Utilitarianism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Utilitarianism is a family of consequentialist ethical theories that promotes actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different characterizations, the basic idea behind all of them is to in some sense maximize utility, which is often defined in terms of well-being or related concepts. For instance, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, described utility as "that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness...[or] to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered." Utilitarianism is a version of consequentialism, which states that the consequences of any action are the only standard of right and wrong. Unlike other forms of consequentialism, such as egoism and altruism, utilitarianism considers the interests of all humans equally.
Proponents of utilitarianism have disagreed on a number of points, such as whether actions should be chosen based on their likely results (act utilitarianism) or whether agents should conform to rules that maximize utility (rule utilitarianism). There is also disagreement as to whether total (total utilitarianism), average (average utilitarianism) or minimum utility should be maximized.
Though the seeds of the theory can be found in the hedonists Aristippus and Epicurus, who viewed happiness as the only good, the tradition of utilitarianism properly began with Bentham, and has included John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, R. M. Hare and Peter Singer. It has been applied to social welfare economics, the crisis of global poverty, the ethics of raising animals for food and the importance of avoiding existential risks to humanity.
See also
- Altruism (ethical doctrine)
- Applied ethics
- Anti-Utilitarianism
- Appeal to consequences
- Bounded rationality
- Charity International
- Classical liberalism
- Cost–benefit analysis
- Decision analysis
- Decision theory
- Effective altruism
- Gross national happiness
- List of utilitarians
- Pleasure principle (psychology)
- Prioritarianism
- Probabilistic reasoning
- Relative utilitarianism
- State consequentialism
- Uncertainty
- Utility monster
- Utilitarian bioethics
- Utilitarian cake-cutting
