Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism

Abstract

Utilitarianism (from Lat. utilis: useful) is a tendency within normative ethics which has developed, principally in the English-speaking world, into a complex instrument for the empirical-rational justification of norms. To the idealistic philosophers in the German-speaking world, on the other hand, the empiricist approach of utilitarian ethics remained a closed book for the most part. This can be put down to the overpowering influence of Kant. In contrast to Kantian ethics based on duties and convictions, utilitarianism is a pure ethic of results. How an action is evaluated depends not on the motives of the actor but solely on the consequences of the action concerned.2