Act utilitarianism is a
utilitarian
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals. In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the ...
theory of
ethics
Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...
that states that a person's act is morally right if and only if it produces the best possible results in that specific situation. Classical utilitarians, including
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (; 4 February Dual dating, 1747/8 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. 5 February 1748 Old Style and New Style dates, N.S.
5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number.
Humans, and many other animals, have 5 digits on their limbs.
Mathematics
5 is a Fermat pri ...
– 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of mo ...
,
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to s ...
, and
Henry Sidgwick
Henry Sidgwick (; 31 May 1838 – 28 August 1900) was an English Utilitarianism, utilitarian philosopher and economist and is best known in philosophy for his utilitarian treatise ''The Methods of Ethics''. His work in economics has also had a ...
, define happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain.
Overview
To understand how act utilitarianism works, compare the consequences of watching television all day tomorrow to the consequences of doing charity work tomorrow. One could produce more overall happiness in the world by doing charity work tomorrow than by watching television all day tomorrow. According to act utilitarianism, then, the right thing to do tomorrow is to go out and do charity work; it is wrong to stay home and watch television all day.
Act utilitarianism is based on the principle of utility, which is the basis of all utilitarian theories and is best summed up in Bentham's well-known phrase, "the greatest happiness for the greatest number". Jeremy Bentham supported his theory with another famous quote of his, that "Nature has placed mankind under two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as determine what we shall do." Bentham's utilitarianism is a
hedonistic theory and starts with the premise that people are in their very nature hedonistic. This means that he believed people would actively seek out pleasure and avoid pain, if given the opportunity.
Critics sometimes cite such prohibitions on leisure activities as a problem for act utilitarianism. Critics also cite more significant problems, such as the fact that act utilitarianism seems to imply that specific acts of torture or enslavement would be morally permissible if they produced enough happiness.
Act utilitarianism is often contrasted with a different theory called
rule utilitarianism
Rule utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that says an action is right as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good, or that "the rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the correctness of the rule of which ...
. Rule utilitarianism states that the morally right action is the one that is in accordance with a moral rule whose general observance would create the most happiness. Act utilitarianism evaluates an act by its actual consequences whereas rule utilitarianism evaluates an action by the consequences of its general or universal practice (by all other persons, and perhaps into the future and past as well). Rule utilitarianism is sometimes thought to avoid the problems associated with act utilitarianism.
[Lyons, David. ''Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965, p. vii.]
See also
*
Brad Hooker
Brad Hooker (born 13 September 1957) is a British-American philosopher who specialises in moral philosophy. He is a professor at the University of Reading and is best known for his work defending rule consequentialism (often treated as being s ...
*
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer's work specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secu ...
*
Preference utilitarianism
Preference utilitarianism (also known as preferentialism) is a form of utilitarianism in contemporary philosophy. Unlike value monist forms of utilitarianism, preferentialism values actions that fulfill the most personal interests for the entir ...
*
Two-level utilitarianism Two-level utilitarianism is a utilitarian theory of ethics according to which a person's moral decisions should be based on a set of moral rules, except in certain rare situations where it is more appropriate to engage in a 'critical' level of mora ...
References
Utilitarianism
Ethical theories
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