Utilitarianism

During the first half of the nineteenth century Jeremy Bentham proposed a quantification, or calculus, of morality by reference to utilitarian outcomes. Bentham's moral theory was founded on the assumption that it is the consequences of human actions that count in evaluating their merit and that the consequence that matters most for human happiness is the achievement of pleasure and avoidance of pain. He argued that the value of any human action is easily calculated by considering how intensely its pleasure is felt, how long that pleasure lasts, how certainly and how quickly it follows upon the performance of the action, and how likely it is to produce collateral benefits and avoid collateral harms. And, since the happiness of the community as a whole is nothing other than the sum of individual human interests, the principle of utility defines the meaning of moral obligation by reference to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people who are affected by performance of an ac...