basic thesis states that whatever measure, policy, choice or decision maximizes
the positive balance of pleasure over pain across a population, or for a single
individual if only they are concerned, is what is ‘good’ and therefore ‘right’.
The theory expressly denies, in its earlier versions, any ordering, moral or
otherwise, of the sources of pleasure. In Bentham’s own words, ‘pushpin is as
good as poetry’. Except for the distribution principle, ‘that each man should
count as one, and none for more than one’, utilitarianism allows no other
moral or political criteria of decision. Bentham argued that it ought, in
principle, to be possible directly to quantify and sum the positive and negative
consequences, in terms of pleasure, of any act by what he called the ‘felicific
calculus’. Policy-making for a society, as much as private moral decision-
making for an individual, would then become essentially an automatic process.
Naturally there have been many adjustments and refinements to this basic
utilitarian theory over the years. Two may be identified as of particular
importance.
John Stuart Mill attempted to get away from the over-hedonistic emphasis
by suggesting that there were, in fact, hierarchies of desirability. He argued that
those who had experienced both of what he defined as ‘gross’ and ‘refined’
pleasures would always opt for the less basic or gross. He also attempted,
though somewhat unconvincingly, to demonstrate how our other basic
politico-moral values, for example a desire for justice or a high value on
freedom, could be derived from the utility principle. The other broad area of
development, mainly the work of modern moral philosophers, can produce
some unfortunate consequences of utilitarian argument when applied as a
public political philosophy as well as a private moral code. The problem has
tended to be that what maximizes the interests or happiness of a single
individual might, were everyone to act in the same way, be disastrous as a
public policy. Thus there has come about a distinction between ‘rule’ versus
‘act’ utilitarianism. An ‘act’ utilitarian requires that each individual ensures that
their every act maximizes their own utility, whereas the more plausible ‘rule’
utilitarian requires that laws and regulations be decided so that, on balance
across the population, the rule maximizes the sum of individual utilities, even
though in particular cases individuals would not, as selfish utility maximizers,
choose to act as the rule requires. The whole aim of utilitarianism is to escape,
as much as possible, from reliance on any source of moral authority, whether it
be religion, another metaphysic or appeal to such abstractions asnatural law.
Although it is not immediately obvious, nearly all modern parties and
governments in the Western world have in fact operated according to a
utilitarian approach. Most of economic theory, and the whole of ‘welfare
economics’ (seewelfarism), and many of the theoretical models and justifica-
tions for democracy, are frankly utilitarian. Policy analysis, especially as devel-
oped by civil servants and academic specialists in the 1960s, is equally based on
Utilitarianism