Utilitarianism is one of the most powerful and persuasive approachesto normative ethics in the history of philosophy. Though notfully articulated until the 19^th century, proto-utilitarianpositions can be discerned throughout the history of ethicaltheory.

Though there are many varieties of the view discussed,utilitarianism is generally held to be the view that the morally rightaction is the action that produces the most good. There are manyways to spell out this general claim. One thing to note is thatthe theory is a form of consequentialism: the right action isunderstood entirely in terms of consequences produced. Whatdistinguishes utilitarianism from egoism has to do with the scope ofthe relevant consequences. On the utilitarian view one ought tomaximize the overall good — that is, consider the good of othersas well as one's own good.

The Classical Utilitarians, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill,identified the good with pleasure, so, like Epicurus, were hedonistsabout value. They also held that we ought to maximize the good,that is, bring about ‘the greatest amount of good for thegreatest number’.

Utilitarianism is also distinguished by impartiality andagent-neutrality. Everyone's happiness counts thesame. When one maximizes the good, it is the goodimpartially considered. My good counts for no more thananyone else's good. Further, the reason I have to promotethe overall good is the same reason anyone else has to so promote thegood. It is not peculiar to me.

All of these features of this approach to moral evaluation and/ormoral decision-making have proven to be somewhat controversial andsubsequent controversies have led to changes in the Classical versionof the theory.

• 1. Precursors to the Classical Approach
• 2. The Classical Approach
  • 2.1 Jeremy Bentham
  • 2.2 John Stuart Mill
• 3. Henry Sidgwick
• 4. Ideal Utilitarianism
• 5. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Precursors to the Classical Approach

Though the first systematic account of utilitarianism was developedby Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), the core insight motivating the theoryoccurred much earlier. That insight is that morally appropriatebehavior will not harm others, but instead increase happiness or‘utility.’ What is distinctive about utilitarianismis its approach in taking that insight and developing an account ofmoral evaluation and moral direction that expands on it. Earlyprecursors to the Classical Utilitarians include the British Moralists,Cumberland, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Gay, and Hume. Of these,Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746) is explicitly utilitarian when it comesto action choice.

Some of the earliest utilitarian thinkers were the‘theological’ utilitarians such as Richard Cumberland(1631–1718) and John Gay (1699–1745). They believed thatpromoting human happiness was incumbent on us since it was approved byGod. After enumerating the ways in which humans come underobligations (by perceiving the “natural consequences ofthings”, the obligation to be virtuous, our civil obligationsthat arise from laws, and obligations arising from “the authorityof God”) John Gay writes: “…from the considerationof these four sorts of obligation…it is evident that a full andcomplete obligation which will extend to all cases, can only be thatarising from the authority ofGod; because God only can in allcases make a man happy or miserable: and therefore, since we arealways obliged to that conformity called virtue, it is evidentthat the immediate rule or criterion of it is the will of God”(R, 412). Gay held that since God wants the happiness of mankind,and since God's will gives us the criterion of virtue,“…the happiness of mankind may be said to be the criterionof virtue, butonce removed” (R, 413). This viewwas combined with a view of human motivation with egoisticelements. A person's individual salvation, her eternalhappiness, depended on conformity to God's will, as did virtueitself. Promoting human happiness and one's own coincided,but, given God's design, it was not an accidentalcoincidence.

This approach to utilitarianism, however, is not theoretically cleanin the sense that it isn't clear what essential work God does, atleast in terms of normative ethics. God as the source ofnormativity is compatible with utilitarianism, but utilitarianismdoesn't require this.

Gay's influence on later writers, such as Hume, deservesnote. It is in Gay's essay that some of thequestions that concerned Hume on the nature of virtue areaddressed. For example, Gay was curious about how to explain ourpractice of approbation and disapprobation of action andcharacter. When we see an act that is vicious we disapprove ofit. Further, we associate certain things with their effects, sothat we form positive associations and negative associations that alsounderwrite our moral judgments. Of course, that we view happiness,including the happiness of others as a good, is due to God'sdesign. This is a feature crucial to the theological approach,which would clearly be rejected by Hume in favor of a naturalistic viewof human nature and a reliance on our sympathetic engagement withothers, an approach anticipated by Shaftesbury (below). Thetheological approach to utilitarianism would be developed later byWilliam Paley, for example, but the lack of any theoretical necessityin appealing to God would result in its diminishing appeal.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 3^rd Earl of Shaftesbury(1671–1713) is generally thought to have been the one of the earliest‘moral sense’ theorists, holding that we possess a kindof “inner eye” that allows us to make moraldiscriminations. This seems to have been an innate sense of rightand wrong, or moral beauty and deformity. Again, aspects of thisdoctrine would be picked up by Francis Hutcheson and David Hume(1711–1776). Hume, of course, would clearly reject any robustrealist implications. If the moral sense is like the otherperceptual senses and enables us to pick up on properties out there inthe universe around us, properties that exist independent from ourperception of them, that are objective, then Hume clearly was not amoral sense theorist in this regard. But perception picks up onfeatures of our environment that one could regard as having acontingent quality. There is one famous passage where Hume likens moraldiscrimination to the perception of secondary qualities, such ascolor. In modern terminology, these are response-dependentproperties, and lack objectivity in the sense that they do not existindependent of our responses. This is radical. If anact is vicious, its viciousness is a matter of the humanresponse (given a corrected perspective) to the act (or its perceivedeffects) and thus has a kind of contingency that seems unsettling,certainly unsettling to those who opted for the theological option.

So, the view that it is part of our very nature to make moraldiscriminations is very much in Hume. Further — and what isrelevant to the development of utilitarianism — the view ofShaftesbury that the virtuous person contributes to the good of thewhole — would figure into Hume's writings, thoughmodified. It is the virtue that contributes to the good of thewhole system, in the case of Hume's artificial virtues.

Shaftesbury held that in judging someone virtuous or good in a moralsense we need to perceive that person's impact on the systems ofwhich he or she is a part. Here it sometimes becomes difficult todisentangle egoistic versus utilitarian lines of thought inShaftesbury. He clearly states that whatever guiding force there is hasmade nature such that it is “…theprivateinterest andgood of every one, to work towards thegeneral good, which if a creature ceases to promote, he isactually so far wanting to himself, and ceases to promote his ownhappiness and welfare…” (R, 188). It is hard, sometimes,to discern the direction of the ‘because’ — if oneshould act to help others because it supports a system in whichone's own happiness is more likely, then it looks really like aform of egoism. If one should help others because that's theright thing to do — and, fortunately, it also ends up promotingone's own interests, then that's more like utilitarianism,since the promotion of self-interest is a welcome effect but not what,all by itself, justifies one's character or actions.

Further, to be virtuous a person must have certain psychologicalcapacities — they must be able to reflect on character, for example,and represent to themselves the qualities in others that are eitherapproved or disapproved of.

…in this case alone it is we call any creature worthy orvirtuous when it can have the notion of a public interest, and canattain the speculation or science of what is morally good or ill,admirable or blameable, right or wrong….we never sayof….any mere beast, idiot, or changeling, though ever sogood-natured, that he is worthy or virtuous. (Shaftesbury IVM; BKI,PII, sec. iii)

Thus, animals are not objects of moral appraisal on the view, sincethey lack the necessary reflective capacities. Animals also lackthe capacity for moral discrimination and would therefore seem to lackthe moral sense. This raises some interesting questions. Itwould seem that the moral sense is a perceptionthat somethingis the case. So it isn't merely a discriminatory sense thatallows us to sort perceptions. It also has a propositionalaspect, so that animals, which are not lacking in other senses arelacking in this one.

The virtuous person is one whose affections, motives, dispositionsare of the right sort, not one whose behavior is simply of the rightsort and who is able to reflect on goodness, and her own goodness [seeGill]. Similarly, the vicious person is one who exemplifies thewrong sorts of mental states, affections, and so forth. A personwho harms others through no fault of his own “…because hehas convulsive fits which make him strike and wound such as approachhim” is not vicious since he has no desire to harm anyone and hisbodily movements in this case are beyond his control.

Shaftesbury approached moral evaluation via the virtues and vices.His utilitarian leanings are distinct from his moral sense approach,and his overall sentimentalism. However, this approach highlights themove away from egoistic views of human nature — a trend pickedup by Hutcheson and Hume, and later adopted by Mill in criticism ofBentham's version of utilitarianism. For writers like Shaftesbury andHutcheson the main contrast was with egoism rather thanrationalism.

Like Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson was very much interested invirtue evaluation. He also adopted the moral senseapproach. However, in his writings we also see an emphasison action choice and the importance of moral deliberation to actionchoice. Hutcheson, inAn Inquiry Concerning Moral Good andEvil, fairly explicitly spelled out a utilitarian principle ofaction choice. (Joachim Hruschka (1991) notes, however, that it wasLeibniz who first spelled out a utilitarian decision procedure.)

….In comparing the moral qualities of actions…we are ledby our moral sense of virtue to judge thus; that inequaldegrees of happiness, expected to proceed from the action, thevirtue is in proportion to thenumber of persons to whom thehappiness shall extend (and here thedignity, ormoralimportance of persons, may compensate numbers); and, inequalnumbers, the virtue is thequantity of thehappiness, or natural good; or that the virtue is in a compound ratio of thequantity of good, andnumber of enjoyers….sothatthat action isbest, which procuresthegreatest happiness for thegreatest numbers; andthatworst, which, inlike manner, occasionsmisery. (R, 283–4)

Scarre notes that some hold the moral sense approach incompatiblewith this emphasis on the use of reason to determine what we ought todo; there is an opposition between just apprehending what'smorally significant and a model in which we need to reason to figureout what morality demands of us. But Scarre notes these are notactually incompatible:

The picture which emerges from Hutcheson's discussion is of adivision of labor, in which the moral sense causes us to look withfavor on actions which benefit others and disfavor those which harmthem, while consequentialist reasoning determines a more preciseranking order of practical options in given situations. (Scarre,53–54)

Scarre then uses the example of telling a lie to illustrate: lyingis harmful to the person to whom one lies, and so this is viewed withdisfavor, in general. However, in a specific case, if a lie isnecessary to achieve some notable good, consequentialist reasoning willlead us to favor the lying. But this example seems toput all the emphasis on a consideration of consequences inmoral approval and disapproval. Stephen Darwall notes (1995,216 ff.) that the moral sense is concernedwithmotives — we approve, for example, of the motive ofbenevolence, and the wider the scope the better. It is the motivesrather than the consequences that are the objects of approval anddisapproval. But inasmuch as the morally good person cares about whathappens to others, and of course she will, she will rank order acts interms of their effects on others, and reason is used in calculatingeffects. So there is no incompatibility at all.

Hutcheson was committed to maximization, it seems. However, heinsisted on a caveat — that “the dignity or moralimportance of persons may compensate numbers.” He addeda deontological constraint — that we have a duty to others invirtue of their personhood to accord them fundamental dignityregardless of the numbers of others whose happiness is to be affectedby the action in question.

Hume was heavily influenced by Hutcheson, who was one of histeachers. His system also incorporates insights made byShaftesbury, though he certainly lacks Shaftesbury's confidencethat virtue is its own reward. In terms of his place in thehistory of utilitarianism we should note two distinct effects hissystem had. Firstly, his account of the social utility of theartificial virtues influenced Bentham's thought on utility.Secondly, his account of the role sentiment played in moral judgmentand commitment to moral norms influenced Mill's thoughts aboutthe internal sanctions of morality. Mill would diverge fromBentham in developing the ‘altruistic’ approach toUtilitarianism (which is actually a misnomer, but more on thatlater). Bentham, in contrast to Mill, represented the egoisticbranch — his theory of human nature reflected Hobbesianpsychological egoism.

2. The Classical Approach

The Classical Utilitarians, Bentham and Mill, were concerned withlegal and social reform. If anything could be identified as thefundamental motivation behind the development of ClassicalUtilitarianism it would be the desire to see useless, corrupt laws andsocial practices changed. Accomplishing this goal required anormative ethical theory employed as a critical tool. What is thetruth about what makes an action or a policy a morally good one, ormorallyright? But developing the theory itself was alsoinfluenced by strong views about what was wrong in their society.The conviction that, for example, some laws are bad resulted inanalysis of why they were bad. And, for Jeremy Bentham, what madethem bad was their lack of utility, their tendency to lead tounhappiness and misery without any compensating happiness. If alaw or an action doesn'tdo any good, then itisn't any good.

2.1 Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was influenced both by Hobbes'account of human nature and Hume's account of socialutility. He famously held that humans were ruled by two sovereignmasters — pleasure and pain. We seek pleasure and the avoidanceof pain, they “…govern us in all we do, in all we say, inall we think…” (Bentham PML, 1). Yet he also promulgated theprinciple of utility as the standard of right action on the part ofgovernments and individuals. Actions are approved when theyare such as to promote happiness, or pleasure, and disapproved of whenthey have a tendency to cause unhappiness, or pain (PML). Combinethis criterion of rightness with a view that we should be activelytrying to promote overall happiness, and one has a seriousincompatibility with psychological egoism. Thus, his apparentendorsement of Hobbesian psychological egoism created problems inunderstanding his moral theory since psychological egoism rules outacting to promote the overall well-being when that it is incompatiblewith one's own. For the psychological egoist, that is noteven a possibility. So, given ‘ought implies can’ itwould follow that we are not obligated to act to promote overallwell-being when that is incompatible with our own. This generatesa serious tension in Bentham's thought, one that was drawn to hisattention. He sometimes seemed to think that he could reconcilethe two commitments empirically, that is, by noting that when peopleact to promote the good they are helping themselves, too. Butthis claim only serves to muddy the waters, since the standardunderstanding of psychological egoism — and Bentham's ownstatement of his view — identifies motives of action which areself-interested. Yet this seems, again, in conflict with his ownspecification of the method for making moral decisions which is not tofocus on self-interest — indeed, the addition ofextent as aparameter along which to measure pleasure produced distinguishes thisapproach from ethical egoism. Aware of the difficulty, in lateryears he seemed to pull back from a full-fledged commitment topsychological egoism, admitting that people do sometimes actbenevolently — with the overall good of humanity in mind.

Bentham also benefited from Hume's work, though in many waystheir approaches to moral philosophy were completely different. Humerejected the egoistic view of human nature. Hume also focused oncharacter evaluation in his system. Actions are significant asevidence of character, but only have this derivative significance. Inmoral evaluation the main concern is that of character. Yet Benthamfocused on act-evaluation. There was a tendency — remarked on byJ. B. Schneewind (1990), for example — to move away from focus oncharacter evaluation after Hume and towards act-evaluation. Recallthat Bentham was enormously interested in social reform. Indeed,reflection on what was morally problematic about laws and policiesinfluenced his thinking on utility as a standard. When one legislates,however, one is legislating in support of, or against, certainactions. Character — that is, a person's truecharacter — is known, if known at all, only by that person. If onefinds the opacity of the will thesis plausible then character, whiletheoretically very interesting, isn't a practical focus forlegislation. Further, as Schneewind notes, there was an increasingsense that focus on character would actually be disruptive, socially,particularly if one's view was that a person who didn'tagree with one on a moral issues was defective in terms of his or hercharacter, as opposed to simply making a mistake reflected inaction.

But Bentham does take from Hume the view that utility is the measureof virtue — that is, utility more broadly construed thanHume's actual usage of the term. This is because Hume madea distinction between pleasure that the perception of virtue generatesin the observer, and social utility, which consisted in a trait'shaving tangible benefits for society, any instance of which may or maynot generate pleasure in the observer. But Bentham is not simplyreformulating a Humean position — he's merely beeninfluenced by Hume's arguments to see pleasure as a measure orstandard of moral value. So, why not move from pleasurableresponses to traits to pleasure as a kind ofconsequence which is good, and in relation to which, actionsare morally right or wrong? Bentham, in making this move, avoids aproblem for Hume. On Hume's view it seems that theresponse — corrected, to be sure — determines the trait'squality as a virtue or vice. But on Bentham's view the action(or trait) is morally good, right, virtuous in view of theconsequences it generates, the pleasure or utility it produces, whichcould be completely independent of what our responses are to thetrait. So, unless Hume endorses a kind of ideal observer test forvirtue, it will be harder for him to account for how it is people makemistakes in evaluations of virtue and vice. Bentham, on the otherhand, can say that people may not respond to the actions goodqualities — perhaps they don't perceive the goodeffects. But as long as there are these good effects which are, onbalance, better than the effects of any alternative course of action,then the action is the right one. Rhetorically, anyway, one can seewhy this is an important move for Bentham to be able to make. He was asocial reformer. He felt that people often had responses to certainactions — of pleasure or disgust — that did not reflect anythingmorally significant at all. Indeed, in his discussions ofhomosexuality, for example, he explicitly notes that‘antipathy’ is not sufficient reason to legislate againsta practice:

The circumstances from which this antipathy may have taken its risemay be worth enquiring to…. One is the physical antipathy tothe offence…. The act is to the highest degree odious anddisgusting, that is, not to the man who does it, for he does it onlybecause it gives him pleasure, but to one who thinks [?] of it. Be itso, but what is that to him? (BenthamOAO, v. 4, 94)

Bentham then notes that people are prone to use their physicalantipathy as a pretext to transition to moral antipathy, and theattending desire to punish the persons who offend their taste.This is illegitimate on his view for a variety of reasons, one of whichis that to punish a person for violations of taste, or on the basis ofprejudice, would result in runaway punishments, “…oneshould never know where to stop…” The prejudice inquestion can be dealt with by showing it “to beill-grounded”. This reduces the antipathy to the act inquestion. This demonstrates an optimism in Bentham. If apain can be demonstrated to be based on false beliefs then he believesthat it can be altered or at the very least ‘assuaged andreduced’. This is distinct from the view that a pain orpleasure based on a false belief should be discounted. Benthamdoes not believe the latter. Thus Bentham's hedonism is avery straightforward hedonism. The one intrinsic good ispleasure, the bad is pain. We are to promote pleasure and act toreduce pain. When called upon to make a moral decision onemeasures an action's value with respect to pleasure and painaccording to the following: intensity (how strong the pleasure or painis), duration (how long it lasts), certainty (how likely the pleasureor pain is to be the result of the action), proximity (how close thesensation will be to performance of the action), fecundity (how likelyit is to lead to further pleasures or pains), purity (how muchintermixture there is with the other sensation). One alsoconsiders extent — the number of people affected by theaction.

Keeping track of all of these parameters can be complicated and timeconsuming. Bentham does not recommend that they figure into everyact of moral deliberation because of the efficiency costs which need tobe considered. Experience can guide us. We know that thepleasure of kicking someone is generally outweighed by the paininflicted on that person, so such calculations when confronted with atemptation to kick someone are unnecessary. It is reasonable tojudge it wrong on the basis of past experience or consensus. Onecan use ‘rules of thumb’ to guide action, but these rulesare overridable when abiding by them would conflict with the promotionof the good.

Bentham's view was surprising to many at the time at least in partbecause he viewed the moral quality of an action to be determinedinstrumentally. It isn't so much that there is a particular kind ofaction that is intrinsically wrong; actions that are wrong are wrongsimply in virtue of their effects, thus, instrumentally wrong. Thiscut against the view that there are some actions that by their verynature are just wrong, regardless of their effects. Some may be wrongbecause they are ‘unnatural’ — and, again, Benthamwould dismiss this as a legitimate criterion. Some may be wrongbecause they violate liberty, or autonomy. Again, Bentham would viewliberty and autonomy as good — but good instrumentally, notintrinsically. Thus, any action deemed wrong due to a violation ofautonomy is derivatively wrong on instrumental grounds as well. Thisis interesting in moral philosophy — as it is far removed fromthe Kantian approach to moral evaluation as well as from natural lawapproaches. It is also interesting in terms of political philosophyand social policy. On Bentham's view the law is not monolithic andimmutable. Since effects of a given policy may change, the moralquality of the policy may change as well. Nancy Rosenblum noted thatfor Bentham one doesn't simply decide on good laws and leave it atthat: “Lawmaking must be recognized as a continual process inresponse to diverse and changing desires that requireadjustment” (Rosenblum 1978, 9). A law that is good at one pointin time may be a bad law at some other point in time. Thus, lawmakershave to be sensitive to changing social circumstances. To be fair toBentham's critics, of course, they are free to agree with him thatthis is the case in many situations, just not all — and thatthere is still a subset of laws that reflect the fact that someactions just are intrinsically wrong regardless ofconsequences. Bentham is in the much more difficult position ofarguing that effects are all there are to moral evaluation of actionand policy.

2.2 John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was a follower of Bentham, and, throughmost of his life, greatly admired Bentham's work even though hedisagreed with some of Bentham's claims — particularly onthe nature of ‘happiness.’ Bentham, recall, hadheld that there were no qualitative differences between pleasures, onlyquantitative ones. This left him open to a variety ofcriticisms. First, Bentham's Hedonism was tooegalitarian. Simple-minded pleasures, sensual pleasures, werejust as good, at least intrinsically, than more sophisticated andcomplex pleasures. The pleasure of drinking a beer in front ofthe T.V. surely doesn't rate as highly as the pleasure one getssolving a complicated math problem, or reading a poem, or listening toMozart. Second, Bentham's view that there were noqualitative differences in pleasures also left him open to thecomplaint that on his view human pleasures were of no more value thananimal pleasures and, third, committed him to the corollary that themoral status of animals, tied to their sentience, was the same as thatof humans. While harming a puppy and harming a person are bothbad, however, most people had the view that harming the person wasworse. Mill sought changes to the theory that could accommodatethose sorts of intuitions.

To this end, Mill's hedonism was influenced by perfectionistintuitions. There are some pleasures that are more fitting thanothers. Intellectual pleasures are of a higher, better, sort thanthe ones that are merely sensual, and that we share with animals.To some this seems to mean that Mill really wasn't a hedonisticutilitarian. His view of the good did radically depart fromBentham's view. However, like Bentham, the good stillconsists in pleasure, it is still a psychological state. There iscertainly that similarity. Further, the basic structures of thetheories are the same (for more on this see Donner 1991). While it istrue that Mill is more comfortable with notions like‘rights’ this does not mean that he, in actuality, rejectedutilitarianism. The rationale for all the rights he recognizes isutilitarian.

Mill's ‘proof’ of the claim that intellectualpleasures are betterin kind than others, though, is highlysuspect. He doesn't attempt a mere appeal to rawintuition. Instead, he argues that those persons who have experiencedboth view the higher as better than the lower. Who would rather be ahappy oyster, living an enormously long life, than a person living anormal life? Or, to use his most famous example — it is better tobe Socrates ‘dissatisfied’ than a fool‘satisfied.’ In this way Mill was able to solve a problemfor utilitarianism.

Mill also argued that the principle could be proven, using anotherrather notorious argument:

The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible isthat people actually see it…. In like manner, I apprehend, thesole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable isthat people do actually desire it. If the end which the utilitariandoctrine proposes to itself were not, in theory and in practiced,acknowledged to be an end, nothing could ever convince any person thatit was so. (Mill, U, 81)

Mill then continues to argue that people desire happiness — theutilitarian end — and that the general happiness is “a goodto the aggregate of all persons.” (81)

G. E. Moore (1873–1958) criticized this as fallacious. Heargued that it rested on an obvious ambiguity:

Mill has made as naïve and artless a use of the naturalisticfallacy as anybody could desire. “Good”, he tells us,means “desirable”, and you can only find out what isdesirable by seeking to find out what is actually desired….The fact is that “desirable” does not mean “able tobe desired” as “visible” means “able to beseen.” The desirable means simply whatought to bedesired or deserves to be desired; just as the detestable means notwhat can be but what ought to be detested… (Moore, PE, 66–7)

It should be noted, however, that Mill was offering this as analternative to Bentham's view which had been itself criticized asa ‘swine morality,’ locating the good in pleasure in a kindof indiscriminate way. The distinctions he makes strike many asintuitively plausible ones. Bentham, however, can accommodatemany of the same intuitions within his system. This is because henotes that there are a variety of parameters along which wequantitatively measure pleasure — intensity and duration are just twoof those. His complete list is the following:intensity,duration, certainty or uncertainty, propinquity or remoteness,fecundity, purity, andextent. Thus, what Millcalls the intellectual pleasures will score more highly than thesensual ones along several parameters, and this could give us reason toprefer those pleasures — but it is a quantitative not a qualitativereason, on Bentham's view. When a student decides tostudy for an exam rather than go to a party, for example, she is makingthe best decision even though she is sacrificing short termpleasure. That's because studying for the exam, Benthamcould argue, scores higher in terms of the long term pleasures doingwell in school lead to, as well as the fecundity of the pleasure inleading to yet other pleasures. However, Bentham will have toconcede that the very happy oyster that lives a very long time could,in principle, have a better life than a normal human.

Mill's version of utilitarianism differed from Bentham'salso in that he placed weight on the effectiveness of internalsanctions — emotions like guilt and remorse which serve toregulate our actions. This is an off-shoot of the different viewof human nature adopted by Mill. We are the sorts of beings thathave social feelings, feelings for others, not just ourselves. Wecare about them, and when we perceive harms to them this causes painfulexperiences in us. When one perceives oneself to be the agent ofthat harm, the negative emotions are centered on the self. Onefeels guilt for what one has done, not for what one sees anotherdoing. Like external forms of punishment, internal sanctions areinstrumentally very important to appropriate action. Mill alsoheld that natural features of human psychology, such as conscience anda sense of justice, underwrite motivation. The sense of justice,for example, results from very natural impulses. Part of thissense involves a desire to punish those who have harmed others, andthis desire in turn “…is a spontaneous outgrowth from twosentiments, both in the highest degree natural…; the impulse ofself-defense, and the feeling of sympathy.” (Chapter 5,Utilitarianism) Of course, he goes on, the justificationmust be a separate issue. The feeling is there naturally, but itis our ‘enlarged’ sense, our capacity to include thewelfare of others into our considerations, and make intelligentdecisions, that gives it the right normative force.

Like Bentham, Mill sought to use utilitarianism to inform law andsocial policy. The aim of increasing happiness underlies hisarguments for women's suffrage and free speech. We can besaid to have certain rights, then — but those rights areunderwritten by utility. If one can show that a purported rightor duty is harmful, then one has shown that it is not genuine.One of Mills most famous arguments to this effect can be found in hiswriting on women's suffrage when he discusses the ideal marriageof partners, noting that the ideal exists between individuals of“cultivated faculties” who influence each otherequally. Improving the social status of women was importantbecause they were capable of these cultivated faculties, and denyingthem access to education and other opportunities for development isforgoing a significant source of happiness. Further, the men whowould deny women the opportunity for education, self-improvement, andpolitical expression do so out of base motives, and the resultingpleasures are not ones that are of the best sort.

Bentham and Mill both attacked social traditions that were justifiedby appeals to natural order. The correct appeal is to utilityitself. Traditions often turned out to be “relics”of “barbarous” times, and appeals to nature as a formof justification were just ways to try rationalize continued deferenceto thoserelics.

In the latter part of the 20th century some writers criticizedutilitarianism for its failure to accommodate virtue evaluation.However, though virtue is not the central normative concept in Mill'stheory, it is an extremely important one. In Chapter 4 ofUtilitarianism Mill noted

… does the utilitarian doctrine deny that peopledesire virtue, or maintain that virtue is not a thing to be desired?The very reverse. It maintains not only that virtue is to be desired,but also that it is to be desired disinterestedly, foritself. Whatever may be the opinion of utilitarian moralists as to theoriginal conditions by which virtue is made virtue … they not onlyplace virtue at the very head of things which are good as a means tothe ultimate end, but they also recognize as a psychological fact thepossibility of its being, to the individual, a good in itself, withoutlooking to any end beyond it; and hold, that the mind is not in aright state, not in a state conformable to Utility, not in the statemost conducive to the general happiness, unless it does love virtue inthis manner …

InUtilitarianism Mill argues that virtue not only hasinstrumental value, but is constitutive of the good life. A personwithout virtue is morally lacking, is not as able to promote the good.However, this view of virtue is someone complicated by rather crypticremarks Mill makes about virtue in hisA System of Logic inthe section in which he discusses the “Art of Life.” There he seemsto associate virtue with aesthetics, and morality is reserved for thesphere of ‘right’ or ‘duty‘. Wendy Donnernotes that separating virtue from right allows Mill to solve anotherproblem for the theory: the demandingness problem (Donner 2011). Thisis the problem that holds that if we ought to maximize utility, ifthat is the right thing to do, then doing right requires enormoussacrifices (under actual conditions), and that requiring suchsacrifices is too demanding. With duties, on Mill's view, it isimportant that we get compliance, and that justifies coercion. In thecase of virtue, however, virtuous actions are those which it is“…for the general interest that they remain free.”

3. Henry Sidgwick

Henry Sidgwick's (1838–1900)The Methods of Ethics (1874) isone of the most well known works in utilitarian moral philosophy, anddeservedly so. It offers a defense of utilitarianism, though somewriters (Schneewind 1977) have argued that it should not primarily beread as a defense of utilitarianism. InThe Methods Sidgwickis concerned with developing an account of “…thedifferent methods of Ethics that I find implicit in our common moralreasoning…” These methods are egoism, intuition basedmorality, and utilitarianism. On Sidgwick's view, utilitarianism isthe more basic theory. A simple reliance on intuition, for example,cannot resolve fundamental conflicts between values, or rules, such asTruth and Justice that may conflict. In Sidgwick's words“…we require some higher principle to decide theissue…” That will be utilitarianism. Further, the ruleswhich seem to be a fundamental part of common sense morality are oftenvague and underdescribed, and applying them will actually requireappeal to something theoretically more basic — again,utilitarianism. Yet further, absolute interpretations of rules seemhighly counter-intuitive, and yet we need some justification for anyexceptions — provided, again, by utilitarianism. Sidgwickprovides a compelling case for the theoretical primacy ofutilitarianism.

Sidgwick was also a British philosopher, and his views developed outof and in response to those of Bentham and Mill. HisMethods offer an engagement with the theory as it had beenpresented before him, and was an exploration of it and the mainalternatives as well as a defense.

Sidgwick was also concerned with clarifying fundamental features ofthe theory, and in this respect his account has been enormouslyinfluential to later writers, not only to utilitarians andconsequentialists, generally, but to intuitionists as well.Sidgwick's thorough and penetrating discussion of the theoryraised many of the concerns that have been developed by recent moralphilosophers.

One extremely controversial feature of Sidgwick's viewsrelates to his rejection of a publicity requirement for moraltheory. He writes:

Thus, the Utilitarian conclusion, carefully stated, would seem to bethis; that the opinion that secrecy may render an action right whichwould not otherwise be so should itself be kept comparatively secret;and similarly it seems expedient that the doctrine that esotericmorality is expedient should itself be kept esoteric. Or, if thisconcealment be difficult to maintain, it may be desirable that CommonSense should repudiate the doctrines which it is expedient to confineto an enlightened few. And thus a Utilitarian may reasonably desire,on Utilitarian principles, that some of his conclusions should berejected by mankind generally; or even that the vulgar should keepaloof from his system as a whole, in so far as the inevitableindefiniteness and complexity of its calculations render it likely tolead to bad results in their hands. (490)

This accepts that utilitarianism may be self-effacing; that is, thatit may be best if people do not believe it, even though it istrue. Further, it rendered the theory subject to BernardWilliams' (1995) criticism that the theory really simplyreflected the colonial elitism of Sidgwick's time, that it was‘Government House Utilitarianism.’ The elitism in hisremarks may reflect a broader attitude, one in which the educated areconsidered better policy makers than the uneducated.

One issue raised in the above remarks is relevant to practicaldeliberation in general. To what extent should proponents of agiven theory, or a given rule, or a given policy — or evenproponents of a given one-off action — consider what they thinkpeople willactually do, as opposed to what they think thosesame peopleought to do (under full and reasonable reflection,for example)? This is an example of something that comes up inthe Actualism/possibilism debate in accounts of practicaldeliberation. Extrapolating from the example used above, we havepeople who advocate telling the truth, or what they believe to be thetruth, even if the effects are bad because the truth is somehow misusedby others. On the other hand are those who recommend not tellingthe truth when it is predicted that the truth will be misused by othersto achieve bad results. Of course it is the case that the truthought not be misused, that its misuse can be avoided and is notinevitable, but the misuse is entirely predictable. Sidgwickseems to recommending that we follow the course that we predict willhave the best outcome, given as part of our calculations the data thatothers may fail in some way — either due to having bad desires,or simply not being able to reason effectively. The worryWilliams points to really isn't a worry specifically withutilitarianism (Driver 2011). Sidgwick would point outthat if it is bad to hide the truth, because ‘GovernmentHouse’ types, for example, typically engage in self-deceptiverationalizations of their policies (which seems entirely plausible),then one shouldn't do it. And of course, that heavilyinfluences our intuitions.

Sidgwick raised issues that run much deeper to our basicunderstanding of utilitarianism. For example, the way earlierutilitarians characterized the principle of utility left open seriousindeterminacies. The major one rests on the distinction betweentotal and average utility. He raised the issue in the context ofpopulation growth and increasing utility levels by increasing numbersof people (or sentient beings):

Assuming, then, that the average happiness of human beings is apositive quantity, it seems clear that, supposing the averagehappiness enjoyed remains undiminished, Utilitarianism directs us tomake the number enjoying it as great as possible. But if we foresee aspossible that an increase in numbers will be accompanied by a decreasein average happiness orvice versa, a point arises which hasnot only never been formally noticed, but which seems to have beensubstantially overlooked by many Utilitarians. For if we takeUtilitarianism to prescribe, as the ultimate end of action, happinesson the whole, and not any individual's happiness, unlessconsidered as an element of the whole, it would follow that, if theadditional population enjoy on the whole positive happiness, we oughtto weigh the amount of happiness gained by the extra number againstthe amount lost by the remainder. (415)

For Sidgwick, the conclusion on this issue is not to simply striveto greater average utility, but to increase population to the pointwhere we maximize the product of the number of persons who arecurrently alive and the amount of average happiness. So it seemsto be a hybrid, total-average view. This discussion also raisedthe issue of policy with respect to population growth, and both wouldbe pursued in more detail by later writers, most notably Derek Parfit(1986).

4. Ideal Utilitarianism

G. E. Moore strongly disagreed with the hedonistic value theoryadopted by the Classical Utilitarians. Moore agreed that we oughtto promote the good, but believed that the good included far more thanwhat could be reduced to pleasure. He was a pluralist, ratherthan a monist, regarding intrinsic value. For example, hebelieved that ‘beauty’ was an intrinsic good. Abeautiful object had value independent of any pleasure it mightgenerate in a viewer. Thus, Moore differed from Sidgwick whoregarded the good as consisting in some consciousness. Some objectivestates in the world are intrinsically good, and on Moore's view,beauty is just such a state. He used one of his more notoriousthought experiments to make this point: he asked the reader tocompare two worlds, one was entirely beautiful, full of things whichcomplemented each other; the other was a hideous, ugly world, filledwith “everything that is most disgusting to us.” Further,there are not human beings, one imagines, around to appreciate or bedisgusted by the worlds. The question then is, which of these worlds isbetter, which one's existence would be better than theother's? Of course, Moore believed it was clear that thebeautiful world was better, even though no one was around to appreciateits beauty. This emphasis on beauty was one facet ofMoore's work that made him a darling of the BloomsburyGroup. If beauty was a part of the good independent of itseffects on the psychological states of others — independent of,really, how it affected others, then one needn't sacrificemorality on the altar of beauty anymore. Following beauty is nota mere indulgence, but may even be a moral obligation. ThoughMoore himself certainly never applied his view to such cases, it doesprovide the resources for dealing with what the contemporary literaturehas dubbed ‘admirable immorality’ cases, at least some ofthem. Gauguin may have abandoned his wife and children, but itwas to a beautiful end.

Moore's targets in arguing against hedonism were the earlierutilitarians who argued that the good was some state of consciousnesssuch as pleasure. He actually waffled on this issue a bit, butalways disagreed with Hedonism in that even when he held that beautyall by itself was not an intrinsic good, he also held that for theappreciation of beauty to be a good the beauty must actually be there,in the world, and not be the result of illusion.

Moore further criticized the view that pleasureitself wasan intrinsic good, since it failed a kind of isolation test that heproposed for intrinsic value. If one compared an empty universewith a universe of sadists, the empty universe would strike one asbetter. This is true even though there is a good deal ofpleasure, and no pain, in the universe of sadists. This wouldseem to indicate that what is necessary for the good is at least theabsence of bad intentionality. The pleasures of sadists, invirtue of their desires to harm others, get discounted — they arenot good, even though they are pleasures. Note this radicaldeparture from Bentham who held that even malicious pleasure wasintrinsically good, and that if nothing instrumentally bad attached to thepleasure, it was wholly good as well.

One of Moore's important contributions was to put forward an‘organic unity’ or ‘organic whole’ view ofvalue. The principle of organic unity is vague, and there is somedisagreement about what Moore actually meant in presenting it.Moore states that ‘organic’ is used “…todenote the fact that a whole has an intrinsic value different in amountfrom the sum of the values of its parts.” (PE, 36) And, forMoore, that is all it is supposed to denote. So, for example, onecannot determine the value of a body by adding up the value of itsparts. Some parts of the body may have value only in relation tothe whole. An arm or a leg, for example, may have no value at allseparated from the body, but have a great deal of value attached to thebody, and increase the value of the body, even. In the section ofPrincipia Ethica on the Ideal, the principle of organic unitycomes into play in noting that when persons experience pleasure throughperception of something beautiful (which involves a positive emotion inthe face of a recognition of an appropriate object — an emotiveand cognitive set of elements), the experience of the beauty is betterwhen the object of the experience, the beautiful object, actuallyexists. The idea was that experiencing beauty has a small positivevalue, and existence of beauty has a small positive value, butcombining them has a great deal of value, more than the simple additionof the two small values (PE, 189 ff.). Moore noted:“A true belief in the reality of an object greatly increases thevalue of many valuable wholes…” (199).

This principle in Moore — particularly as applied to thesignificance of actual existence and value, or knowledge and value,provided utilitarians with tools to meet some significantchallenges. For example, deluded happiness would be severelylacking on Moore's view, especially in comparison to happinessbased on knowledge.

5. Conclusion

Since the early 20th Century utilitarianism has undergone a varietyof refinements. After the middle of the 20th Century it hasbecome more common to identify as a ‘Consequentialist’since very few philosophers agree entirely with the view proposed bythe Classical Utilitarians, particularly with respect to the hedonisticvalue theory. But the influence of the Classical Utilitarians hasbeen profound — not only within moral philosophy, but withinpolitical philosophy and social policy. The question Benthamasked, “What use is it?,” is a cornerstone of policyformation. It is a completely secular, forward-lookingquestion. The articulation and systematic development of thisapproach to policy formation is owed to the Classical Utilitarians.

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Bentham, Jeremy |consequentialism |hedonism |Hume, David |Mill, John Stuart |Moore, George Edward |Scottish Philosophy: in the 18th Century |Shaftesbury, Lord [Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of] |Sidgwick, Henry |well-being

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to thank Gintautas Miliauskas (VilniusUniversity) for notifying us about several typographical errors inthis entry.