Professional Documents
Culture Documents
K. Utilitarianism
K. Utilitarianism
12
Consequentialism: Utilitarianism
Consequentialism argues that morality is all about producing the
right kinds of overall consequences.
It judges whether or not something is right by what its consequences
are.
As a normative ethics, consequentialism has a lot of variants.
Arguably the most popular and perhaps the most important is
Utilitarianism.
The general stand of utilitarianism holds that an act is moral if and
only if the action produces the highest possible utility.
o This is to say that the morally right action is the action that produces
the most good.
o Thus, one ought to maximize the overall good, that is, consider the
good of others as well as one's own good.
The natural foundation of utilitarianism is not based on a human
being's interpretation of any Divine Will or Eternal Law, but rather on
what is generally experienced by man in the world, his experience
with nature.
There are two classical approaches:
Jeremy Bentham John Stuart Mill
(1748–1832) (1806–1873)
Jeremy Bentham