Mentor Bios

Piper Gibson is from Colebrook, Connecticut. At the University of New Hampshire (UNH) she is working toward a bachelor of arts degree, with a double major in political science and philosophy and a minor in classics. She is enrolled in the University Honors Program and pursuing Honors in Major in political science and philosophy. Her research was completed as part of the Research Experience and Apprenticeship Program (REAP) through the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research. Piper says her lifelong goal is “to try to help those who have been left behind by society and governments.” When she first learned about utilitarianism in a social and political philosophy class taught by Nick Smith, her interest was piqued and she decided to pursue independent research on the subject. Piper enjoyed applying philosophical theories to real-life scenarios. She hopes to be a professor of social and political philosophy in the future and to provide students with a well-grounded understanding of the theories and policies that affect the world around them, as well as the skills needed to deliberate on whether these theories and policies have a positive or negative effect.

Nick Smith is professor and chairperson of the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Department of Philosophy. He has been at UNH since 2002. Before coming to UNH, Smith, who holds a JD and PhD, worked as a litigator for a private law firm and as a judicial clerk for the Honorable R. L. Nygaard of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He has published two books on his studies of the meaning and role of apologies in justice and contributes regularly to interviews in national media outlets. Smith has mentored many undergraduate researchers at UNH and considers it “one of the genuine highlights of teaching at UNH.” Dr. Smith first met Piper when she was a junior high school student attending the Future Leaders Institute—a summer philosophy camp he directed with classics professor Scott Smith.

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Utilitarianism Essay A-Level AQA Philosophy (7172)
Thesis of utilitarianism #theoryofutilitarianism #ruleutilitarianism #
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Utilitarianism
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PDF The Misplaced Role of 'Utilitarianism' in John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism
This thesis aims to provide the appropriate historical context for interpreting John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. The central question considered here concerns two views of Mill's intentions for Utilitarianism, and whether the work should be read as Mill arguing for his own version of utilitarianism, or as an ecumenical document expressing and
Utilitarianism
Introduction. Utilitarianism is a moral theory that judges actions based on their consequences—specifically, based on their effects on well-being. Most utilitarians take well-being to be constituted largely by happiness, and historically utilitarianism has been known by the phrase "the greatest happiness for the greatest number.".
The History of Utilitarianism
The History of Utilitarianism. First published Fri Mar 27, 2009; substantive revision Mon Sep 22, 2014. Utilitarianism is one of the most powerful and persuasive approaches to normative ethics in the history of philosophy. Though not fully articulated until the 19 th century, proto-utilitarian positions can be discerned throughout the history ...
PDF The Limits of Utilitarianism and Beyond
H. A. Bedau. Utilitarianism and Beyond, edited by economist Amartya Sen and philosopher Bernard Williams, and The Limits of Utilitarianism, edited by philosophers Harlan Miller and William Williams, should be on the shelf of every serious student of contemporary utilitarianism. Each book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to assess ...
Utilitarianism
hedonistic Utilitarianism. utilitarianism, in normative ethics, a tradition stemming from the late 18th- and 19th-century English philosophers and economists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill according to which an action (or type of action) is right if it tends to promote happiness or pleasure and wrong if it tends to produce unhappiness or ...
John Stuart Mill: Ethics
John Stuart Mill: Ethics. The ethical theory of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) is most extensively articulated in his classical text Utilitarianism (1861). Its goal is to justify the utilitarian principle as the foundation of morals. This principle says actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote overall human happiness.
Utilitarianism, Act and Rule
Critics of Utilitarianism; 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.
Introduction (Chapter 1)
Utilitarianism is a broad tradition of philosophical and social thought, not a single principle. The central utilitarian idea is that morality and politics are (and should be) centrally concerned with the promotion of happiness. While Mill's principle is one expression of this basic idea, there are many others.
Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was the most famous and influential British philosopher of the nineteenth century. He was one of the last systematic philosophers, making significant contributions in logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and social theory. He was also an important public figure, articulating the liberal ...
Understanding Utilitarianism: A Guide
Utilitarianism is a type of philosophy and ethical theory that focuses on maximizing overall benefit and minimizing harm. This philosophy was first developed in the 18th century by British philosopher Jeremy Bentham and is still widely discussed today. Utilitarianism is based on the concept of utility, which states that the best action is that ...
PDF The dignity of persons : Kantian ethics and utilitarianism
of an argument for Utilitarianism (taken as a technical view in philosophy) being consistent with the basic Kantian framework already in place, argument that involves disassociating Utilitarianism from both Consequentialism and Welfarism and construing it as an Agapist doctrine (i.e. as philosophy of practical love or rationally-based benevolence).
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is one of the most influential theories of contemporary moral and political theory. It "arguably has the distinction of being the moral theory that, more than any other, shapes the discipline of moral theory and forms the background against which rival theories are imagined, refined, and articulated" (Eggleston and Miller 2014, 1).
A Defense of Utilitarianism (thesis)
Honors thesis; [FULL-TEXT FREELY AVAILABLE ONLINE] Nafisa Jeb is a member of the Class of 2023 of Washington and Lee University. I will attempt to defend utilitarianism from the demandingness objection. The sort of utilitarianism that I refer to throughout is the consequentialist moral theory that obligates us to maximize well-being. The form ...
Elements and Types of Utilitarianism
Introduction. As explained in Chapter 1: Introduction to Utilitarianism, the core idea of utilitarianism is that we should want to improve the well-being of everyone by as much as possible.Utilitarian theories share four elements: consequentialism, welfarism, impartiality, and aggregationism. Classical utilitarianism is distinctive because it accepts two additional elements: first, hedonism as ...
Essay on Utilitarianism Theory
Utilitarianism theory argues that the consequence of an action determines whether that particular action is morally right or wrong. Philosophers behind this theory include Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, R.M. Hare and Peter Singer. All these philosophers evaluate morality of actions depending on overall happiness or well-being.
4.3: Utilitarianism- Pros and Cons (B.M. Wooldridge)
21 Utilitarianism: Pros and ConsB.M. Wooldridge 79. Consequentialism is a general moral theory that tells us that, in any given situation, we should perform those actions that lead to better overall consequences. There are generally two branches of Consequentialism: Hedonism, which tells us that the consequences we should pursue should be ...
Jeremy Bentham
The essays on poor law reform from 1796-98 (2001, 2010a) were partly stimulated by rising food prices and the resultant debate about the treatment of the poor. ... ---, 1990, Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice: Jeremy Bentham and the Civil Law, Oxford: Clarendon. Lieberman, D., 2008, "Bentham's Democracy", Oxford Journal of ...
(PDF) Just Better Utilitarianism
Just Better Utilitarianism. MATTI HÄYRY. Abstract: Utilitarianism could still be a viable moral and political theory, although an. emphasis on justice as distributing burdens and benefits has ...
On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays
Abstract. 'it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well developed human beings' Mill's four essays, 'On Liberty', 'Utilitarianism', 'Considerations on Representative Government', and 'The Subjection of Women' examine the most central issues that face liberal democratic regimes - whether in the nineteenth ...
The Interpretation of Maximizing Utilitarianism
7 Dworkin rejects utilitarianism as unfair because he thinks that the self-oriented and external elements in any person's preference are sometimes "inextricably tied together" (ibid., 236).Prejudiced people may hold very intense preferences to avoid blacks or homosexuals, for example. In that case, "the personal preferences upon which a utilitarian argument must fix will be saturated ...
Can Utilitarianism Improve the US Criminal Justice System? An
Utilitarianism was created by European philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. Bentham believed that when a government is based on utilitarianism, a system of law and reason is created that values happiness as its foremost principle (Bentham 1789). To provide a mechanism for ...
Utilitarianism and Economic Theory
Abstract. Utilitarianism is a family of moral and political philosophies according to which general utility or social welfare is ultimately the sole ethical value or good to be maximized. Normative economics endorsed a hedonistic version of utilitarianism from the latter part of the 18th century well into the 20th century.

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Utilitarianism by Ben Eggleston LAST REVIEWED: 29 November 2022 LAST MODIFIED: 29 November 2022 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0431

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The nature of utilitarianism

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Criticisms of Utilitarianism

History of Utilitarianism

Principles of Utilitarianism

Types of Utilitarianism

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Exploring Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

Perception and Knowledge Claims: Understanding Epistemological Terms

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Elements and Types of Utilitarianism

The Definition of Utilitarianism

Consequentialism

The Four Elements of Utilitarianism

Direct and Indirect Consequentialism: Explaining The Difference between Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism

Impartiality and the Equal Consideration of Interests

The Two Elements of Classical Utilitarianism

Theories of Well-Being: Hedonism

Population Ethics: The Total View

Further Distinctions Among Utilitarian Theories

Reconstructing Rightness: Maximizing, Satisficing, and Scalar Utilitarianism

Expectational Utilitarianism Versus Objective Utilitarianism

Multi-level Utilitarianism Versus Single-level Utilitarianism

The Difference Between Multi-Level Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism

Global Utilitarianism and Hybrid Utilitarianism

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Utilitarianism Theory Essay

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