Talk:Utilitarianism

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Utilitarianism article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives (index): 1, 2: 3 months

This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Philosophy: Ethics / Social and political High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy

High

This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Associated task forces:
/
	Ethics
	Social and political philosophy

This article has been marked as needing immediate attention.

Effective Altruism High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Effective Altruism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relevant to effective altruism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Effective AltruismWikipedia:WikiProject Effective AltruismTemplate:WikiProject Effective AltruismEffective Altruism
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.

Politics High‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archives

Index

Archive 1

Archive 2

This page has archives. Sections older than 100 days may be auto-archived by if there are more than 4.

referencing Jeremy Bentham's INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND LEGISLATION

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND LEGISLATION, Jeremy Bentham, 1789.

from Preface:

"Note.—The First Edition of this work was printed in the year 1780; and first published in 1789. The present Edition is a careful reprint of 'A New Edition, corrected by the Author,' which was published in 1823."

also

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Introduction_to_the_Principles_of_Morals_and_Legislation

Peter Singer on giving benefit of the doubt to shrimp and oysters.

“ . . . and in the first edition of this book I suggested that somewhere between shrimp and an oyster seems as good a place to draw the line as any. Accordingly, I continued occasionally to eat oysters, scallops, and mussels for some time after I became in every other respect, a vegetarian. But while one cannot with any confidence say that these creatures do feel pain, so one can equally have little confidence in saying that they do not feel pain. Moreover, if they do feel pain, a meal of oysters or mussels would inflict pain on a considerable number of creatures. Since it is so easy to avoid eating them, I now think it better to do so.” -Peter Singer, Animal Liberation. 1990, (171-174) http://www.wesleyan.edu/wsa/warn/singer_fish.htm

Utikitarianism derailed

It seems to me that the author of the article about Utikitarianism in Wikipedia extended and derailed the definition of this ethical paradigm. After cited definition (with references to [1] and [2]), the text "In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the greatest good for the greatest number" fundamentally change the defined value and open it for unrelated critics. "...maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals" is clear - it is for individuals and unrelated to any numbers - smallest or greatest. In other words, it is not for all, it is not for socialistic society; it is for individual first of all. Socialistinc societies suppress individual wellbeing by the one managed by governments and groups, i.e. by the rulers.

Because of a clear cenricity with a person, an effect of maximum happiness decreases along the increasing societal distance from the person. That is, to provide a mximised happiness to one , it is not necessary to make all happy like in Buddhism. M33poulin (talk) 13:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology

Re the quote from John Stuart Mill in the Etymology section, which was recently corrected by Alenoach in this edit. The quote is now correct as far as it goes, but, as I read it, Mill is not talking about Bentham (as we claim) at all, but about "the author of this essay", meaning himself. If that's so, this entire section needs rewriting.

The full quote (from Wikisource) runs:

The author of this essay has reason for believing himself to be the first person who brought the word utilitarian into use. He did not invent it, but adopted it from a passing expression in Mr. Galt's Annals of the Parish. After using it as a designation for several years, he and others abandoned it from a growing dislike to anything resembling a badge or watchword of sectarian distinction. But as a name for one single opinion, not a set of opinions–to denote the recognition of utility as a standard, not any particular way of applying it–the term supplies a want in the language, and offers, in many cases, a convenient mode of avoiding tiresome circumlocution.

GrindtXX (talk) 20:55, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think you are right. Good catch. Alenoach (talk) 21:13, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I made an edit to fix that. Alenoach (talk) 21:23, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]