Utilitarianism (also: utilism) is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its utility in providing happiness or pleasure as summed among all sentient beings. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. The most influential contributors to this ideology were Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

Utilitarianism is often described by the phrase "the greatest good for the greatest number of people", and is also known as "the greatest happiness principle". Utility, the good to be maximized, has been defined by various thinkers as happiness or pleasure (versus suffering or pain), although preference utilitarians define it as the satisfaction of preferences. It may be described as a life stance, with happiness or pleasure being of ultimate importance.

Utilitarianism can be characterised as a quantitative and reductionist approach to ethics. It can be contrasted with deontological ethics (which do not regard the consequences of an act as being a determinant of its moral worth) and virtue ethics (which focuses on character), as well as with other varieties of consequentialism.

In general usage, the term utilitarian refers to a somewhat narrow economic or pragmatic viewpoint. Philosophical utilitarianism, however, is a much broader view that encompasses all aspects of people's lives.

Quotes about utilitarianism

Sourced

• Some forms of suffering are so horrific that a few patients may have to die against their preferences so that others will not have to undergo years of unremitting psychological agony.
  • Jacob M. Appel, bioethcist and medical historian, The Rom Houben Tragedy And The Case For Active Euthanasia, Nov. 24, 2009.

• By utility is meant that property is any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness(all this in the present case come to the same thing) or (what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness to the party who whose is considered: if that party be the community in general, then the happiness of the community; if a particular individual; then the happiness of that individual
  • Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1798.

• Perfect the Will, the Mind, Feeling, their corporeal organs and their material tools; be useful to yourselves, to your own ones, and to others; and Happiness, insofar as it exists on this earth, will come of itself.
  • Bolesław Prus, The Most General Life Ideals, 2nd, revised edition, Warsaw, 1905. (Newspaper serialization, 1897–99; 1st book edition, 1901.)

• It's the flock, the grove, that matters. Our responsibility is to species, not to specimens; to communities, not to individuals.
  • Sara Stein, Noah's Garden, 1998.

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Fri Jul 30 11:21:21 2010