What is utilitarianism?
Utilitarianism holds that actions and policies should be judged by their consequences for the total well-being of everyone affected. "Utility" means whatever increases happiness and reduces suffering. Because it looks only at outcomes, it is the classic form of consequentialism.
- Key thinkers
- Jeremy Bentham (1789), John Stuart Mill (1863)
- Core principle
- The greatest happiness principle
- Varieties
- Quantitative vs qualitative; act vs rule utilitarianism
- Main rivals
- Kantian deontology, Rawlsian justice, virtue ethics
Bentham vs Mill
| Point | Bentham | Mill |
|---|---|---|
| Pleasure | All pleasures differ only in quantity | Some pleasures are higher in quality |
| Method | Hedonic (felicific) calculus: intensity, duration, certainty and more | Preferences of competent judges who know both |
| Famous line | "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure." | "Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." |
Bentham was also a legal reformer. He designed the Panopticon prison and argued that punishment is justified only by the harm it prevents, an idea central to the deterrence side of theories of punishment.
Act vs rule utilitarianism
- Act utilitarianism evaluates each individual action by its consequences.
- Rule utilitarianism asks which rules, if generally followed, would maximize well-being, then follows them even when a single breach might seem to pay off.
Peter Singer and modern utilitarianism
In "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" (1972), Peter Singer argued that if we can prevent something very bad without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to. Ignoring distant famine, he said, is morally like walking past a drowning child. Singer also insisted that animals’ suffering counts, reshaping animal ethics and inspiring the effective altruism movement.
The trolley problem
A runaway trolley will kill five people unless you pull a lever to divert it onto a track where it will kill one. Should you? Utilitarianism says yes, yet most people balk when the only way to save the five is to push someone off a footbridge.
Greene and colleagues (2001) found that such "personal" dilemmas engage emotion-related brain regions more strongly, sparking debate over the role of emotion in moral judgment.
Objections
- Rights and justice: could the majority’s happiness justify sacrificing a minority? Rawls argued utilitarianism "does not take seriously the distinction between persons" (Rawls’s theory of justice).
- Motives: Kant held that moral worth comes from acting from duty, not from outcomes (Kant’s moral philosophy).
- Measurement: happiness is hard to quantify and compare across people.
Utilitarianism in policy
Federal regulatory cost-benefit analysis, triage protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic that aimed to save the most lives, and QALY-based health economics all reflect utilitarian reasoning. Compare other views of fair allocation in distributive justice.
Frequently asked questions
- What is utilitarianism in simple terms?
- The right action is the one that produces the most overall happiness, or the least suffering, for everyone it affects.
- What is the difference between Bentham and Mill?
- Bentham counted only the quantity of pleasure; Mill argued that intellectual and moral pleasures are higher in quality.
- What are the main criticisms of utilitarianism?
- It can seem to justify sacrificing individuals’ rights for the majority, ignores motives, and relies on comparing happiness that is hard to measure.
References
- Bentham, J. (1789). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. London: T. Payne and Son.
- Mill, J. S. (1863). Utilitarianism. London: Parker, Son, and Bourn.
- Singer, P. (1972). Famine, affluence, and morality. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 1(3), 229–243.
- Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293(5537), 2105–2108.
- Driver, J. (2009, rev. 2025). The history of utilitarianism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. plato.stanford.edu