Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on outcomes.
It is a form of consequentialism.

Utilitarianism holds that the most ethical choice is the one that will produce the greatest
good for the greatest number. It is the only moral framework that can be used to justify
military force or war. It is also the most common approach to moral reasoning used in
business because of the way in which it accounts for costs and benefits.

However, because we cannot predict the future, it’s difficult to know with certainty whether
the consequences of our actions will be good or bad. This is one of the limitations of
utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism also has trouble accounting for values such as justice and individual rights. 
For example, assume a hospital has four people whose lives depend upon receiving organ
transplants: a heart, lungs, a kidney, and a liver. If a healthy person wanders into the
hospital, his organs could be harvested to save four lives at the expense of one life. This
would arguably produce the greatest good for the greatest number. But few would consider
it an acceptable course of action, let alone the most ethical one.

So, although utilitarianism is arguably the most reason-based approach to determining right
and wrong, it has obvious limitations.

https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/utilitarianism#:~:text=Utilitarianism%20is%20an
%20ethical%20theory,good%20for%20the%20greatest%20number.&text=This%20would%20arguably
%20produce%20the%20greatest%20good%20for%20the%20greatest%20number.
 Classical Version of Utilitarianism (e.g.
Mill)
Theory of good (that is, claims concerning what we should desire): The only thing good as
such is happiness (i.e. "pleasure"). Everything else is good only as a means.

Theory of right (that is, of what we should do): An act A is right if, and only if, among those
mutually exclusive acts open to the agent, A would give the greatest net good overall.

a. Theory of right requires only comparison of courses of action open to agent. It is a

theory of how to act.

b. "Greatest net happiness", not just "greatest happiness" because costs in

unhappiness must also be considered. (Note analogy with profit or efficiency.)

c. A great pleasure should, of course, count for more than small pleasure; but two
pleasures of the same strength are to count the same.

o Pleasures as such are equal, no matter who is experiencing them.

o Note: Mill thinks pleasures differ in "quality" as well as strength, but even for Mill
pleasures of the same strength and quality are equal, however else they differ.

d. Who is experiencing a pleasure is, as such, irrelevant.

o Your pleasures count for no more, and no less, than anyone else's.

o Utilitarian deliberations are (in this way) "impartial".

o Indeed, utilitarianism is radically impartial in this respect. Those affected need not
even be people; they need only be "sentient beings" (that is, anything capable of experiencing
pleasure or pain). All else equal, a dog's pleasure counts as much as yours.

e. The actual (or "objective") rightness of an act is determined by what actually

happens.

o In this respect, utilitarianism is radically future-oriented, but

o Since an agent can't know in advance what will happen as a result of what she
does (the "objectively good"), she must choose on some other basis (for example, follow the
strategy that seems most likely to generate the right act).

o Utilitarians often call acts so chosen "subjectively right".

o The common view among utilitarians seems to be that the subjectively right act
maximizes "expectable utility", in other words, Uo x Po [(the utility of the outcome) x (the
probability of that out

f. Classical utilitarianism differs from other moral theories primarily in what it omits
rather than in what it includes.

o Some of the other moral theories are utilitarian (but not classical utilitarian). They
offer more inclusive theories of the good (for example, counting goods like beauty or justice as
independent of happiness or pleasure).

o Others moral theories are non-utilitarian but still teleological. They understand
the good as a certain state of affairs is independent of the right, but do not define right acts as
whatever achieves the good.

o For example: Virtue theory defines the right as acting according to virtue (but
then preserves it teleological credentials by defining virtue as a disposition to act in ways
tending, in the long run at least, to achieve the good).

http://ethics.iit.edu/teaching/utilitarianism
Utilitarianism also differs from ethical theories that make the rightness or
wrongness of an action 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. Utilitarians may, however, distinguish the aptness of praising or
blaming an agent from whether the action was right.

The theory essentially states that an action is justifiable if it brings the most amount of
happiness for the greatest number of people.