Utilitarianism

Act utilitarianism maintains that an action is right if it maximises utility; rule utilitarianism maintains that an action is right if it conforms to a rule that maximises utility.

John Stuart Mill,Utilitarianism,Chapter 2 Mill's "proof" of the principle of utility In Chapter Four of Utilitarianism, Mill considers what proof can be given for the principle of utility.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, articles were published both for and against the new form of utilitarianism, and through this debate the theory we now call rule utilitarianism was created.

Utilitarianism Mill believed law should create happiness main seeAlso Utilitarianism is the view that the laws should be crafted so as to produce the best consequences for the greatest number of people possible.

In simple terms, utilitarianism holds that the right action is whichever maximizes net happiness.

Utilitarianism shares a number of features with effective altruism.

The Rule utilitarianism is similar to Kantian ethics which seems like a bit of an overstatement or at least unclear in a rather infelicitous way.

Just as the greatest good calculations of utilitarianism can outrage our sense of human dignity – of people being an end and never a means – so the combination of rationality and autonomy can outrage our sense of objective morality.

Bentham is, however, credited with founding utilitarianism when he wrote An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.

Bernard Williams, "Utilitarianism" in his Morality, Cambridge University Press 1993 Like deontology, rule consequentialism holds that moral behavior involves following certain rules.

Conjoining hedonism—as a view as to what is good for people—to utilitarianism has the result that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest total amount of happiness (see Hedonic calculus ).

Criticisms Because utilitarianism is not a single theory but a cluster of related theories that have developed over two hundred years, criticisms can be made for different reasons and have different targets.

Establishes the deep affinity from Hobbes to Harrington, the Levellers, and Locke through to nineteenth-century utilitarianism.

Etymology As to the origin of the word 'Utilitarianism' Mill acknowledged in a footnote that, though "believing himself to be the first person who brought the word utilitarian into use, he did not invent it.

Even though Mackintosh became known as the ‘pioneer’ of the movement, his designs were far removed from the bleak utilitarianism of Modernism.

From the beginning, utilitarianism has recognized that certainty in such matters is unobtainable and both Bentham and Mill said that it was necessary to rely on the tendencies of actions to bring about consequences.

He believed that the actions of a state, however cruel or ruthless they may be, must contribute towards the common good of a society. citation Utilitarianism as a distinct ethical position only emerged in the eighteenth century.

However, as P. J. Kelly argued in Utilitarianism and Distributive Justice: Jeremy Bentham and the Civil Law, Bentham had a theory of justice that prevented such consequences.

However, Negative utilitarianism lays out a consequentialist theory that focuses solely on minimizing bad consequences.

However, rule utilitarianism proposes a more central role for rules that was thought to rescue the theory from some of its more devastating criticisms, particularly problems to do with justice and promise keeping.