Utilitarianism
John Stuart Mill 1861
This essay examines whether actions should be judged by the happiness they produce. Mill compares a dissatisfied Socrates with a satisfied fool to explain why some pleasures matter more.
94 pages 1h 50m reading time
- The most widely read defense of the idea that right and wrong depend on how much happiness our actions bring to everyone they affect.
- Argues that an action is right if it tends to increase happiness and reduce suffering, counting each person's happiness as equal to anyone else's.
- Argues that following this rule does not mean selfishness, since a good person must weigh a stranger's happiness as fairly as their own.
- Made this way of thinking (called "utilitarianism," a word Mill helped spread) one of the main approaches to right and wrong still taught in schools today.
- Shaped later debates on public policy, where governments and economists often judge laws by how much good they do for the greatest number of people.
Began as magazine articles
It first ran in three parts in Fraser's Magazine, a London monthly, before it became a book.
Built from older drafts
Mill shaped it from notes and drafts he wrote in the 1850s, partly while his wife Harriet was alive.
Raised on these ideas
His father trained him from childhood in the ideas of Jeremy Bentham, which this book defends and reshapes.
Attacked from the start
Though short, it drew sharp criticism from early reviewers, especially its attempt to prove that happiness is what matters.