utilitarianism

Utility

The usefulness of an action in bringing about good consequences, such as pleasure or happiness.

Utilitarianism

The normative moral theory asserting that the moral rightness of an action is determined solely by its utility in producing positive consequences.

Teleological ethics

Ethical theories that evaluate the moral worth of an action based on its end goal or consequences rather than intrinsic duties.

Jeremy Bentham

The Enlightenment thinker who first systematized act utilitarianism and introduced a quantitative calculus for measuring pleasure.

Psychological hedonism

The empirical claim that human nature is governed entirely by the desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Hedonic utilitarianism

A form of utilitarian theory that defines utility strictly as positive mental states, such as pleasure, and moral rightness as maximizing pleasure over pain.

Negative utilitarianism

A branch of utilitarianism that defines utility as the reduction of suffering, holding that moral actions should focus on minimizing pain.

Preference utilitarianism

A form of utilitarianism that defines utility as the fulfillment of personal desires or choices for all morally relevant beings.

Ideal utilitarianism

A variant of utilitarianism that seeks to maximize a plurality of intrinsic goods beyond pleasure, such as friendship, beauty, and knowledge.

Act utilitarianism

A method of application where the principle of utility is applied directly to each individual action to judge its rightness.

Rule utilitarianism

A method of application where the principle of utility is applied to general social guidelines, making an action right if it conforms to a utility-maximizing rule.

Quantitative utilitarianism

The position that only the amount or duration of utility matters when evaluating the moral value of consequences.

Qualitative utilitarianism

The position that distinct types or forms of utility possess inherent differences in value regardless of sheer amount.

John Stuart Mill

The philosopher who refined utilitarianism by introducing qualitative distinctions between higher and lower pleasures and advocating rule-based application.

Peter Singer

A modern philosopher known for advocating quantitative preference act utilitarianism and applying it to animal ethics and global poverty.

G. E. Moore

The philosopher associated with qualitative ideal act utilitarianism, proposing that intrinsic goods like aesthetic beauty and friendship must be maximized.

Karl Popper

The philosopher historically associated with qualitative negative act utilitarianism, focusing on the minimisation of suffering.

J. J. Smart

A prominent modern defender of quantitative hedonic act utilitarianism who criticized rule utilitarianism as superstitious rule-worship.

Two sovereign masters

Pain and pleasure, identified in early utilitarianism as the natural forces governing human choices and determining moral standards.

Hedonic calculus

A seven-criterion framework for measuring the quantity of pleasure and pain generated by an action.

Intensity (Hedonic Calculus)

The criterion measuring how strong a particular sensation of pleasure or pain feels.

Duration (Hedonic Calculus)

The criterion measuring how long a pleasurable or painful sensation lasts.

Certainty (Hedonic Calculus)

The criterion evaluating the probability that an expected pleasure or pain will actually occur.

Remoteness (Hedonic Calculus)

The criterion evaluating how soon in time a pleasurable or painful consequence will take place.

Fecundity (Hedonic Calculus)

The criterion assessing the likelihood that an initial pleasure or pain will lead to further sensations of the same kind.

Purity (Hedonic Calculus)

The criterion measuring the probability that an action's pleasurable outcome will not be followed by opposing painful sensations.

Extent (Hedonic Calculus)

The criterion measuring the total number of individual beings affected by a given action.

Push-pin versus poetry comparison

The assertion that a simple children's game has equal moral worth to fine arts if it generates an equivalent quantity of pleasure.

The swine objection

Thomas Carlyle's criticism that quantitative hedonic utilitarianism degrades human dignity by reducing morality to animalistic pleasure-seeking.

Higher pleasures

Intellectual, aesthetic, and moral pleasures derived from mental activity, which Mill argued are superior in quality to physical gratification.

Lower pleasures

Bodily pleasures linked to physical sensations, such as eating or sleeping, which Mill considered inferior in quality to mental pursuits.

Competent judges

Individuals who have experienced both higher and lower pleasures and consistently prefer higher intellectual pleasures.

Socrates dissatisfied versus pig satisfied

A famous comparison illustrating that human capacity for higher qualitative pleasure makes a discontented intellectual life preferable to contented animal pleasure.

Akrasia in qualitative utilitarianism

Weakness of will or lack of social sustenance causing individuals to choose lower pleasures despite recognizing the superiority of higher pleasures.

Elitism critique of qualitative utilitarianism

The charge that ranking mental pursuits over bodily ones reflects upper-class social bias rather than an objective moral truth.

Primary principle of utility

The foundational rule that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness.

Secondary principles

Customary social rules and moral laws developed over human history that act as practical shortcuts to maximize overall utility.

Harm principle

The rule asserting that political power can only be rightfully exercised over an individual against their will to prevent harm to others.

Tyranny of the majority

The risk in democratic or utilitarian frameworks where a dominant group suppresses or victimizes a minority to increase overall happiness.

Nautical Almanac analogy

A comparison showing that people do not need to calculate utility from scratch each time, just as sailors do not calculate astronomy tables at sea.

Transplant case objection

Philippa Foot's thought experiment where a doctor kills one healthy person to harvest organs for five patients, highlighting utilitarian conflicts with rights.

Utilitarian defense against tyranny of the majority

The argument that widespread oppression creates pervasive fear and insecurity, ultimately undermining net social happiness.

Brave New World objection

A counter-argument showing that genetically engineered or drugged happy slaves expose utilitarianism's failure to respect intrinsic autonomy.

Weak rule utilitarianism

The view that rules should generally be followed but can be broken whenever doing so directly maximizes utility, collapsing back into act utilitarianism.

Strong rule utilitarianism

The view that rules must never be violated once established, criticized by opponents as turning utility into rigid deontology.

Rule-worship objection

The critique that refusing to break a beneficial rule for the sake of rule adherence alone is superstitious and irrational.

Desert island promise scenario

A thought experiment demonstrating that breaking a secret promise to maximize utility carries no negative social repercussions.

Utility of the act versus utility of praise

Henry Sidgwick's distinction between the objective outcome of an action and the social value of publicly praising or condemning it.

The partiality problem

The ethical conflict arising because utilitarianism demands equal, impartial consideration for strangers, contradicting human psychological attachments to loved ones.

Singer's Shallow Pond thought experiment

An illustration arguing that if we are morally obligated to save a drowning child at minimal cost, we have an equal duty to donate resources to save distant lives.

Point of marginal utility

The threshold at which giving away additional personal resources causes as much suffering to oneself as it alleviates in others.

Bernard Williams' integrity critique

The objection that utilitarianism alienates individuals from their core ethical identity by treating personal commitments and moral feelings as mere calculation data.

Jim and the Indians scenario

A thought experiment where a man must choose between shooting one innocent person to save nineteen others, demonstrating the problem of moral alienation.