Utilitarianism: John Stuart Mill

When we’re in the process of developing our moral compasses, we often consider what’s in our best interest, putting others’ paths to success, happiness, and fulfillment off to the side of the road. At one end, we can consider a Machiavellian approach, manipulating others in such a way that ensures that you are accepted into a college, clinch that promotion, or get elected into office.

At the other end of the spectrum, however, is the doctrine of utilitarianism, a consequentialist moral theory - that is, one that judges the “rightness” of an action by looking at its consequences - that guides morality based on how good it ensures for the greatest number of people. While English philosopher Jeremy Bentham was the first to put forth the “utility” of an action’s consequences, thereby laying the foundation for the moral theory, John Stuart Mill expanded greatly on the topic with his aptly titled book, Utilitarianism. Mill sought to dispel the disagreements that arose out of utilitarianism’s purest definition: what constituted “good,” and who ought to be included in the “greatest number”?

To clarify these arguments, Mill established that “good” meant happiness - according to Mill, “intended pleasure and the absence of pain” - and defined “greatest number” as any being capable of experiencing these sensations. Getting into the individual consciousnesses and feelings we experience is a whole other can of worms we won’t touch.

After the publishing of Utilitarianism, the definition split in two: act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism.

Act utilitarianism is situational and individual-focused; actors, who make utilitarian decisions will have their own definitions of pleasure and pain. If you hate pineapple on your pizza, for example, there wouldn’t be any incentive for you to add pineapple if you were the only one enjoying that pizza - it simply wouldn’t bring you any pleasure.

If pineapple on pizza was deemed a moral repugnancy by the general population, this would be rule utilitarianism coming into play. If we were raised to despise pineapple on pizza because of the lack of pleasure brought by it, we would still be considering our own self-interest similar to act utilitarianism, but these actions would have been guided by societal norms.

Say the government wanted to legitimize this public sentiment by implementing a nationwide ban on pineapple imports. Now, this is overstepping a bit to the point where preference utilitarianism becomes useful. This is a newer form of utilitarianism that weighs interests rather than pleasure and pain; Bentham and Mill were interested in utilitarianism manifesting in public policy and elected officials, and this budding branch founded by Peter Singer in the late 20th century simply makes that apparent. In this case, this tropical trade embargo wouldn’t be concerned with whether or not lawmakers enjoyed pineapple. Instead, it would be dependent upon consumers of pineapple (or the lack thereof) - the preferences of the people rather than the individual actors.