Slide 1
Judge by the overall result
Utilitarianism evaluates actions or rules through their consequences for welfare. Each affected person's welfare enters the moral assessment.
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Classical versions often describe welfare in terms of happiness and suffering. Other versions use different accounts of well-being, so agreement about maximizing welfare can coexist with disagreement about what welfare consists in.
Slide 2
An impartial point of view
Utilitarian reasoning does not automatically give extra weight to the decision-maker's own interests. Benefits and burdens across people must be considered.
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Imagine choosing between two equally costly meeting times. Counting only the organizer's convenience ignores the inconvenience imposed on many participants. The example illustrates aggregation without settling how all forms of welfare should be measured.
Slide 3
Prediction creates difficulty
Consequences extend beyond the immediate result and may be uncertain. Applying the theory requires judgments about likely outcomes, not just visible effects.
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A seemingly helpful shortcut can create incentives for others to behave differently later. The assessment may therefore need a wider horizon than the first person helped, even when precise measurement is unavailable.
Slide 4
Acts and rules can diverge
Act utilitarianism evaluates particular actions directly. Rule approaches assess rules by their consequences, then ask what those rules require.
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A dependable rule against deception may support trust even when a single lie appears locally beneficial. Philosophers debate how rule approaches preserve that advantage without collapsing into exceptions whenever the expected balance changes.
Slide 5
Rights pose a hard question
Critics worry that maximizing a total can permit unfair treatment of an individual. Utilitarian responses must explain how protections fit the theory.
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Suppose a plan offers small conveniences to many by imposing a severe burden on one. The case forces attention to distribution and protection, rather than allowing the word benefit to hide who bears the cost.
Sources
- Consequentialism
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Utilitarianism, Act and Rule
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy