Utilitarianism

A moral philosophy that says that what matters is the sum of everyone's welfare, or the "greatest good for the greatest number".

Not to be confused with maximization of utility, or expected utility. If you're a utilitarian, you don't just sum over possible worlds; you sum over people.

Utilitarianism comes in different variants. For example, unlike standard total utilitarianism, average utilitarianism values the average utility among a group's members. Negative utilitarianism seeks only to minimize suffering, and is often discussed for its extreme implications.

Blog posts

• The "Intuitions" Behind "Utilitarianism"
• Torture vs. Dust Specks
• Circular Altruism
• The Allais Paradox
• Zut Allais!
• Not for the Sake of Happiness (Alone)
• For the People Who Are Still Alive
• Ends Don't Justify Means (Among Humans)
• Hardened Problems Make Brittle Models
• A (small) critique of total utilitarianism

External links

• Felicifia, a utilitarianism wiki
• Utilitarian Essays
• Utilitarianism Resources

See also

• Consequentialism
• Metaethics sequence
• Shut up and multiply
• Game theory, Decision theory, Preference
• Hedons, Utils, Fuzzies