What is Utilitarianism?
Utilitarianism is a moral theory that has had a large influence on politics, law and economics. Its central idea is that the right action, law or policy is the one that produces the best overall consequences, usually understood as the greatest happiness or well-being for all the people affected, with each person counting equally. In politics, utilitarians have tended to judge institutions not by tradition, divine command or natural rights, but by asking whether they make people better off. This approach led many utilitarians to campaign for legal, political and social reforms. Its applications vary widely, because the same principle can support different policies depending on the evidence.
Core beliefs
- Laws and policies should be judged by their effects on human well-being.
- Each person's happiness counts equally, regardless of rank or status.
- Institutions that cannot show useful results should be reformed or abolished.
- Punishment is justified only to the extent that it prevents greater harm.
- Government should be accountable to the people whose interests it affects.
- Policy should be guided by evidence and reasoned calculation rather than custom.
History
Earlier thinkers such as Francis Hutcheson and David Hume used ideas of utility, but Jeremy Bentham gave utilitarianism its classic form in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). Bentham called natural rights nonsense upon stilts and proposed reforms of law, prisons and government, including his Panopticon prison design. Bentham, James Mill and their circle, known as the Philosophic Radicals, pressed for parliamentary reform, a wider franchise, codified law and free trade. John Stuart Mill refined the theory in Utilitarianism (1861), defended individual liberty in On Liberty (1859) and argued for women's equality in The Subjection of Women (1869). Henry Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics (1874) gave the theory a rigorous philosophical statement. In the twentieth century, welfare economists such as Arthur Pigou applied utilitarian reasoning to taxation and public policy.
Variants
Act utilitarians judge each action by its consequences, while rule utilitarians judge general rules, such as respecting property or keeping promises, by the results of following them. Classical utilitarians measure well-being as pleasure and the absence of pain, while preference utilitarians, such as R. M. Hare, focus on satisfying people's preferences. In politics, liberal utilitarians like Mill combine the principle with strong protections for individual liberty. Welfare economics, cost-benefit analysis and the effective altruism movement all draw on utilitarian reasoning.
Criticisms
Rights-based critics argue that utilitarianism could justify sacrificing individuals or minorities whenever this raises total happiness. The philosopher John Rawls argued in A Theory of Justice (1971) that it does not take seriously the distinction between persons. Conservatives argue that it undervalues tradition, duty and inherited institutions. Other critics say happiness cannot be measured or compared between people, and that the theory demands too much of individuals by asking them to always maximize the general good.
In practice
Utilitarian ideas influenced British reforms of the nineteenth century, including parliamentary reform, the reform of criminal law and prisons, and the New Poor Law of 1834, which Bentham's former secretary Edwin Chadwick helped design. Mill introduced a proposal for women's suffrage in Parliament in 1867. Today, cost-benefit analysis in government regulation, health policy measures such as quality-adjusted life years and many debates about public spending reflect utilitarian thinking.