UTILITARIANISM (from utilitarian-, from utility, from Lat. utilitas, usefulness, profit, from at ills, useful, from to use). The name of the theory of ethics (q.v.) that adopts, as the criterion of right and wrong, of good and bad, the tendency of an action to produce the happi ness of mankind. John Stuart Mill claims to have coined the word, which was suggested to him by the use of the term 'utilitarian' in Galt's Annals of the Parish.
The doctrine of utility is opposed to all those theories that refer us to sonic internal sense, feeling, or sentiment, for the test of right and wrong; a test usually described by such phrases as a moral sense, conscience, innate moral dis tinctions, whence utility is sometimes termed the e-xternal or objective standard of morality. It is also opposed to the view that founds moral distinctions on the mere arbitrary will of God. Again, it is opposed to the view that the pleas ure-giving value of an act to the agent is the test of its goodness or badness (individualistic hedonism).
The utilitarian theory is distinctively a modern theory. All ancient hedonisms were individual istic; i.e. the happiness of the agent and not that of his fellow beings was regarded as the ultimate end of all rational action. This is true even of Christianity in so far as it is hedonistic, for the ultimate appeal in Christianity is to the individual's desire for everlasting happiness, al though along with this appeal is another to a benevolent desire for the happiness of one's neigh bors. In the Greek hedonistic systems ever regard is paid to the well-being of others is in the last analysis based on the fact that such consideration for others brings pleasure to one's self. In modern times Hobbes is the fore most representative of this ancient or individual istic hedonism. Hutcheson (q.v.) is perhaps the first writer on ethics who advocated the prin ciple of the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number,' in this way transcending the limitations of egoism (q.v.). There are utilitarian tenden cies in Hume (q.v.) and even in Locke. Abraham Tucker (q.v.) is also to be mentioned as one of
the early Utilitarians (1705-74). But Paley (q.v.) and Bentham (q.v.), especially the latter, are to be credited with giving such popular ex pression to this view that it became current in all centres of English thought. With Bentham the theory was used as a foundation, not merely of ethics, but also of political and legal reforms. Having in view the necessity of sacrificing small er interests to greater, or. at all events, of not sacrificing greater interests to smaller, lie de scribed the ethical end as the greatest happiness of the greatest number.' He illustrated the doc trine by setting it in opposition to asceticism. and to sympathy and antipathy. Asceticism he interpreted to mean the principle that pleas ure should be forfeited, and pain incurred. with out expectation of any compensation. By the principle of sympathy and antipathy he means "the principle which approves or disapproves of certain actions, not on account of their tend ing to augment the happiness, nor yet on ac count of their tending to diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question, but merely because a man finds himself dispoied to approve or disapprove of them: holding up that approbation or disapprobation as a sufficient reason for itself, and diselaiming the necessity of looking out for any extrinsic ground." Ac cording to the utility principle of Bentham, there are "four sanctions or sources of pain and pleas ure," the physical, the political, the moral, and the religious. The physical sanction is the groundwork of all the others. "In a word. the powers of nature may operate of themselves; hut neither the magistrate, nor men at large, can operate, nor is God in the case in question sup posed to operate, but through the powers of na ture." Bentham attempted to work out a cal culus of pleasures, in which he took account of the intensity, the duration, the certainty, the propinquity or remoteness, the fecundity (= 'chance of being followed by sensations of the same kind'), the purity, and the extent of pleasures and pain.