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and Mill, an action is good if its benefits exceed its harms, and an action is bad if its
harms exceed its benefits. Their ethical theory, called utilitarianism , is based upon the
principle of utility, also called the Greatest Happiness Principle.
2.7.1 Principle of Utility
Utility is the tendency of an object to produce happiness or prevent unhappiness for an
individual or a community. Depending on the circumstances, you may think of “happi-
ness” as advantage, benefit, good, or pleasure, and “unhappiness” as disadvantage, cost,
evil, or pain.
PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY (GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE)
An action is right (or wrong) to the extent that it increases (or decreases) the
total happiness of the affected parties.
We can use the principle of utility as a yardstick to judge all actions in the moral
realm. Suppose in a particular situation we have a set of possible actions. For each
possible action, we must determine, for each affected person, the increase or decrease
in that person's happiness and then add up all of these values to reach a grand total: the
overall increase or decrease in happiness caused by that particular action (Figure 2.6).
We repeat this procedure for every action in the set of possible actions. The moral action
is the one that produces the maximum increase in happiness. (If every possible action
results in a decrease in happiness, then the moral action is the one that minimizes the
decrease in happiness.)
Note that the morality of an action has nothing to do with the attitude behind the
action. Bentham writes, “There is no such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a
Harm
Harm
Harm
Benefit
Benefit
Benefit
Benefit
FIGURE 2.6 Utilitarianism is based on the principle of utility, which states that an action is
good (or bad) to the extent that it increases (or decreases) the total happiness of the affected
parties.
 
 
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