Linked from

The 103 pages that link to Utilitarianism, each with the reason it gives.

• British idealismCompared with: Idealist ethics challenged utilitarian accounts that reduced moral judgment to aggregating consequences.

• Ethical egoismCompared with: It rejects prioritizing an agent’s own welfare over everyone else’s.

• Francis HutchesonNarrower topic: Hutcheson’s happiness-based ranking of actions anticipated a central utilitarian method.

• Henry SidgwickRelated: Sidgwick develops a sophisticated version of this method and tests its justification.

• Kaldor–Hicks efficiencyCompared with: It also aggregates welfare, but asks about actual well-being rather than hypothetical monetary compensation.

• NecessityCompared with: It can justify harm by aggregate outcomes, while necessity asks whether a measure is required.

• Ronald DworkinCompared with: Dworkin opposed sacrificing individual rights merely to increase aggregate social welfare.

• UbuntuCompared with: Ubuntu emphasizes humane relationships and character rather than calculating aggregate outcomes.

• Western philosophyBroader topic: It contrasts with duty- and virtue-centered accounts of what makes actions right.

• Categorical imperativeCompared with: Its willingness to trade individual claims against aggregate welfare challenges Kantian constraints.

• EcocentrismCompared with: Ecocentric value may resist reducing ecological protection to its effects on welfare.

• Individual rightsCompared with: A focus on aggregate welfare can collide with protections for particular individuals.

• Nikolay ChernyshevskyRelated: His account of rational self-interest adapted utilitarian reasoning to social life.

• Secular ethicsBroader topic: It grounds moral judgment in the welfare effects of choices.

• Sexual moralityRelated: A consequence-based approach can reach different judgments from religious prohibitions.

• The Golden RuleCompared with: It can require choices unlike the treatment one would personally wish to receive.

• Thomas CarlyleCompared with: Carlyle attacked utilitarian calculation as inadequate to moral life and human purpose.

• Aristotelian ethicsCompared with: Its decision rule differs from Aristotle’s emphasis on virtue and context-sensitive judgment.

• Engineering ethicsRelated: Consequences matter in engineering, but maximizing aggregate benefit can neglect individual rights.

• G. W. F. HegelCompared with: Hegel objects to reducing political and ethical life to calculations of individual utility.

• Harriet MartineauRelated: Utilitarian ideas shaped the political economy she explained and debated.

• Rawlsian justiceCompared with: Rawls rejects sacrificing some people’s basic liberties merely to increase total social welfare.

• Cesare BeccariaRelated: His preference for prevention over vengeance reflects a consequentialist standard for punishment.

• Derek ParfitRelated: Parfit examines consequentialist ethics while arguing for impartial concern across persons and times.

• On LibertyNarrower topic: Mill grounds his defense of liberty in long-term human welfare, not absolute rights.

• Political theoryCompared with: It contrasts aggregate welfare as a standard with theories centered on rights, duties, or equality.

• Thomas Babington MacaulayRelated: Its reform-minded reasoning influenced debates about governance and education in British India.

• John BowringNarrower topic: Its reformist principles informed the political milieu in which Bowring developed.

• Nicomachean EthicsCompared with: It assesses conduct by aggregate outcomes rather than primarily by the agent’s cultivated character.

• Robert NozickCompared with: Nozick’s rights as side constraints oppose sacrificing individuals for aggregate welfare.

• The Brothers KaramazovCompared with: The Grand Inquisitor’s bargain echoes the temptation to trade freedom for collective comfort.

• The Theory of Moral SentimentsCompared with: Smith’s moral assessments are not reducible to maximizing aggregate happiness.

• CarnismCompared with: Applied to animal agriculture, it evaluates suffering and benefits rather than relying on customary food norms.

• José Enrique RodóCompared with: Rodó opposed reducing education and public life to practical utility.

• PleasureRelated: Classical utilitarianism gives pleasure and pain a central role in moral evaluation.

• Rational egoismCompared with: It evaluates outcomes across everyone affected rather than privileging the agent's own welfare.

• Rule utilitarianismNarrower topic: Rule utilitarianism is a version of this broader consequentialist tradition.

• EgoismCompared with: It weighs everyone’s welfare, rather than giving each agent’s own interests priority.

• Richard PosnerCompared with: Posner’s wealth-maximization account differs from welfare theories that count benefits and harms directly.

• The GoodCompared with: Its account of value through outcomes differs from Plato’s supreme intelligible principle.

• The Ones Who Walk Away from OmelasRelated: Omelas’s prosperity poses the question of whether many people’s happiness can justify one child’s misery.

• Atlas ShruggedCompared with: Rand rejects sacrificing individuals for aggregate welfare, a principle associated with utilitarian reasoning.

• Beyond Good and EvilCompared with: Nietzsche objects to reducing human value and morality to the pursuit of comfort or utility.

• Cardinal virtuesCompared with: It judges conduct by outcomes rather than primarily by the agent’s cultivated character.

• Good and evilCompared with: It offers a concrete account of good as the greatest aggregate welfare.

• Judith Jarvis ThomsonCompared with: Thomson’s rights-based reasoning resists treating bodily claims as simply outweighed by better aggregate outcomes.

• Normative economicsRelated: It offers one influential rule for ranking policies by aggregate welfare.

• Roger ScrutonCompared with: Scruton resisted reducing political and cultural value to calculations of utility.

• Classical radicalismNarrower topic: Radicals used utility to challenge laws and privileges they considered socially harmful.

• Claude Adrien HelvétiusNarrower topic: His appeal to general happiness anticipated central utilitarian themes.