Chapter 8: Utilitarianism

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation. — Jeremy Bentham

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. — Jeremy Bentham

To be a Utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected. – Peter Singer.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. ― John Stuart Mill

Utilitarianism is one of the major contemporary philosophical theories about the nature of and justification for ethical principles. It has its roots in the writings of the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), although the name “utilitarianism” is most closely associated with the works of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Utilitarianism is a broader form of consequentialism, the idea that the moral rightness or wrongness of an act depends on the consequences it produces.

Utilitarianism: Crash Course Philosophy #36 (1:15)

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Benefit and harm can be characterized in more than one way, of course. In this chapter we will explore the ideas of two Utilitarian philosophers. For Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), benefits were measured as total net pleasure and harms as net pain. For John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), it was happiness and unhappiness, not mere pleasure or pain, that should be measured.