The school of ethics according to which the utility of an action determines its moral status.
An approach to social justice where the "utility" for society is obtained by adding up the utilities for all its members. The goal for society is to maximize society's utility.
(u·til·i·tar·i·an·ism) NOUN: 1.) The belief that the value of a thing or an action is determined by its utility. 2.) The ethical theory proposed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. 3.) The quality of being utilitarian: housing of bleak utilitarianism.
level: Introductory (1) [ order by level] The view that an action is right if it maximizes happiness, everyone considered.
the doctrine that all actions are to be judged in terms of their utility in promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Creed that accepts utility and the search for happiness as its foundation.
This philosophy judges everything in terms of its utility or usefulness. When examining an institution, such as the law, Parliament or the Church, utilitarians ask the question: Does it work? If the answer is no, then it has to be changed to make it more effective, or abolished. Utilitarianism was inspired by the ideas of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) who believed that humans act out of self-interest according to the pleasure–pain principle: what motivates people is the desire to avoid pain and to seek pleasure. To be successful, a social policy has to offer either reward or punishment, and social reform based on the pleasure–pain principle will ultimately achieve the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number'.
doctrine that the useful is the good; especially as elaborated by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill; the aim was said to be the greatest happiness for the greatest number
A principle that states that we should strive to achieve "the greatest happiness for the greatest number. (p. 148)
The ethical theory that contends that the aim of action should be the largest possible balance of pleasure over pain or the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Holds that the balance of good over evil for a given community is ethical in comparison with other actions.
A moral theory that says that what is moral right is whatever produces the greatest overall amount of pleasure (hedonistic utilitarianism) or happiness (eudaimonistic utilitarianism). Some utilitarians (act utilitarians) claim that we should weigh the consequences of each individual action, while others (rule utilitarians) maintain that we should look at the consequences of adopting particular rules of conduct.
an ethical system by which one acts according to that which will result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
An ethical tradition dating from the lath eighteenth century that assumes an action is right if it promotes happiness of both the agent and those affected by the act. Judgments of right and wrong depend upon the consequence of an action rather than strictly on motives.
the moral philosphy of Epicurus, and much later, of Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill, according to which actions are considered moral which contribute to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. "Good" is tantamount to "pleasure," "bad" with "pain". Contrast this view with deontological ethics.
The ethical framework which holds that the right course of action is that which maximises the amount of happiness or pleasure in the world. If you are a utilitarian it means that you while you might, for example, normally tell the truth, there could be occassions where you would believe that the right thing to do would be to lie.
a teleological ethical theory that holds that the principle of utility, the greatest good for the greatest number and/or for all concerned, is the one supreme moral principle that ought to be applied to the consequences of all our ethical decisions. The "Good" is defined differently by utilitarians. Act and Rule Utilitarianism are two versions that distinguish between whether the principle of utility should be applied to acts or rules.
A moral philosophy, generally operating on the principle that the utility (happiness or satisfaction) of different people can not only be measured but also meaningfully summed over people and that utility comparisons between people are meaningful. That makes it possible to achieve a well-defined societal optimum in allocations, production, and other decisions, and achieve the goal utilitarian British philosopher Jeremy Bentham described as "the greatest good for the greatest number." This form of utilitarianism is thought of as extreme, now, partly because it is widely believed that there exists no generally acceptable way of summing utilities across people and comparing between them. Utility functions that can be compared and summed arithmetically are cardinal utility functions; utility functions that only represent the choices that would be made by an individual are ordinal. Source: econterms
Utilitarianism is the ethical doctrine that the moral worth of an action is solely determined by its contribution to overall utility. It is thus a form of consequentialism. Utility — the good to be maximized — has been defined by various thinkers as happiness or pleasure (versus suffering or pain).
John Stuart Mill's book Utilitarianism is one of the most influential and widely-read philosophical defenses of utilitarianism in ethics. The essay first appeared as a series of three articles published in Fraser's Magazine in 1861; the articles were collected and reprinted as a single book in 1863. It went through four editions during Mill's lifetime with minor additions and revisions.