Canonical · Philosophy & the Self · Essay

Utilitarianism

John Stuart Mill · 1863

"The right action is whichever produces the greatest net happiness for the greatest number of people affected — an act is judged entirely by its consequences, not by the intentions behind it or any rule it follows."

The idea

Mill's utilitarianism, building on Bentham's earlier, cruder version, judges morality purely by outcomes: an action is right in proportion to how much aggregate happiness it produces and wrong in proportion to how much unhappiness it produces, with everyone's happiness counted equally regardless of who they are. Mill's key refinement over Bentham was insisting pleasures differ in quality, not just quantity — intellectual and moral pleasures rank higher than purely physical ones, famously summarized as it being better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.

Why it works

This makes utilitarianism a consequentialist theory: to evaluate any choice, you tally the total wellbeing produced across everyone affected and compare it against the alternatives, with the highest-total option being the correct one regardless of how it feels to arrive at it or whose personal preferences get overridden along the way. This is what makes it controversial in edge cases (would it justify sacrificing one innocent person to save five?) and also what makes it practically powerful in policy contexts, since it gives a common currency, aggregate wellbeing, for comparing wildly different tradeoffs.

The takeaway — recall it first

Check your understanding

What does Mill's utilitarianism use to judge whether an action is right or wrong?

Meditations

"Peace of mind comes from rigorously separating what's in your control — your judgments, intentions, reactions — from what isn't — external events, other people, outcomes, even your own body — and directing all effort at the former while accepting the latter without resistance."

Marcus Aurelius · JournalContinue→