Utilitarianism would say that an action is right if it results in the happiness of the greatest number of people in a society or a group.

Utilitarianism is a tradition of ethical philosophy that is associated with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill , two late 18th- and 19th-century British philosophers, economists, and political thinkers.

Utilitarianism holds that an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce sadness, or the reverse of happiness—not just the happiness of the actor but that of everyone affected by it. At work, you display utilitarianism when you take actions to ensure that the office is a positive environment for your co-workers to be in, and then make it so for yourself.

Jeremy Bentham describes his "greatest happiness principle" in Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, a publication in which he writes: "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.

John Stuart Mill had many years to absorb and reflect on Jeremy Bentham's thoughts on utilitarianism by the time he published his own work, Utilitarianism , in The key passage from this book:.

In liberal democracies throughout the centuries, the progenitors of utilitarianism spawned variants and extensions of its core principles.

Some of the questions they wrestled with include: What constitutes "the greatest amount of good"? How is happiness defined? How is justice accommodated? In today's Western democracies, policymakers are generally proponents of free markets and some base level of government interference in the private lives of citizens so as to assure safety and security.

Although the appropriate amount of regulation and laws will always be a subject of debate, political and economic policies are geared primarily toward fostering as much well-being for as many people as possible, or at least they should be. Where there are disadvantaged groups who suffer income inequality or other negative consequences because of a utilitarian-based policy or action, most politicians would try to find a remedy.

Utilitarianism holds that the most ethical choice is the one that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number. As such, it is the only moral framework that can justify military force or war.

Moreover, utilitarianism is the most common approach to business ethics because of the way that it accounts for costs and benefits. The theory asserts that there are two types of utilitarian ethics practiced in the business world, "rule" utilitarianism and "act" utilitarianism.

Most companies have a formal or informal code of ethics , which is shaped by their corporate culture, values, and regional laws. Today, having a formalized code of business ethics is more important than ever. For a business to grow, it not only needs to increase its bottom line , but it also must create a reputation for being socially responsible.

Companies also must endeavor to keep their promises and put ethics at least on par with profits. Consumers are looking for companies that they can trust, and employees work better when there is a solid model of ethics in place. On an individual level, if you make morally correct decisions at work, then everyone's happiness will increase.

However, if you choose to do something morally wrong—even if legal—then your happiness and that of your colleagues, will decrease. An example of rule utilitarianism in business is tiered pricing for a product or service for different types of customers.

In the airline industry, for example, many planes offer first-, business-, and economy-class seats. Customers who fly in first or business class pay a much higher rate than those in economy seats, but they also get more amenities—simultaneously, people who cannot afford upper-class seats benefit from the economy rates.

This practice produces the highest good for the greatest number of people. And the airline benefits, too. The more expensive upper-class seats help to ease the financial burden that the airline created by making room for economy-class seats. An example of act utilitarianism could be when pharmaceutical companies release drugs that have been governmentally approved, but with known minor side effects because the drug is able to help more people than are bothered by the side effects.

Quantitative utilitarianism is a branch of utilitarianism that was developed out of the work of Jeremy Bentham. Quantitative utilitarians focus on utility maximization, that is, maximizing the overall happiness of everyone, and use a hedonic approach to determine the rightness or wrongness of actions.

Qualitative utilitarianism is a branch of utilitarianism that arose from the work of John Stuart Mill. Qualitative utilitarians categorize pleasures and pains in a more qualitative manner, depending on the level of their consequences, and disregarding any quantifiable proof of their importance.

Qualitative utilitarianism argues that mental pleasures and pains are different in kind and superior in quality to purely physical ones. Quantitative utilitarianism argues that mental pleasures and pains differ from physical ones only in terms of quantity.

In the workplace, though, utilitarian ethics are difficult to achieve. These ethics also can be challenging to maintain in our business culture, where a capitalistic economy often teaches people to focus on themselves at the expense of others.

Similarly, monopolistic competition teaches one business to flourish at the expense of others. So, although utilitarianism is surely a reason-based approach to determining right and wrong, it has obvious limitations.

Utilitarianism puts forward that it is a virtue to improve one's life better by increasing the good things in the world and minimizing the bad things. This means striving for pleasure and happiness while avoiding discomfort or unhappiness.

A utilitarian is a person who holds the beliefs of utilitarianism. Today, these people might be described as cold and calculating, practical, and perhaps selfish—since they may seek their own pleasure at the expense of the social good at times. Rule utilitarians focus on the effects of actions that stem from certain rules or moral guidelines e.

the "golden rule", the 10 commandments, or laws against murder. If an action conforms to a moral rule then the act is moral. A rule is deemed moral if its existence increases the greater good than any other rule, or the absence of such a rule.

If a consumer buys something only for its practical use-value, in a calculative and rational evaluation, then it is of utilitarian value. This precludes any sort of emotional or sentimental valuing, psychological biases, or other considerations.

Because its ideology argues for the greatest good for the greatest number, a business acting in a utilitarian fashion should increase the welfare of others.

However, in practice, utilitarianism can lead to greed and dog-eat-dog competition that can undermine the social good. Utilitarianism offers a relatively simple method for deciding the morally right course of action for any particular situation.

Over the years, the principle of utilitarianism has been refined and expanded in many variations. Utilitarians today describe benefits and harms in terms of the satisfaction of personal preferences or in purely economic terms of monetary benefits over monetary costs, rather than in terms of "happiness" and "pleasure".

Jeremy Bentham. H Burns and HLA Hart, John Stuart Mill. University of Idaho, Dept. During my initial reading, I easily agreed with this view. Like subjectivism initially seemed good until Hitler was mentioned, I knew I needed to view both extremes before deciding whether I act as a utilitarian.

As I quickly discovered, utilitarianism can lead to disturbing consequences in certain situations. Bennett writes about a situation in which a person or party who is universally believed to be guilty but is actually innocent does not benefit from utilitarianism. Assuming that the true perpetrator of the crime died, how should a utilitarian police chief act in the best interest of the society?

According to utilitarianism, the two possible actions would be either doing nothing or punishing the innocent party. Then, Y will be employed because it is more beneficial for the community as a whole.

Although the example is quite specific, this still leads to the conviction of an innocent party. Therefore, utilitarianism leads to immoral outcomes. Due to this lack of moral outcomes, I cannot consider myself a true, pure utilitarian.

An answer to the criticisms of utilitarianism, I thought, could be rule-utilitarianism. Rule-utilitarians agree that an action is right if and only if it falls under a rule, the general following of which would result in greater utility than an alternative available rule Bennett In reality, humans do not calculate every single decision they make.

However, rule-utilitarianism has been called too contingent or accidental in the way it determines what is moral and what is not. A current example of utilitarian ethics is the push human cloning. Judith Daar, the author of the article The Prospect of Human Cloning , uses an example in which a family that suffered the loss of a child would benefit from cloning.

Daar cites studies that show there is traction for a human cloning movement, underscored by parents and families that have lost young ones in child birth or at young ages Daar A utilitarian would have to weigh the difference between the utility received by the family for having a similar child versus the unhappiness or discrimination that may come about from a whole new race clones.

Mill, John Stuart, and Oskar Piest. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, Bennett, Christopher. London: Routledge,

You've probably heard of a "runner's high" -- the exercise-induced "endorphin rush" that leaves you feeling great after a workout. Surprisingly, endorphins only place a small part in that feeling, according to health psychologist Kelly McGonigal. There are several other ways exercise makes us happier -- including by lowering stress levels , reducing feelings of loneliness and isolation , and helping people relieve anxiety and depression.

Keep reading to find out more about the science and psychology behind why exercise makes you happier and why you may want to make more time for it in your own life. That's just the brain chemistry of it. When you get your heart rate up, when you use your body, when you engage your muscles, it changes your brain chemistry in a way that makes it easier to connect with others and bond, trust other people.

It enhances social pleasures like a high five, laughing or a hug," McGonigal said. Follow a few fitness trainers or fitness influencer accounts on social media, and you'll see them use words like "fit fam," "fit family" or the hashtag fitfam.

The term usually refers to a group of people you workout with regularly, that you also consider a friend or like family because you've bonded over your love of the same workout. McGonigal says this is due in a large part to what happens in your brain when you exercise with others.

It's why people will talk about people who they work out with as their 'fitness fam. And I've seen that happen in my own classes," says McGonigal, who also teaches group exercise classes.

Having a "fitness fam" can mean more than just having a group of people you can depend on to work out with you. When you connect with people that have shared values like valuing your health and wellness and interests for whatever type of workout you do , there's automatically a better chance that your relationship will be even stronger since you share these things.

And experts agree, having strong relationships and connections in life is one of the most important factors in overall happiness. You've probably heard that exercise increases endorphins, but it also increases many more brain chemicals that make you feel happy.

Exercise is also shown to help some people with depression , which experts say could be to due an increase in nerve cell growth in the brain that happens when you exercise.

Our understanding of what will bring happiness, however, has shifted over time. Psychologists have also proposed a number of different theories to explain how people experience and pursue happiness. These theories include:. The hierarchy of needs suggests that people are motivated to pursue increasingly complex needs.

Once more basic needs are fulfilled, people are then motivated by more psychological and emotional needs. At the peak of the hierarchy is the need for self-actualization, or the need to achieve one's full potential.

The theory also stresses the importance of peak experiences or transcendent moments in which a person feels deep understanding, happiness, and joy. The pursuit of happiness is central to the field of positive psychology.

Psychologists who study positive psychology are interested in learning ways to increase positivity and helping people live happier, more satisfying lives. Rather than focusing on mental pathologies, the field instead strives to find ways to help people, communities, and societies improve positive emotions and achieve greater happiness.

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Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience [Internet]. Washington DC : National Academies Press US.

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Positive psychology and gratitude interventions: a randomized clinical trial. Front Psychol. Published Mar Ryff CD. Psychological well-being revisited: advances in the science and practice of eudaimonia.

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The effect of perceived social support on subjective well-being. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. Mauss IB, Tamir M, Anderson CL, Savino NS. Can seeking happiness make people unhappy? By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book.

Use limited data to select advertising. Create profiles for personalised advertising. Use profiles to select personalised advertising. Create profiles to personalise content. Better put, the justification of character, and whether an action is good or not, is based on how the person contributes to the concept of social utility.

In the long run the best proof of a good character is good actions; and resolutely refuse to consider any mental disposition as good, of which the predominant tendency is to produce bad conduct. In the last chapter of Utilitarianism, Mill concludes that justice, as a classifying factor of our actions being just or unjust is one of the certain moral requirements, and when the requirements are all regarded collectively, they are viewed as greater according to this scale of "social utility" as Mill puts it.

He also notes that, contrary to what its critics might say, there is "no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation.

The accusation that hedonism is a "doctrine worthy only of swine" has a long history. In Nicomachean Ethics Book 1 Chapter 5 , Aristotle says that identifying the good with pleasure is to prefer a life suitable for beasts. The theological utilitarians had the option of grounding their pursuit of happiness in the will of God; the hedonistic utilitarians needed a different defence.

Mill's approach is to argue that the pleasures of the intellect are intrinsically superior to physical pleasures. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.

A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and certainly accessible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question Mill argues that if people who are "competently acquainted" with two pleasures show a decided preference for one even if it be accompanied by more discontent and "would not resign it for any quantity of the other," then it is legitimate to regard that pleasure as being superior in quality.

Mill recognizes that these "competent judges" will not always agree, and states that, in cases of disagreement, the judgment of the majority is to be accepted as final. Mill also acknowledges that "many who are capable of the higher pleasures, occasionally, under the influence of temptation, postpone them to the lower.

But this is quite compatible with a full appreciation of the intrinsic superiority of the higher. Mill also thinks that "intellectual pursuits have value out of proportion to the amount of contentment or pleasure the mental state that they produce.

We will become bored and depressed. Whereas, intellectual pursuits give long-term happiness because they provide the individual with constant opportunities throughout the years to improve his life, by benefiting from accruing knowledge.

Mill views intellectual pursuits as "capable of incorporating the 'finer things' in life" while petty pursuits do not achieve this goal.

Although debate persists about the nature of Mill's view of gratification, this suggests bifurcation in his position. In Chapter Four of Utilitarianism , Mill considers what proof can be given for the principle of utility: [36].

The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it.

It is usual to say that Mill is committing a number of fallacies : [37]. Such allegations began to emerge in Mill's lifetime, shortly after the publication of Utilitarianism , and persisted for well over a century, though the tide has been turning in recent discussions.

Nonetheless, a defence of Mill against all three charges, with a chapter devoted to each, can be found in Necip Fikri Alican's Mill's Principle of Utility: A Defense of John Stuart Mill's Notorious Proof This is the first, and remains [ when?

Yet the alleged fallacies in the proof continue to attract scholarly attention in journal articles and book chapters. Hall and Popkin defend Mill against this accusation pointing out that he begins Chapter Four by asserting that "questions of ultimate ends do not admit of proof, in the ordinary acceptation of the term" and that this is "common to all first principles".

Having claimed that people do, in fact, desire happiness, Mill now has to show that it is the only thing they desire. Mill anticipates the objection that people desire other things such as virtue. He argues that whilst people might start desiring virtue as a means to happiness, eventually, it becomes part of someone's happiness and is then desired as an end in itself.

The principle of utility does not mean that any given pleasure, as music, for instance, or any given exemption from pain, as for example health, are to be looked upon as means to a collective something termed happiness, and to be desired on that account.

They are desired and desirable in and for themselves; besides being means, they are a part of the end. Virtue, according to the utilitarian doctrine, is not naturally and originally part of the end, but it is capable of becoming so; and in those who love it disinterestedly it has become so, and is desired and cherished, not as a means to happiness, but as a part of their happiness.

We may give what explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to pride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to some of the least estimable feelings of which is mankind are capable; we may refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an appeal to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for the inculcation of it; to the love of power, or the love of excitement, both of which do really enter into and contribute to it: but its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all humans beings possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact, proportion to their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them.

Sidgwick's book The Methods of Ethics has been referred to as the peak or culmination of classical utilitarianism. Hedonism is subdivided into egoistic hedonism , which only takes the agent's own well-being into account, and universal hedonism or utilitarianism , which is concerned with everyone's well-being.

Intuitionism holds that we have intuitive, i. non-inferential, knowledge of moral principles, which are self-evident to the knower. According to Sidgwick, commonsense moral principles fail to pass this test, but there are some more abstract principles that pass it, like that "what is right for me must be right for all persons in precisely similar circumstances" or that "one should be equally concerned with all temporal parts of one's life".

Sidgwick suggests that we resolve such conflicts in a utilitarian fashion by considering the consequences of the conflicting actions. The harmony between intuitionism and utilitarianism is a partial success in Sidgwick's overall project, but he sees full success impossible since egoism, which he considers as equally rational, cannot be reconciled with utilitarianism unless religious assumptions are introduced.

The description of ideal utilitarianism was first used by Hastings Rashdall in The Theory of Good and Evil , but it is more often associated with G. In Ethics , Moore rejects a purely hedonistic utilitarianism and argues that there is a range of values that might be maximized.

Moore's strategy was to show that it is intuitively implausible that pleasure is the sole measure of what is good. He says that such an assumption: [47]. involves our saying, for instance, that a world in which absolutely nothing except pleasure existed—no knowledge, no love, no enjoyment of beauty, no moral qualities—must yet be intrinsically better—better worth creating—provided only the total quantity of pleasure in it were the least bit greater, than one in which all these things existed as well as pleasure.

It involves our saying that, even if the total quantity of pleasure in each was exactly equal, yet the fact that all the beings in the one possessed, in addition knowledge of many different kinds and a full appreciation of all that was beautiful or worthy of love in their world, whereas none of the beings in the other possessed any of these things, would give us no reason whatever for preferring the former to the latter.

Moore admits that it is impossible to prove the case either way, but he believed that it was intuitively obvious that even if the amount of pleasure stayed the same a world that contained such things as beauty and love would be a better world. He adds that, if a person was to take the contrary view, then "I think it is self-evident that he would be wrong.

In the midth century, a number of philosophers focused on the place of rules in utilitarian thought. Paley had justified the use of rules and Mill says: [49]. It is truly a whimsical supposition that, if mankind were agreed in considering utility to be the test of morality, they would remain without any agreement as to what is useful, and would take no measures for having their notions on the subject taught to the young, and enforced by law and opinion to consider the rules of morality as improvable, is one thing; to pass over the intermediate generalisations entirely, and endeavour to test each individual action directly by the first principle, is another.

Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it ready calculated; and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong. However, rule utilitarianism proposes a more central role for rules that was thought to rescue the theory from some of its more devastating criticisms, particularly problems to do with justice and promise keeping.

Smart and McCloskey initially use the terms extreme and restricted utilitarianism but eventually settled on the prefixes act and rule instead. In an introduction to an anthology of these articles, the editor was able to say: "The development of this theory was a dialectical process of formulation, criticism, reply and reformulation; the record of this process well illustrates the co-operative development of a philosophical theory.

The essential difference is in what determines whether or not an action is the right action. Act utilitarianism maintains that an action is right if it maximizes utility; rule utilitarianism maintains that an action is right if it conforms to a rule that maximizes utility.

In , Urmson published an influential article arguing that Mill justified rules on utilitarian principles. In all probability, it was not a distinction that Mill was particularly trying to make and so the evidence in his writing is inevitably mixed.

A collection of Mill's writing published in includes a letter that seems to tip the balance in favour of the notion that Mill is best classified as an act utilitarian.

In the letter, Mill says: [53]. I agree with you that the right way of testing actions by their consequences, is to test them by the natural consequences of the particular action, and not by those which would follow if everyone did the same.

But, for the most part, the consideration of what would happen if everyone did the same, is the only means we have of discovering the tendency of the act in the particular case.

Some school level textbooks and at least one British examination board make a further distinction between strong and weak rule utilitarianism. It has been argued that rule utilitarianism collapses into act utilitarianism, because for any given rule, in the case where breaking the rule produces more utility, the rule can be refined by the addition of a sub-rule that handles cases like the exception.

In Principles , R. Hare accepts that rule utilitarianism collapses into act utilitarianism but claims that this is a result of allowing the rules to be "as specific and un-general as we please. When we are " playing God or the ideal observer ", we use the specific form, and we will need to do this when we are deciding what general principles to teach and follow.

When we are " inculcating " or in situations where the biases of our human nature are likely to prevent us doing the calculations properly, then we should use the more general rule utilitarianism.

One ought to abide by the general principles whose general inculcation is for the best; harm is more likely to come, in actual moral situations, from questioning these rules than from sticking to them, unless the situations are very extra-ordinary; the results of sophisticated felicific calculations are not likely, human nature and human ignorance being what they are, to lead to the greatest utility.

In Moral Thinking , Hare illustrated the two extremes. The "archangel" is the hypothetical person who has perfect knowledge of the situation and no personal biases or weaknesses and always uses critical moral thinking to decide the right thing to do.

In contrast, the "prole" is the hypothetical person who is completely incapable of critical thinking and uses nothing but intuitive moral thinking and, of necessity, has to follow the general moral rules they have been taught or learned through imitation. Hare does not specify when we should think more like an "archangel" and more like a "prole" as this will, in any case, vary from person to person.

However, the critical moral thinking underpins and informs the more intuitive moral thinking. It is responsible for formulating and, if necessary, reformulating the general moral rules. We also switch to critical thinking when trying to deal with unusual situations or in cases where the intuitive moral rules give conflicting advice.

Preference utilitarianism entails promoting actions that fulfil the preferences of those beings involved. Hare , [58] Peter Singer , [62] and Richard Brandt. Harsanyi rejects hedonistic utilitarianism as being dependent on an outdated psychology saying that it is far from obvious that everything we do is motivated by a desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.

He also rejects ideal utilitarianism because "it is certainly not true as an empirical observation that people's only purpose in life is to have 'mental states of intrinsic worth'.

According to Harsanyi, "preference utilitarianism is the only form of utilitarianism consistent with the important philosophical principle of preference autonomy. By this I mean the principle that, in deciding what is good and what is bad for a given individual, the ultimate criterion can only be his own wants and his own preferences.

Harsanyi adds two caveats. Firstly, people sometimes have irrational preferences. To deal with this, Harsanyi distinguishes between " manifest " preferences and " true " preferences. The former are those "manifested by his observed behaviour, including preferences possibly based on erroneous factual beliefs, [ clarification needed ] or on careless logical analysis, or on strong emotions that at the moment greatly hinder rational choice "; whereas the latter are "the preferences he would have if he had all the relevant factual information, always reasoned with the greatest possible care, and were in a state of mind most conducive to rational choice.

The second caveat is that antisocial preferences, such as sadism , envy , and resentment , have to be excluded. Harsanyi achieves this by claiming that such preferences partially exclude those people from the moral community:.

Utilitarian ethics makes all of us members of the same moral community. A person displaying ill will toward others does remain a member of this community, but not with his whole personality.

That part of his personality that harbours these hostile antisocial feelings must be excluded from membership, and has no claim for a hearing when it comes to defining our concept of social utility.

In The Open Society and its Enemies , Karl Popper argues that the principle "maximize pleasure" should be replaced by "minimize pain". He believes that "it is not only impossible but very dangerous to attempt to maximize the pleasure or the happiness of the people, since such an attempt must lead to totalitarianism.

In my opinion human suffering makes a direct moral appeal, namely, the appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the happiness of a man who is doing well anyway. A further criticism of the Utilitarian formula "Maximize pleasure" is that it assumes a continuous pleasure-pain scale that lets us treat degrees of pain as negative degrees of pleasure.

But, from the moral point of view, pain cannot be outweighed by pleasure, and especially not one man's pain by another man's pleasure. Instead of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, one should demand, more modestly, the least amount of avoidable suffering for all The actual term negative utilitarianism itself was introduced by R.

Smart as the title to his reply to Popper in which he argues that the principle would entail seeking the quickest and least painful method of killing the entirety of humanity.

In response to Smart's argument, Simon Knutsson has argued that classical utilitarianism and similar consequentialist views are roughly equally likely to entail killing the entirety of humanity, as they would seem to imply that one should kill existing beings and replace them with happier beings if possible.

Consequently, Knutsson argues:. The world destruction argument is not a reason to reject negative utilitarianism in favour of these other forms of consequentialism, because there are similar arguments against such theories that are at least as persuasive as the world destruction argument is against negative utilitarianism.

Furthermore, Knutsson notes that one could argue that other forms of consequentialism, such as classical utilitarianism, in some cases have less plausible implications than negative utilitarianism, such as in scenarios where classical utilitarianism implies it would be right to kill everyone and replace them in a manner that creates more suffering, but also more well-being such that the sum, on the classical utilitarian calculus , is net positive.

Negative utilitarianism, in contrast, would not allow such killing. Some see negative utilitarianism as a branch within modern hedonistic utilitarianism , which assigns a higher weight to the avoidance of suffering than to the promotion of happiness.

Motive utilitarianism was first proposed by Robert Merrihew Adams in The arguments for moving to some form of motive utilitarianism at the personal level can be seen as mirroring the arguments for moving to some form of rule utilitarianism at the social level.

Applying carefully selected rules at the social level and encouraging appropriate motives at the personal level is, so it is argued, likely to lead to a better overall outcome even if on some individual occasions it leads to the wrong action when assessed according to act utilitarian standards.

Adams concludes that "right action, by act-utilitarian standards, and right motivation, by motive-utilitarian standards, are incompatible in some cases. Because utilitarianism is not a single theory, but rather a cluster of related theories that have been developed over two hundred years, criticisms can be made for different reasons and have different targets.

A common objection to utilitarianism is the inability to quantify, compare, or measure happiness or well-being. Rachael Briggs writes in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy : [79].

One objection to this interpretation of utility is that there may not be a single good or indeed any good which rationality requires us to seek.

But if we understand "utility" broadly enough to include all potentially desirable ends—pleasure, knowledge, friendship, health and so on—it's not clear that there is a unique correct way to make the tradeoffs between different goods so that each outcome receives a utility.

There may be no good answer to the question of whether the life of an ascetic monk contains more or less good than the life of a happy libertine—but assigning utilities to these options forces us to compare them. Utility understood this way is a personal preference , in the absence of any objective measurement.

As Rosen has pointed out, claiming that act utilitarians are not concerned about having rules is to set up a " straw man ". Hare refers to "the crude caricature of act utilitarianism which is the only version of it that many philosophers seem to be acquainted with.

Nevertheless, whether they would agree or not, this is what critics of utilitarianism claim is entailed by the theory. A classic version of this criticism was given by H.

McCloskey in his "sheriff scenario": [51]. Suppose that a sheriff were faced with the choice either of framing a Negro for a rape that had aroused hostility to the Negroes a particular Negro generally being believed to be guilty but whom the sheriff knows not to be guilty —and thus preventing serious anti-Negro riots which would probably lead to some loss of life and increased hatred of each other by whites and Negroes—or of hunting for the guilty person and thereby allowing the anti-Negro riots to occur, while doing the best he can to combat them.

In such a case the sheriff, if he were an extreme utilitarian, would appear to be committed to framing the Negro. By "extreme" utilitarian, McCloskey is referring to what later came to be called act utilitarianism. He suggests one response might be that the sheriff would not frame the innocent negro because of another rule: "do not punish an innocent person.

In a later article, McCloskey says: [82]. Surely the utilitarian must admit that whatever the facts of the matter may be, it is logically possible that an 'unjust' system of punishment—e. a system involving collective punishments, retroactive laws and punishments, or punishments of parents and relations of the offender—may be more useful than a 'just' system of punishment?

An older form of this argument was presented by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his book The Brothers Karamazov , in which Ivan challenges his brother Alyosha to answer his question: [83]. Tell me straight out, I call on you—answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, [one child], and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears—would you agree to be the architect on such conditions?

And can you admit the idea that the people for whom you are building would agree to accept their happiness on the unjustified blood of a tortured child, and having accepted it, to remain forever happy?

Some argue that it is impossible to do the calculation that utilitarianism requires because consequences are inherently unknowable. Daniel Dennett describes this as the " Three Mile Island effect".

He suggests that it would have been a good thing if plant operators learned lessons that prevented future serious incidents. Russell Hardin rejects such arguments. He argues that it is possible to distinguish the moral impulse of utilitarianism which is "to define the right as good consequences and to motivate people to achieve these" from our ability to correctly apply rational principles that, among other things, "depend on the perceived facts of the case and on the particular moral actor's mental equipment.

The moral impulse of utilitarianism is constant, but our decisions under it are contingent on our knowledge and scientific understanding. From the beginning, utilitarianism has recognized that certainty in such matters is unobtainable and both Bentham and Mill said that it was necessary to rely on the tendencies of actions to bring about consequences.

Moore , writing in , said: [87]. We certainly cannot hope directly to compare their effects except within a limited future; and all the arguments, which have ever been used in Ethics, and upon which we commonly act in common life, directed to shewing that one course is superior to another, are apart from theological dogmas confined to pointing out such probable immediate advantages An ethical law has the nature not of a scientific law but of a scientific prediction : and the latter is always merely probable, although the probability may be very great.

Act utilitarianism not only requires everyone to do what they can to maximize utility, but to do so without any favouritism.

Mill said, "As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. The well-being of strangers counts just as much as that of friends, family or self.

promoting the good would require a life of hardship, self-denial, and austerity a life spent promoting the good would be a severe one indeed. Hooker describes two aspects to the problem: act utilitarianism requires huge sacrifices from those who are relatively better off and also requires sacrifice of your own good even when the aggregate good will be only slightly increased.

One response to the problem is to accept its demands. This is the view taken by Peter Singer , who says: [92]. No doubt we do instinctively prefer to help those who are close to us.

Few could stand by and watch a child drown; many can ignore the avoidable deaths of children in Africa or India. The question, however, is not what we usually do, but what we ought to do, and it is difficult to see any sound moral justification for the view that distance, or community membership, makes a crucial difference to our obligations.

Others argue that a moral theory that is so contrary to our deeply held moral convictions must either be rejected or modified. In Satisficing Consequentialism , Michael Slote argues for a form of utilitarianism where "an act might qualify as morally right through having good enough consequences, even though better consequences could have been produced.

Samuel Scheffler takes a different approach and amends the requirement that everyone be treated the same. Kagan suggests that such a procedure might be justified on the grounds that "a general requirement to promote the good would lack the motivational underpinning necessary for genuine moral requirements" and, secondly, that personal independence is necessary for the existence of commitments and close personal relations and that "the value of such commitments yields a positive reason for preserving within moral theory at least some moral independence for the personal point of view.

Robert Goodin takes yet another approach and argues that the demandingness objection can be "blunted" by treating utilitarianism as a guide to public policy rather than one of individual morality.

He suggests that many of the problems arise under the traditional formulation because the conscientious utilitarian ends up having to make up for the failings of others and so contributing more than their fair share.

Gandjour specifically considers market situations and analyses whether individuals who act in markets may produce a utilitarian optimum. He lists several demanding conditions that need to be satisfied: individuals need to display instrumental rationality, markets need to be perfectly competitive, and income and goods need to be redistributed.

Harsanyi argues that the objection overlooks the fact that "people attach considerable utility to freedom from unduly burdensome moral obligations most people will prefer a society with a more relaxed moral code, and will feel that such a society will achieve a higher level of average utility—even if adoption of such a moral code should lead to some losses in economic and cultural accomplishments so long as these losses remain within tolerable limits.

This means that utilitarianism, if correctly interpreted, will yield a moral code with a standard of acceptable conduct very much below the level of highest moral perfection, leaving plenty of scope for supererogatory actions exceeding this minimum standard. The objection that "utilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between persons" came to prominence in with the publication of John Rawls ' A Theory of Justice.

However, a similar objection was noted in by Thomas Nagel , who claimed that consequentialism "treats the desires, needs, satisfactions, and dissatisfactions of distinct persons as if they were the desires, etc. But this is absurd. Individuals have wants, not mankind; individuals seek satisfaction, not mankind.

A person's satisfaction is not part of any greater satisfaction. A response to this criticism is to point out that whilst seeming to resolve some problems it introduces others.

Intuitively, there are many cases where people do want to take the numbers involved into account. As Alastair Norcross has said: []. it is clearly better for Homer to save the larger number, precisely because it is a larger number. Can anyone who really considers the matter seriously honestly claim to believe that it is worse that one person die than that the entire sentient population of the universe be severely mutilated?

Clearly not. It may be possible to uphold the distinction between persons whilst still aggregating utility, if it accepted that people can be influenced by empathy. Philosopher John Taurek also argued that the idea of adding happiness or pleasures across persons is quite unintelligible and that the numbers of persons involved in a situation are morally irrelevant.

He argues that each person can only lose one person's happiness or pleasures. There is not five times more loss of happiness or pleasure when five die: who would be feeling this happiness or pleasure?

because, by hypothesis, I have an equal concern for each person involved, I am moved to give each of them an equal chance to be spared his loss" p.

Derek Parfit and others have criticized Taurek's line, [] [] [] and it continues to be discussed. An early criticism, which was addressed by Mill, is that if time is taken to calculate the best course of action it is likely that the opportunity to take the best course of action will already have passed.

Mill responded that there had been ample time to calculate the likely effects: [88]. During all that time, mankind have been learning by experience the tendencies of actions; on which experience all the prudence, as well as all the morality of life, are dependent It is a strange notion that the acknowledgment of a first principle is inconsistent with the admission of secondary ones.

To inform a traveller respecting the place of his ultimate destination, is not to forbid the use of landmarks and direction-posts on the way. The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality, does not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons going thither should not be advised to take one direction rather than another.

Men really ought to leave off talking a kind of nonsense on this subject, which they would neither talk nor listen to on other matters of practical concernment. More recently, Hardin has made the same point. Parallel considerations in other realms are dismissed with eminently good sense.

Lord Devlin notes, 'if the reasonable man " worked to rule " by perusing to the point of comprehension every form he was handed, the commercial and administrative life of the country would creep to a standstill. It is such considerations that lead even act utilitarians to rely on "rules of thumb", as Smart has called them.

One of the oldest criticisms of utilitarianism is that it ignores our special obligations. For example, if we were given the choice between saving two random people or our mother, most would choose to save their mothers.

According to utilitarianism, such a natural action is immoral. The first to respond to this was an early utilitarian and friend of Jeremy Bentham named William Godwin , who held in his work Enquiry Concerning Political Justice that such personal needs should be disregarded in favour of the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Applying the utilitarian principle "that life ought to be preferred which will be most conducive to the general good" to the choice of saving one of two people, either "the illustrious Archbishop of Cambray" or his chambermaid, he wrote: [].

Supposing the chambermaid had been my wife, my mother or my benefactor. That would not alter the truth of the proposition. The life of [the Archbishop] would still be more valuable than that of the chambermaid; and justice, pure, unadulterated justice, would still have preferred that which was most valuable.

Utilitarianism's assertion that well-being is the only thing with intrinsic moral value has been attacked by various critics. Thomas Carlyle derided "Benthamee Utility, virtue by Profit and Loss; reducing this God's-world to a dead brute Steam-engine, the infinite celestial Soul of Man to a kind of Hay-balance for weighing hay and thistles on, pleasures and pains on".

With the driest naivete he takes the modern shopkeeper, especially the English shopkeeper, as the normal man. Whatever is useful to this queer normal man, and to his world, is absolutely useful.

This yard-measure, then, he applies to past, present, and future. The Christian religion, e. With such rubbish has the brave fellow, with his motto, "nulla dies sine linea [no day without a line]", piled up mountains of books.

Pope John Paul II , following his personalist philosophy , argued that a danger of utilitarianism is that it tends to make persons, just as much as things, the object of use. Ross , speaking from the perspective of his deontological pluralism , acknowledges that there is a duty to promote the maximum of aggregate good, as utilitarianism demands.

But, Ross contends, this is just one besides various other duties, like the duty to keep one's promises or to make amends for wrongful acts, which are ignored by the simplistic and reductive utilitarian outlook.

Roger Scruton was a deontologist, and believed that utilitarianism did not give duty the place that it needed inside our ethical judgements. He asked us to consider the dilemma of Anna Karenina , who had to choose between her love of Vronsky and her duty towards her husband and her son.

Scruton wrote, "Suppose Anna were to reason that it is better to satisfy two healthy young people and frustrate one old one than to satisfy one old person and frustrate two young ones, by a factor of 2.