Utilitariansim

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Utilitarianism is a family of consequentialist ethical theories that promotes actions. The actions which maximize happiness and well being for the affected individuals. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill were the advocates of classical utilitarianism. The central contention of utilitarianism may be laid down in the following way: 

  1.  The moral evaluation of action should be made on the basis of consequences. The action which produces the greatest good of people is to be considered as right or morally valuable.
  2. In the evaluation an action will be considered good if it produces more pleasure than him.
  3. While making moral evaluation the good or pleasure of every man should be considered as equal.
 These three collectively mean that an action is to be considered good if it produce more pleasure than pain, irrespective of any discrimination between pleasures. Jeremy Bentham is sometimes called the father or founder of utilitarianism. The features which distinguishes Bentham's utilitarianism is that he puts happiness theory on a quantitative or mathematical basis. Stuart Mill disagree with Bentham on three points which differs their theories. These points are: Pleasures differs in quality only , altruistic tendency and pleasure as the moral target. Francis Hutcheson  first introduced a key utilitarian phrase, in An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Vertue {1725} . Some claims that John Gay developed the first systematic theory of utilitarian ethics . The description of ideal utilitarianism was first used by Hasting Rashdall in The Theory of Good and Evil {1907}.

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