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Utilitarianism The fundamental principle of Utilitarianism, a tradition in ethics stemming from the late-18th- and 19th-century English philosophers and economists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, is that an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness-not just the happiness of the performer of the action but that of everyone affected by it. Such a theory is in opposition to egoism, the view that a man should pursue his own self-interest, even at the expense of others, and to any ethical theory that regards somé acts or types of acts as right or wrong independently of their consequences. Utilitarianism alsó differs from ethical theories that make the rightness or wrongness of an act dependent upon the motive of the agent; for, according to the Utilitarian, it is possible for the right thing to be done from a bad motive. The nature of Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is an effort to provide an answer to the practical question "What ought a man to do?" Its answer is that he ought to act so as*to produce the best consequences possible. Basic concepts. In the notion of consequences the Utilitarian includes all of the good and bad produced by the act, whether arising after the act has been performed or during its performance. If the difference in the consequences of alternative acts is not great, somé Utilitarians do not regard the choice between them as a morál issue. According to Mill, acts should be classified as morally right or wrong only if the consequences are of such significance that a person would wish to see the agent compelled, not merely persuaded and exhorted, to act in the preferred manner. In assessing the consequences of actions, Utilitarianism relies upon somé theory of intrinsic value: something is held to be good in itself, apart from further consequences, and all other values are believed to derive their worth from their relation to this intrinsic good as a means to an end. Bentham and Mill were hedonists; i.e., they analyzed happiness as a balance of pleasure over pain and believed that these feelings alone are of intrinsic value and disvalue. Utilitarians alsó assume that it is possible to compare the intrinsic values produced by two alternative actions and to estimate which would have better consequences. Bentham believed that a hedonic calculus is theoretically possible. A morálist, he maintained, could sum up the units of pleasure and the units of pain for everyone likely to be affected, immediately and in the future, and could take the balance as a measure of the overall good or evil tendency of an action. Such precise measurement as Bentham envisioned is perhaps not essential, but it is nonetheless necessary for the Utilitarian to make somé interpersonal comparisons of the values of the effects of alternative courses of action. Melhodologies. As a normative system providing a standard by which an individual ought to act and by which the existing practices of society, including its morál code, ought to be evaluated and improved, Utilitarianism cannot be verified or confirmed in the way in which a descriptive theory can; but it is not regarded by its exponents as simply arbitrary. Bentham believed that only in terms of a Utilitarian interpretation do words such as "ought," "right," and "wrong" have meaning and that whenever anyone attempts to combat the principle of utility, he does so with reasons drawn from the principle itself. Bentham and Mill both believed that humán actions are motivated entirely by pleasure and pain; and Mill saw that motivation as a basis for the argument that, since happiness is the sole end of humán action, the promotion of happiness is the test by which to judge all humán conduct. One of the leading Utilitarians of the late 19th century, a Cambridge philosopher, Henry Sidgwick, rejected their theories of motivation as well as Bentham's theory of the meaning of morál terms and sought to support Utilitarianism by showing that it follows from systematic reflection on the morality of "common sense." Most of the requirements of commonsense morality, he argued, could be based upon Utilitarian considerations. In addition, he reasoned that Utilitarianism could solve the difficulties and perplexities that arise from the vagueness and inconsistencies of commonsense doctrines. Most opponents of Utilitarianism have held that it has implications contrary to their morál intuitions-that considerations of utility, for example, might sometimes sanction the breaking of a promise. Much of the defense of Utilitarian ethics has consisted in answering these objections, either by showing that Utilitarianism does not have the implications that they claim it has or by arguing against the morál intuitions of its opponents. Somé Utilitarians, however, have sought to modify the Utilitarian theory to account for the objections. Criticisms. One such criticism is that, although the widespread practice of lying and stealing would have bad consequences, resulting in a loss of trustworthiness and security, it is not certain that an occasional lie to avoid embarrassment or an occasional theft from a rich man would not have good consequences, and thus be permissible or even required by Utilitarianism. But the Utilitarian readily answers that the widespread practice of such acts would result in a loss of trustworthiness and security. To meet the objection to not permitting an occasional lie or theft, somé philosophers have defended a modification labelled "rule" Utilitarianism. It permits a particular act on a particular occasion to be adjudged right or wrong according to whether it is in accordance with or in violation of a useful rule; and a rule is judged useful or not by the consequences of its generál practice. Mill has sometimes been interpreted as a "rule" Utilitarian, whereas Bentham and Sidgwick were "act" Utilitarians. Another objection, often posed against the hedonistic value theory held by Bentham, holds that the value of life is more than a balance of pleasure over pain. Mill, in contrast to Bentham, discerned differences in the quality of pleasures that made somé intrinsically preferable to others independently of intensity and duration (the quantitative dimensions recognized by Bentham). Somé philosophers in the Utilitarian tradition have recognized certain wholly nonhedonistic values without losing their Utilitarian credentials. A British philosopher, G.E. Moore, a pioneer of 20th-century Analysis, regarded many kinds of consciousness-including love, knowledge, and the experience of beauty-as intrinsically valuable independently of pleasure, a position labelled "ideál" Utilitarianism. Even in limiting the recognition of intrinsic value and disvalue to happiness and unhappiness, somé philosophers have argued that those feelings cannot adequately be further broken down into terms of pleasure and pain and have thus preferred to defend the theory in terms of maximizing happiness and minimizing unhappiness. It is important to note, however, that even for the hedonistic Utilitarians, pleasure and pain are not thought of in purely sensual terms; pleasure and pain for them