Blackwell Reference Online

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It is simplest to take the central idea of utilitarianism from Bentham. In the first chapter of his major work, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1968-), Bentham says that ‘by utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this in the present case comes to the same thing) or (what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness’. The key point is that there is a single source of V alue (p. 203), which can be indifferently called utility, happiness or pleasure. This is to be maximized. Utilitarianism, Bentham's ethic, is a consequentialist ethic. Things are to be measured and evaluated by their actual and possible consequences. Right action is justified by future states of affairs rather than by past events. For example, Bentham's account of the justification of punishment is a deterrent account. P unishment (p. 645) is justified if it deters people from committing undesirable actions. It is justified, that is, by the prevention of future harms rather than by retribution for past wicked acts. More precisely, for Bentham, the proper aim of punishment, as of anything else, is to produce pleasure and to prevent pain. Yet all punishment is in itself unpleasant, a pain. It can therefore only be justified if this particular pain ... log in or subscribe to read full text