I.

Introduction

Utilitarianism (Latin utilis, “useful”), in ethics, the doctrine that what is useful is good, and consequently, that the ethical value of conduct is determined by the utility of its results. The term “utilitarianism” is more specifically applied to the proposition that the supreme objective of moral action and the foundation on which all morality should be grounded is the achievement of the greatest happiness or satisfaction for the greatest number. This objective is also considered to be the ultimate criterion for evaluating all social institutions as good or bad. The utilitarian theory of ethics is generally opposed to other ethical doctrines in which the final arbiter of right and wrong is either some inner sense or faculty—often called conscience (as in intuitionist theories of ethics)—or else some fundamental ethical principle based on reason (as in the ethics of Immanuel Kant). Utilitarian ethics is likewise at variance with the theological view that right and wrong depend on the will of God, and with the hedonistic view that it depends on the pleasure produced by an act for the individual alone who performs it. The utilitarian theory of legislation is opposed to natural law theory, which states that the criterion for evaluating laws as good or bad is whether they conform to certain natural laws that are given by God or whether they conform to the principles that would be freely chosen by individuals who were banding together to form a state in the first place.