UTILITARIANISM. - It is the doctrine that posits utility as 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, ch. 2, § 4, London 1863). Utilitarianism resolves itself into an empiricist eudaemonism, which has its roots in the materialistic conception of man.
The sensualistic immediacy proper to hedonism is brought by the mediation of rational reflection to surpass itself in a search for more adequate means for the attainment of a generalized, stable and complete pleasure, which takes the name of happiness. In Greek philosophy utilitarianism had a predominantly negative, passive and anti-social aspect: rational reflection was in fact considered as a mediation of liberation from all subjective impulses and social and religious bonds that might be an impediment to the perfect inner quiet of the subject. In this direction Cyrenaic hedonism developed, until it reached the pessimistic negation of the very value of life (Hegesias). Negative and anti-social utilitarianism had its most complete elaboration in the Epicurean doctrine. According to Epicurus (v.), only the scientific knowledge of the material nature of the universe and of the psychological dominion of the instincts makes it possible to carry out that perfect utilitarian calculation which ensures the state of serene tranquillity (γαλησαμέας): needs are distinguished into natural (φύσις) necessary, which must be satisfied, natural non-necessary, which can be satisfied with intelligent moderation, and finally non-natural, dependent on custom (νόμω), which must be sacrificed in the name of one's own happiness (cf. Diogenes Laertius, X, 36). Epicureanism represents a full destruction of all moral, social and religious values: even in its refinement, it is a code of life without ideals, essentially egoistic and sensual which, carried to all its consequences, cannot but resolve itself into an integral pessimism.
In modern philosophy, utilitarianism, through the work of English empiricism and positivism, has 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 labour (Locke); in the tendency to place the nature of morality in the altruistic limitation of the egoistic tendency; in the moral theories of feeling, denying the externality of the moral imperative whether on the part of civil laws (Hobbes, Locke) or on the part of religious laws (theological utilitarianism of Tucker and Paley); in empiricism, which denies rationalistic apriorism; and finally in associationist psychology, according to which (Hartley, Priestley) the simple elements of pleasure are mechanically composed into the needs of the instinct of interest, and instrumental goods themselves assume the character of an end, so that altruism itself is to be considered fundamentally an interested need. The modern utilitarian doctrine had its first formulation through the work of Bentham (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, so that every individual might rationally direct his own activity to his maximum pleasure and at the same time satisfy the altruistic demands of morality. Hence the necessity of deontology, which is "the art of doing what it is expedient to do", or the subjective science of calculating objectively the quantity of pleasure or pain that every action can produce, in the light of the seven dimensions that every true pleasure contains in itself (Introduction to the principles of morals and legislation, Oxford 1807, ch. IV): it is a true arithmetic of pleasure, which by its altruistic content rises to moral dignity, and by its scientific value ensures the efficacy of action. The conciliation of interests among the different operating subjects is given in part naturally by each one's own subjective deontology, by reason of its altruistic character and by the calculation of the social sanctions that necessarily arise from conflicts of interest; but above all artificially by 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 penalties, so as to balance the degree of pleasure contained in actions contrary to the general interest.
Bentham's utilitarianism was nevertheless immediately superseded by his continuators, in a naturalistic sense, identifying particular interest with general interest. From this there derived two contrasting utilitarian tendencies: that of anarchic individualism (Godwin), which from the natural fusion of individual interests logically derived 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 to the interested subject the possibility of carrying out with scientific method the study of true human utilities. His position thus comes to coincide with rationalistic thought; but only apparently, because ethics cannot derive from philosophical apriorism nor from supposed moral ideals, but rather from an inductive science, which with 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 single subject is psychologically prepared by the laws of association, so as to be able 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) u. loses every meaning of moral evaluation, to become an interpretive canon of the genesis and development of morality according to the laws of biological evolutionism. The initial brute egoism, through psychological association, heredity and natural selection in the struggle for life, has been transformed into ego-altruism, to which moral obligation properly belongs, in order to tend 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 subjectivist 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 (Methods of ethics, 3rd ed., London 1884), who defines the moral good as: «What a man can desire» (ibid., p. 401). U. represented the English moral conception throughout the 19th century; but toward the end of the century its critique began effectively, especially through the work of H. F. Bradley (Ethical studies, 1876). It also had a certain influence in the countries of continental Europe, so much so that A. Manzoni felt the need to add to the 2nd ed. of his Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica a long confutation «of the system that founds morality on utility». English u. has certainly brought a notable contribution to the scientific study of human needs, especially economic ones, and of the undeniable correlations between private initiative and the public good. But all the premises from which it started are radically erroneous, since they are based on an empiricism that denies every absolute value to human knowledge and will.
It is true that interest is a fundamental spring of all human activity and that every man always acts for his own happiness; but it is also true that morality commits the conscience of individuals to the sacrifice of contingent interests and of empirical happiness in the name of human values, which are valid in themselves and for themselves, and the possession of which gives man his full worth. It is not the efficacy of utilitarian action that gives man moral goodness, but it is moral goodness that commits the subject to a utilitarian activity that is a true instrument of human perfecting. Altruism does not represent the essence of morality, but is a consequence of it: the human person in fact recognizes the value of other persons only when he 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 for others the absolute good. And since the absolute human good is ultimately God himself, morality consists fundamentally in loving God above all things: no man can reach moral perfection until he adheres totally to the divine will, and makes of his earthly activity a service of collaboration for his own good and that of 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 a true moral life without an unconditional love of the honest good.
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