An idea · Nineteenth Century · first attested 1861
The Principle of Utility
The right action is the one that maximizes the happiness of those affected.
Bentham's foundational principle, refined by Mill: actions are right insofar as they tend to produce pleasure, wrong insofar as they produce pain – counting everyone's pleasure equally. The explosive is hidden in the word "everyone": a beggar's pleasure weighs exactly as much as a lord's. Utilitarianism is the most influential consequentialist ethics; it still shapes welfare economics and public policy.