Utilitarianism: Meaning and Basic Principles

In one line

Utilitarianism says the right action is the one that produces the most happiness, counting everybody's happiness equally, and nothing else matters at all.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: utilitarianism is the moral and political doctrine that the rightness of an action, a law or an institution is determined solely by its consequences for the happiness of all those affected, the standard being the greatest happiness of the greatest number, each person's happiness counting equally; its distinguishing features are therefore consequentialism, hedonism, aggregation and impartiality.

The principle of utility

Bentham defines the principle of utility as that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question. He notes that the principle was latterly called the greatest happiness principle, and Mill uses that name.

Mill's own observation about how widely it operates is worth having: since men's sentiments of approval and aversion are greatly influenced by what they suppose to be the effects of things on their happiness, the principle of utility has had a large share in forming the moral doctrines even of those who most scornfully reject its authority, and no school of thought denies that the influence of actions on happiness is a material and often predominant consideration.

The four components

The meaning of utilitarianism is exhausted by four propositions, and any definition of utilitarianism that drops one of them is describing something else.

Every question on utilitarianism can be answered by taking these apart, because every criticism attacks one of them.

1. Consequentialism

The rightness of an act depends entirely on its consequences. Nothing about the act itself, no promise given, no right violated, no duty owed, counts except through its effects.

What this excludes. Desert, rights, promises and duties as independent considerations. They matter only if and so far as respecting them produces good consequences.

2. Hedonism, or welfarism

The consequence that counts is happiness, understood by Bentham as pleasure and the absence of pain. Later utilitarians substituted preference satisfaction or wellbeing, which avoids some objections and keeps the structure.

3. Aggregation

The happiness of everybody affected is added together, and the option with the largest total is the right one. Gains to some are offset against losses to others.

What this permits. Imposing a loss on a few to produce a larger gain for many, which is the source of nearly every objection at chapter 660.

4. Impartiality

Each person's happiness counts equally. Bentham's formula, as reported by Mill, is that everybody is to count for one and nobody for more than one.

The fourth component is why utilitarianism was a radical doctrine and not a conservative one. In a society organised by rank, caste, sex and property, the proposition that a labourer's pain counts exactly as much as a landowner's was an attack on the whole arrangement, and Bentham's followers used it to argue for legal reform, prison reform, the extension of the franchise and the equal treatment of women.