Utilitarianism

in principal good but could never work effectively in practice. you will always get rich poor and people in the middle. perhaps we should aim to have more people in the middle and less at ever end.

Witness the Taylorization, and acceleration of the division of labor in our society. Produce as efficiently as possible, no matter who it hurts. What moral BS!

Doesn't work in today's society.

Utilitarianism is a philosophical school of thought that holds that good is whatever reaps the highest 'utility'. What gives us the most safisfaction, be it virtue or pleasure, is what's right. Jeremy Bentham, one of the main thinkers of the English enlightenment came up with this theory, saying that man our existance essentially comes down to two variables: pleasure and pain. From there he posited the theory of utilitarianism; good is bringing happiness to the greatest amount of people. It's a little hedonistic--John Stuart Mill, another utility theorist, basically modified this by putting an emphasis on quality over quantity. The main problem with the theory of utility is that doesn't really line up with our traditional notions of morality or even western liberalism itself. Here's a scenario, the President of the United States and a janitor are both stuck in a sinking boat. You only have the opportunity to save one or the other. The utilitarian would say that you save the President, ... Read more

There is an aspect of truth to Bentham and Mill's utilitarian philosophies inherent in the principle of democracy. However utilitarianism existing in a vacuum and not predicated upon existing moral values-a natural law- is simply corrosive and erodes upon the power principle like all other secular philosphies. Mill astutely argues for freedom of religion and speech for all individuals but then simultaneously denies the same freedom to those papists in On Liberty. Furthermore he attempts to build a philosophy summarized by the greatest good for the greatest numbers numbers that is almost democratic when set upon traditions of human dignity but when that is jettisoned for the true essence of his philosophy it could be implemented for genocide.

Based on these comments here, I'm not sure the patrons of this site actually know what Utilitarianism is. It was a philosophy thought up by Jeremy Bentham on the idea that the role of the government is to ensure "The greatest happiness of the greatest number". Bentham also believed in efficient administration, and this was put into practice by his follower Edwin Chadwick who served on the Royal Poor Law Commission which investigated the old Speenhamland System of poor relief. The findings of the comminssion were to created Poor Law Unions, and each union would have a workhouse, which provide relief but only in the most desperate and inhumane conditions, thus introducing the concept of "less eligibility"- namely that the conditions of the most wretched labourer were superior to the conditions of the workhouse. Thus the feckless poor would get a job rather than scrounge off the poor relief- thus reducing the rates for the land owners, and reducing the £7 million expenditure of previous y... Read more

This is George Orwell's 1984 come to life. Big Brother is in power and he/they control all aspects of life. This is one of the worst governemtal methods possible, if not THE worst.

John Stuart Mill was a utilitarian thinker who also had an appreciation for individual liberty, but for the most part what we get from this philosophy is the worst kind of metaphysical mob rule. Princeton's controversial professor Peter Singer takes the whole ethic to its stupidest extreme, saying that because there are needy people in the world, moral behavior requires us to give away everything we own that we don't absolutely need to live: countenancing any kind of material disparity is a black mark on your soul. Have you heard anything more ridiculous? To understand ethics in such simple terms, without reflecting on the human capacity to generate new wealth and the whole of human history that provides lessons in how to do it and how not to, seems to be a profound aversion to serious thinking.