Utilitarianism and Animal Husbandry - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 19

actions according to their rightness, and agents according to their
virtuousness. Different theories take different categories as primary. 2
As we will see below, utilitarianism takes the goodness of outcomes
to be primary, and it evaluates actions and agents with respect to this
central category. According to utilitarianism, whether an action is right
or wrong depends on the goodness of its outcome. In general, all moral
theories include an account of what is good and an account of what is
right. The first, i.e. the theory of the good, is 'a view about what is good
or valuable, ... which properties we ought to want realized in our actions
or in the world more generally.' 3 The second part of any moral theory,
i.e. the theory of the right, tells us 'what individual and institutional
agents should do by way of responding to valuable properties.' 4
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist moral theory in the sense that the
moral evaluation of actions depends solely on their consequences. The
consequences of a particular action, and only its consequences, determine
the action's rightness. There are no categories of actions that are obliga-
tory or forbidden as such. Characteristically for utilitarianism, outcomes
are evaluated in terms of their goodness or value. As already mentioned,
for utilitarianism the category of the 'good' is primary. What is right is
determined in terms of what brings about the most desired good.
The good that is ultimately valuable according to utilitarianism is
welfare. Welfare is a prudential value. That is to say, it concerns self-
interest; it is concerned with what is good or bad for someone . The moral
evaluation of an action depends on how an action bears on that good.
Prudential value or welfare is the sole ultimate value according to utili-
tarianism. Anything else that is valuable can only be so because of its
contribution to welfare. Hence, utilitarianism is a welfarist moral theory.
The desire-satisfaction account of welfare defines welfare in terms of
desire-fulfilment. The hedonist account of welfare defines it in terms of
pleasure. These are the most common utilitarian accounts of welfare, but
other accounts of welfare are compatible with utilitarianism as well.
From prudential goodness, the step must be made to the goodness
of states of affairs: axiology. Utilitarianism determines the goodness of
an outcome by bringing together the changes in prudential value that
the outcome brings about. This is called 'aggregation'. Aggregation can
take place across individuals . That means that the welfare consequences
for all individuals are brought together (interpersonal aggregation).
Aggregation can also take place across time , as when we want to deter-
mine how the welfare that a person has at different times in her life