Utilitarianism — An ethical doctrine holding that the morally correct action is the one that produces the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Its core is the principle of utility (or “greatest happiness principle”): a course of conduct is good insofar as it increases the pleasure and reduces the suffering of those affected by it, counting each person’s well-being impartially. The term derives from the Latin utilitas (“usefulness”, “benefit”). The classic formulation comes from Jeremy Bentham, in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), who proposed a “felicific calculus” to measure pleasures and pains according to criteria such as intensity, duration, and extent, treating all pleasures as qualitatively equal. John Stuart Mill, in Utilitarianism (1863), refined the theory by distinguishing “higher” pleasures (intellectual and moral) from “lower” pleasures (merely sensory), arguing that the former are of greater worth. Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism: what makes an act right or wrong is solely its consequences, not the agent’s intentions nor adherence to rules considered in themselves. For this reason it often clashes with deontological ethics, such as Kant’s, which judge an action by duty rather than by results. A central distinction sets act utilitarianism — which evaluates each individual action — against rule utilitarianism, which approves an action according to rules whose general adoption maximizes utility. It is also tied to hedonism, since it identifies the ultimate good with pleasure or happiness.
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