What does bentham mean by utility

A man may be said to be a partizan of the principle of utility, when the approbation or disapprobation he annexes to any action, or to any measure, is determined by and proportioned to the tendency which he conceives it to have to augment or to diminish the happiness of the community: or in other words, to its conformity or unconformity to the laws or dictates of utility. Of an action that is conformable to the principle of utility one may always say either that it is one that ought to be done, or at least that it is not one that ought not to be done.

One may say also, that it is right it should be done; at least that it is not wrong it should be done: that it is a right action; at least that it is not a wrong action. When thus interpreted, the words ought, and right and wrong and others of that stamp, have a meaning: when otherwise, they have none.

Has the rectitude of this principle been ever formally contested? It should seem that it had, by those who have not known what they have been meaning.

Is it susceptible of any direct proof? To give such proof is as impossible as it is needless. Not that there is or ever has been that human creature at breathing, however stupid or perverse, who has not on many, perhaps on most occasions of his life, deferred to it. By the natural constitution of the human frame, on most occasions of their lives men in general embrace this principle, without thinking of it: if not for the ordering of their own actions, yet for the trying of their own actions, as well as of those of other men.

There have been, at the same time, not many perhaps, even of the most intelligent, who have been disposed to embrace it purely and without reserve. There are even few who have not taken some occasion or other to quarrel with it, either on account of their not understanding always how to apply it, or on account of some prejudice or other which they were afraid to examine into, or could not bear to part with.

For such is the stuff that man is made of: in principle and in practice, in a right track and in a wrong one, the rarest of all human qualities is consistency. When a man attempts to combat the principle of utility, it is with reasons drawn, without his being aware of it, from that very principle itself. Is it possible for a man to move the earth? Yes; but he must first find out another earth to stand upon.

To disprove the propriety of it by arguments is impossible; but, from the causes that have been mentioned, or from some confused or partial view of it, a man may happen to be disposed not to relish it. Where this is the case, if he thinks the settling of his opinions on such a subject worth the trouble, let him take the following steps, and at length, perhaps, he may come to reconcile himself to it.

Addition by the Author, July Not long after the publication of the Fragment on Government, anno , in which, in the character of all- comprehensive and all-commanding principle, the principle of utility was brought to view, one person by whom observation to the above effect was made was Alexander Wedderburn, at that time Attorney or Solicitor General, afterwards successively Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Chancellor of England, under the successive titles of Lord Loughborough and Earl of Rosslyn.

It was made—not indeed in my hearing, but in the hearing of a person by whom it was almost immediately communicated to me. So far from being self-contradictory, it was a shrewd and perfectly true one. Right and wrong are then defined as following or breaking those rules. Some criticisms of this position point out that if the Rules take into account more and more exceptions, RU collapses into AU.

More genearl criticisms of this view argue that it is possible to generate "unjust rules" according to the principle of utility. For example, slavery in Greece might be right if it led to an overall achievement of cultivated happiness at the expense of some mistreated individuals. See Beauchamp and Childress's treatment of utilitarianism. Return to Syllabus. Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". John Searle, "Minds, Brains, and Programs". Bernard Williams, "The Self and the Future".

Derek Parfit, "Personal Identity". David Velleman, "So it Goes". Daniel Dennett, "Where Am I? Roderick M. Chisholm, "Human Freedom and the Self". David Hume, "Of Liberty and Necessity". Harry G. Frankfurt, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility". Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person". Thomas Nagel, "Moral Luck".

Jeremy Bentham, "The Principle of Utility". John Stuart Mill, "Utilitarianism". Carritt, "Criticisms of Utilitarianism". Smart, "Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism". Bernard Williams, "Utilitarianism and Integrity".