The Effects of Utilitarianism on Current Law and Research

Utilitarianism is an effort to provide an answer to the practical question “What ought a man to do?” Its answer is that he ought to act so as to produce the best consequences possible.

Jeremy Bentham's and James Mill's utilitarianism understands individuality and society in terms of static and measurable relationships. Pains and pleasures may be calculated from a table, and their internal relations remain identical in any society and for any individual.

J.S. Mill describes this outlook as akin to geometry, a system of interrelating abstractions. By contrast to this, Mill proposes that ...