UTILITARIANISM. – It is the doctrine that places utility at the foundation of morality, maintaining that actions are good to the extent that they forge the means of material well-being, and bad to the extent that they tend to produce the contrary (cf. J. Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, chap. 2, § 4, London 1863). U. resolves itself into an empirical eudemonism, rooted in a materialistic conception of man.
The sensualistic immediacy proper to hedonism is led, through the mediation of rational reflection, to transcend itself in the search for more adequate means of attaining a generalized, stable, and complete pleasure, which takes the name of happiness. In Greek philosophy, u. had a predominantly negative, passive, and anti-social aspect: rational reflection was in fact regarded as a means of liberation from all subjective impulses and social and religious ties that might impede the subject’s perfect inner tranquillity. Cyrenaic hedonism developed in this direction, eventually arriving at the pessimistic denial of the very value of life (Egesia). Negative and anti-social u. received its most complete elaboration in Epicurean doctrine. Epicurus (v.), only scientific knowledge of the material nature of the universe and psychological mastery of the instincts makes it possible to carry out that perfect utilitarian calculation which ensures a state of serene tranquillity (γαλησαμέας): needs are distinguished into natural (φύσις) and necessary, which must be satisfied; natural but non-necessary, which may be satisfied with intelligent moderation; and finally non-natural needs, dependent on custom (νόμω), which must be sacrificed in the name of one’s own happiness (cf. Diogene Laerzio, X, 36). Epicureanism represents a complete destruction of all moral, social, and religious values: despite its refinement, it is a code of life without ideals, essentially egoistic and sensual, which, carried to all its consequences, can result only in an integral pessimism.
In modern philosophy, u., through English empiricism and positivism, instead assumed a distinctly positive, active, and social character. Its premises are to be sought: in the egoistic conception of man (Hobbes), according to which every human action is always radically motivated by pleasure or pain; in the activist doctrine, which places individual perfection in utilitarian appropriation through work (Locke); in the tendency to place the nature of morality in the altruistic limitation of the egoistic tendency; in the moral theories of sentiment, which deny the extrinsic character of the moral imperative both on the part of civil laws (Hobbes, Locke) and on the part of religious laws (the theological u. of Tucker and Paley); in empiricism’s rejection of rationalistic apriorism; and finally in associationist psychology, according to which (Hartley, Priestley) the simple elements of pleasure combine mechanically in the needs of the instinct of self-interest, while instrumental goods themselves assume the character of ends, so that altruism itself is fundamentally to be regarded as an interested need. Modern utilitarian doctrine BENTHAM, JEREMY (v.). He adopted the definition of the interested tendency proper to the associationists: “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” (J. Priestley, Essay on principles of government, London 1768; J. Bentham, Déontologie, tr. B. Laroche, I, Paris 1834, p. 86), and saw in it the objective criterion, given by nature itself, by which each individual could rationally direct his activity toward his greatest pleasure while at the same time satisfying the altruistic demands of morality. Hence the necessity of deontology, which is “the art of doing what is proper to do,” or the subjective science of objectively calculating the amount of pleasure or pain that each action can produce, in the light of the seven dimensions contained in every true pleasure in itself (Introduction to the principles of morals and legislation, Oxford 1807, chap. IV): it is a true arithmetic of pleasure which, by virtue of its altruistic content, rises to moral dignity, and, by virtue of its scientific value, ensures the efficacy of action. The reconciliation of interests among the various agents is provided in part naturally by the subjective deontology of each individual, through its altruistic character and through the calculation of the social sanctions that necessarily result from conflicts of interest; but above all artificially through penal legislation: public authority must in fact carry out a deontology based on the criterion of the general interest, and therefore calculate the degree of punishments so as to balance the degree of pleasure contained in actions contrary to the general interest.
Bentham’s u. was nevertheless immediately surpassed by his continuators in a naturalistic sense,
identifying particular interest with general interest. Two contrasting utilitarian tendencies consequently emerged: that of anarchic individualism (Godwin), which logically derived the negation of the State from the natural fusion of individual interests, and made the individual subject the absolute arbiter of his own activity; and that of the positivism of J. Stuart Mill and H. Spencer. J. Stuart Mill rejected the possibility of the quantitative calculation of pleasures in favor of their qualitative evaluation and denied the interested subject the possibility of studying true human utilities by scientific method. His position thus comes to coincide with rationalistic thought; but only apparently, because ethics cannot derive from philosophical apriorism or from alleged moral ideals, but rather from an inductive science which, by means of the utilitarian criterion of general interest, into which particular interests naturally converge, establishes the positive laws of human activity. Morality is therefore the fruit of social education, for which every individual subject is psychologically prepared by the laws of association, so that he may find in his own altruistic tendency, deriving from egoism, the very motive of moral obligation. With H. Spencer (The data of ethics, Londra 1879), utilitarianism loses all significance as a moral evaluation, becoming instead an interpretive canon for the genesis and development of morality according to the laws of biological evolutionism. Initial brute egoism, through psychological association, heredity, and natural selection in the struggle for life, has been transformed into ego-altruism, whose characteristic is moral obligation, and tends toward pure altruism, which makes morality a spontaneous fact. As a mediation between the anarchic position and the social position of Stuart Mill, English thought has maintained a subjective empiricist conception, tending practically to reconcile the maximum of self-interest with the interest of the greatest number: a kind of philanthropic egoism. Its foremost representative is H. Sidgwick (Methods of ethics, 3ª ed., Londra 1884), who defines the moral good as: «What a man can desire» (ibid., p. 401). Utilitarianism represented English moral thought throughout the nineteenth century; but toward the end of the century its criticism began effectively, especially through the work of H. F. Bradley (Ethical studies, 1876). It also exerted a certain influence in the countries of continental Europe, to the extent that A. Manzoni felt the need to add to the 2ª ed. of his Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica a lengthy refutation «del sistema che fonda la morale sull'utilità». English utilitarianism certainly made a significant contribution to the scientific study of human needs, especially economic needs, and of the undeniable correlations between private initiative and the public good. But all the premises from which it set out are radically mistaken, being based on an empiricism that denies any absolute value to human knowledge and will.
It is true that interest is a fundamental motive of all human activity and that every person always acts for his own happiness; but it is also true that morality binds the consciences of individuals to the sacrifice of contingent interests and empirical happiness in the name of human values that possess value in themselves and for themselves, and whose possession gives human beings their full worth. It is not the effectiveness of utilitarian action that gives a person moral goodness; rather, it is moral goodness that commits the subject to utilitarian activity which is a true instrument of human perfection. Altruism does not represent the essence of morality, but is a consequence of it: the human person recognizes the value of other persons only when he recognizes the absolute character of the good toward which every person naturally aspires. To desire one’s own happiness and the happiness of others is to desire for oneself and for others the absolute good. And since the human absolute good is ultimately God himself, morality fundamentally consists in loving God above all things: no person can attain moral perfection until he wholly adheres to the divine will and makes his earthly activity a service of cooperation for the good of himself and of his brothers and sisters. In the initial stages of moral formation, the utilitarian motive may pedagogically be used to sustain the subjective effort to obey the moral law; but one can never speak of true moral life without an unconditional love of the honest good.