Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that was first systematically developed in England in the late eighteenth century. Utilitarianism is the view that an action is right to the extent that it promotes well-being. (Well-being is what you have if your life is going well.) When you’re deciding what the ethically right thing to do is, you should choose to do what promotes well-being the most, and no one’s well-being matters more than anyone else’s. (There are several kinds of utilitarianism that vary with that description in different ways, which we’ll look at later.)

Utilitarianism can be viewed as the combination...