Modern Variants of Utilitarianism

20th-Century Developments in Utilitarianism Ideal Utilitarianism and the Expansion Beyond Pleasure The early utilitarian tradition, particularly as developed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, focused heavily on pleasure and pain as the primary measures of utility. However, in the early 20th century, this view faced serious philosophical challenges. G. E. Moore's Critique of Hedonism In 1912, the philosopher G. E. Moore rejected the idea that pleasure alone should be maximized. Moore argued that it is deeply implausible to claim that a world containing only pleasure—with no knowledge, beauty, love, or moral virtues—would be better than a world containing these goods along with pleasure. Consider a concrete example: imagine two possible worlds. World A contains many people experiencing intense pleasures from entertainment, food, and physical comfort, but no one pursues knowledge, creates or appreciates art, builds loving relationships, or demonstrates any moral character. World B contains people who experience those same pleasures plus the intrinsic goods of understanding the world, creating and experiencing beauty, loving one another, and living virtuously. Moore's question is straightforward: would World A really be better than World B just because pleasure happens to be the only good present? Most people find this conclusion absurd. This insight led Moore to propose ideal utilitarianism: the view that a range of intrinsic values—not merely pleasure, but also knowledge, beauty, love, and moral qualities—should be maximized. The utilitarian goal remains maximizing overall utility, but "utility" now encompasses a broader conception of what makes life genuinely good. Major Variants of Utilitarianism The 20th century saw utilitarian philosophers grapple with how to apply utilitarian principles in practice. This led to several important variants, each addressing different concerns about the theory. Act Utilitarianism Act utilitarianism judges an action to be right if and only if that particular action maximizes overall utility compared to any alternative action available to the agent. The key feature here is the focus on the individual act. When deciding whether some action is morally right, an act utilitarian estimates the consequences of performing that specific act in its particular circumstances and chooses whichever action produces the best outcome. Example: A doctor must decide whether to perform a risky surgery on a patient. An act utilitarian calculates the utility consequences of performing the surgery versus not performing it in this specific case, and performs whichever action is expected to produce better overall results. The appeal of act utilitarianism is straightforward: it seems to directly implement the core utilitarian idea of maximizing good outcomes. However, it raises a practical problem: calculating the precise consequences of every individual action is extremely time-consuming and cognitively demanding, and humans are prone to errors in such calculations. Rule Utilitarianism Rule utilitarianism judges an action to be right if it conforms to a rule that, when generally followed by everyone, would maximize overall utility. Notice the crucial difference: rather than evaluating the consequences of a particular act, rule utilitarianism asks whether the action follows a rule that would be optimal if universally adopted. Example: Consider the rule "keep your promises." A rule utilitarian asks: if everyone generally followed this rule, would overall utility be maximized? The answer is likely yes—a world where promises are kept provides predictability, enables cooperation, and builds trust. Therefore, an action is right if it conforms to promise-keeping, even if in a particular case, breaking a promise might produce slightly better consequences. Why introduce this extra step? Rule utilitarians argue that it addresses the practical problem faced by act utilitarianism: we don't need to calculate consequences for every single action. Instead, we can rely on general rules that have already been determined to maximize utility when widely followed. This is more practical and avoids the cognitive errors and time-consumption of constant consequence calculation. However, this raises a subtle question: how specific should these rules be? If we make rules so detailed and situation-specific that they account for all the particular features of each case, do they collapse into act utilitarianism? This question leads to the next development. Two-Level Utilitarianism (R. M. Hare) The philosopher R. M. Hare proposed a framework that attempts to navigate between act and rule utilitarianism by distinguishing two levels of moral reasoning. General rule utilitarianism refers to the broad, everyday moral rules that guide society and moral education: "don't steal," "don't lie," "treat others with respect," and so on. These rules are intentionally kept general and widely applicable because they reflect what would maximize utility if most people followed them. Specific rule utilitarianism, by contrast, involves rules so detailed and particular to individual cases that they essentially collapse into case-by-case act utilitarian reasoning. At this level, rules become situation-specific instructions. Hare's key insight is that most of the time, most people should follow general rules. Why? Because human nature and our limited knowledge make exhaustive consequence calculation impractical. We lack perfect information about the future, our reasoning is fallible, and our emotions can cloud judgment. In most situations, following established moral rules is more reliable for maximizing utility than trying to calculate consequences for each decision. However, there may be exceptional cases where someone with sufficient expertise and opportunity for reflection should engage in more detailed, act-utilitarian reasoning. But for ordinary moral agents in ordinary circumstances, adherence to general rules is the path to maximizing utility. Preference Utilitarianism Preference utilitarianism holds that actions are right when they satisfy the preferences of those affected by the action. Rather than focusing on pleasure and pain (as in hedonistic utilitarianism) or on intrinsic goods like knowledge and beauty (as in ideal utilitarianism), this variant makes individual preferences the ultimate criterion of value. The underlying idea is preference autonomy: what makes something good or bad is ultimately whether it accords with each individual's own wants and preferences. If a person prefers X to Y, then X is better for that person than Y, simply because the person prefers it. An Important Distinction: Manifest vs. True Preferences However, preference utilitarians face a practical problem: people's actual, observable preferences can be problematic. The economist John Harsanyi distinguished between two types of preferences: Manifest preferences are the preferences people actually express or act upon. These are behaviorally observable, but they may be based on errors, misinformation, confusion, or strong emotions in the moment. Someone might prefer an extra drink at a party, for instance, not because it will genuinely be good for them, but because of momentary impulse or social pressure. True preferences are the preferences an individual would have if they possessed full information about their choices, perfect reasoning ability, and were in an optimal mental state. These reflect what someone would really want if they could reason clearly without confusion. Preference utilitarianism aims to satisfy true preferences, not manifest ones. This requires making assumptions about what people would prefer under idealized conditions of knowledge and rationality. Excluding Antisocial Preferences Another important refinement: most preference utilitarians exclude certain preferences from moral consideration, particularly antisocial preferences—preferences that inherently involve harm to others, such as sadism (deriving pleasure from others' suffering) or envy (wanting others to fail merely for the satisfaction of outperforming them). Including such preferences would lead to counterintuitive results: a sadist's preference to cause suffering would count as a reason to cause suffering, which seems to violate the spirit of utilitarianism. Negative Utilitarianism Standard utilitarianism typically operates according to the principle: maximize pleasure or good outcomes. But what if we reverse the focus? Negative utilitarianism replaces this principle with: minimize pain or suffering. While this might seem like a minor shift in emphasis, it can lead to quite different practical conclusions. The motivation comes from philosopher Karl Popper, who argued that focusing on reducing suffering rather than maximizing happiness is more reliable and less dangerous. He noted that the pursuit of maximal happiness has historically been used to justify totalitarian regimes that override individual rights in pursuit of some grand vision of happiness. By contrast, reducing suffering seems like a more modest, defensible goal that respects individual concerns. A Problematic Implication However, negative utilitarianism faces a serious objection. As philosopher R. N. Smart pointed out in 1958 (when he coined the term), the principle of minimizing suffering could imply something absurd: if the goal is simply to minimize pain with no concern for maximizing good, the most efficient way to achieve this would be to bring about the quickest, least painful death of all human beings. No humans means no suffering. This seems like a reductio ad absurdum of the view. <extrainfo> Versions with Weighted Suffering Some contemporary versions of negative utilitarianism assign a higher moral weight to avoiding suffering than to promoting happiness, creating something closer to prioritarianism: the view that we should especially prioritize the worst-off and most vulnerable. This produces something more like a "compassionate" utilitarian metric that takes suffering very seriously without implying we should eliminate all humans. However, these versions move away from the pure negative utilitarian principle. </extrainfo> Summary Table of Utilitarian Variants | Variant | What Gets Maximized | Key Unit of Evaluation | Main Advantage | Main Challenge | |---|---|---|---|---| | Act Utilitarianism | Utility | Individual actions | Directly maximizes good outcomes | Calculation is impractical; prone to error | | Rule Utilitarianism | Utility through rules | General moral rules | Practical; avoids error-prone calculations | May not maximize utility in particular cases | | Ideal Utilitarianism | Intrinsic goods (knowledge, beauty, virtue, pleasure) | Individual actions or rules | Captures what's actually valuable beyond pleasure | Complex; harder to measure | | Preference Utilitarianism | Preference satisfaction | Individual preferences | Respects autonomy; reflects actual human concerns | Preferences can be mistaken or harmful | | Negative Utilitarianism | Suffering minimization | Individual suffering | Focuses on urgent moral priority | Can lead to counterintuitive conclusions |