UTILITARIANISM. It is the doctrine that posits utility as the foundation of morality, maintaining that actions are good insofar as they promote the means of material well-being, and bad insofar as they tend to produce the opposite (cf. J. Stuart Mill, *Utilitarianism*, ch. 2, § 4, London 1863). Utilitarianism resolves into an empiricist eudemonism, rooted in a materialistic conception of man.
The sensualistic immediacy characteristic of hedonism is elevated, through the mediation of rational reflection, to a search for more adequate means to achieve a generalized, stable, and complete pleasure, which takes the name of happiness. In Greek philosophy, utilitarianism assumed 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 bonds that might hinder the perfect inner tranquility of the subject. In this direction, Cyrenaic hedonism developed, culminating in a pessimistic negation of the very value of life (ἐγωσία). This negative and anti-social utilitarianism found its fullest elaboration in Epicurean doctrine. According to Epicurus (v.), only scientific knowledge of the material nature of the universe and the psychological mastery of instincts makes possible that perfect utilitarian calculation which ensures a state of serene tranquility (ἀταραξία): needs are distinguished into natural and necessary (φύσις), which must be satisfied; natural but not necessary, which may be satisfied with intelligent moderation; and those not natural, arising from custom (νόμος), which must be sacrificed in the name of one’s own happiness (cf. Diogenes Laertius, 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 its ultimate conclusions, can only result in integral pessimism.
In modern philosophy, utilitarianism, through the work of English empiricism and positivism, assumed a distinctly positive, active, and social character. Its premises are to be found: in the egoistic conception of man (Hobbes), according to which every human action is fundamentally motivated by pleasure or pain; in the utilitarian doctrine that places individual perfection in the utilitarian approval through labor (Locke); in the tendency to regard the nature of morality as the altruistic limitation of egoistic tendencies; in moral theories of sentiment that deny the externality of the moral imperative both from civil laws (Hobbes, Locke) and from religious laws (theological utilitarianism of Tucker and Paley); in empiricism that negates rationalistic a priorism; and finally in associationist psychology, according to which (Hartley, Priestley) the simple elements of pleasure mechanically combine into the needs of the instinct of self-interest, and instrumental goods themselves take on the character of ends, so that even altruism is fundamentally to be considered a self-interested need. Modern utilitarian doctrine received its first BENTHAM, JEREMY (v.). He defined the self-interested tendency characteristic of the associationists: “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” (J. Priestley, *Essay on Principles of Government*, London 1768; J. Bentham, *Déontologie*, trans. B. Laroche, Paris 1834, p. 86), and saw in it the objective criterion, given by nature itself, by which every rational individual could direct his activity toward his maximum pleasure while simultaneously satisfying the altruistic demands of morality. Hence the necessity of deontology, which is the art of doing what is fitting to do, or the subjective science of objectively calculating the quantity of pleasure or pain that every action may produce, in light of the seven dimensions that every true pleasure in itself contains (*Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation*, Oxford 1807, ch. IV): it is a veritable arithmetic of pleasure, which, by virtue of its altruistic content, attains moral dignity, and by virtue of its scientific value, ensures the efficacy of action. The reconciliation of interests among the various agents is partly achieved naturally by the subjective deontology of each, through its altruistic character and the calculation of social sanctions that necessarily arise from conflicts of interest; but above all, it is achieved artificially through penal legislation: public authority must indeed perform a deontology based on the criterion of general interest, and thus calculate the degree of punishments in order to balance the degree of pleasure contained in actions contrary to the general interest.
Bentham’s utilitarianism was, however, immediately surpassed by his successors in a naturalistic direction.
identifying particular interest with the general interest. From this arose two contrasting utilitarian tendencies: that of anarchic individualism (Godwin), which logically derived from the natural fusion of individual interests the negation of the State, 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 a quantitative calculation of pleasures in favor of their qualitative evaluation and denied the interested subject the possibility of conducting a scientific study of true human utilities by method. His position thus coincides with rationalistic thought; but only apparently, because ethics does not derive from philosophical a priori or from supposed moral ideals, but from an inductive science that, with the utilitarian criterion of general interest—into which particular interests naturally flow—establishes the positive laws of human activity. Morality is therefore the fruit of social education, to which every single subject, psychologically prepared by the laws of association, is empowered to find in his own altruistic tendency—deriving from egoism—the very motive of moral obligation. With H. Spencer (*The Data of Ethics*, London, 1879) utilitarianism loses all meaning as a moral evaluation, becoming instead an interpretive criterion of the genesis and development of morality according to the laws of biological evolutionism. The initial crude egoism, through psychological association, heredity, and natural selection in the struggle for life, is transformed into ego-altruism, whose moral obligation is proper, tending toward pure altruism, which makes morality a spontaneous fact. As a mediation between the anarchic position and that of social utilitarianism of Stuart Mill, English thought maintained a subjective empiricist conception, tending practically to reconcile the maximum self-interest with the interest of the greatest number: a kind of philanthropic egoism. Its greatest representative is H. Sidgwick (*The Methods of Ethics*, 3rd ed., London, 1884), who defines moral good as: “what a man can desire” (ibid., p. 401). Utilitarianism represented the English moral conception throughout the 19th century; but toward the end of the century, effective criticism of it began, especially by H. F. Bradley (*Ethical Studies*, 1876). It also had some influence in continental European countries, so much so that A. Manzoni felt the need to add to the 2nd edition of his *Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica* a lengthy refutation “of the system that founds morality on utility.” English utilitarianism certainly contributed notably to the scientific study of human needs, especially economic ones, and to the undeniable correlations between private initiative and public good. But all the premises from which it started are radically erroneous, since it is based on an empiricism that denies any absolute value to human knowledge and will.
It is true that interest is a fundamental driving force of all human activity and that every man always acts for his own happiness; but it is also true that morality places the conscience of individuals above the sacrifice of contingent interests and empirical happiness in the name of human values that are valid in themselves and for themselves, and whose possession gives man his full value. It is not the efficacy of utilitarian action that gives man moral goodness, but moral goodness that commits the subject to an utilitarian activity that is a true instrument of human perfection. Altruism is not the essence of morality, but one of its consequences: the human person indeed recognizes the value of other persons only when it recognizes the absolute character of the good to which every person naturally aspires. To will one’s own happiness and the happiness of others is to will for oneself and others the absolute good. And since the ultimate human absolute good is God Himself, morality fundamentally consists in loving God above all things: no man can attain moral perfection until he totally adheres to the divine will and makes his earthly activity a service of collaboration for the good of himself and his brothers. In the initial stages of moral formation, the utilitarian motive can pedagogically be used to sustain the subjective effort of obedience to the moral law; but one can never speak of true moral life without an unconditional love for honest good.