Utilitarianism as Low-Res Morality
Utilitarianism can be thought of as a "lo-res" model of human morality. It's not completely worthless - in terms of how much information it gives you, it's better than nothing (and ethics is so complex and difficult that with many models, too much is undecidable, and you often end up learning nothing at all). Utilitarianism can be thought of as the "satellite view" of morality - high up, and far away. When you get down to the human level, utilitarianism is too blocky to work, and the obvious inaccuracies and errors just pile up.
Utilitarianism, in most formulations, says something along the lines of, "Act in such a way as to cause the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people." But what it cannot answer is the simple question: why? Why should I act in such a way as to cause the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people? In particular: why should I sacrifice some part of my own happiness, in order to make a large number of people happier? Utilitarianism doesn't really have an answer to this question, except: "Because I said so." If it has any answer at all, it's just that "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" just seems right, and so we have some kind of at least implied intuitionism.
Most textbooks will tell you that utilitarianism began with Jeremy Bentham, or they may mention precursors such as Francis Hutcheson and John Gay. The more perspicuous may note some ancient Greek precursors, or better yet some part of the tradition of Mohism in ancient China. But in my opinion, neither Bentham nor any of these other candidates really invented utilitarianism - they merely articulated utilitarianism. Something like utilitarianism can be found in nearly every culture, at least in some form of nascent, nebulous, common-sense notion.
A very simplistic version of utilitarianism exists in almost every family, usually expressed by a parent. Let's say you have five children, and one of them is hogging the video game controller to himself. What do you do? You tell him to let his sisters have a turn. Why? Because that's what will make everyone happy - or at least, it will make more members of the family happy. Every administrator in every organization will, at times, enact policies in order to try to make everyone happy, or at least the most possible people happy. It's a simplistic formulation, but it works... at least some of the time.
My guess is that some form of something loosely approximating these kinds of considerations has probably existed for as long as human beings have been on Earth. Something like the ability to calculate this way may indeed even be "built in" at a neurological level.
Traditionally, academics have divided meta-ethics into several categories: utilitarianism is considered a form of consequentialism, and besides this are deontology, virtue ethics, and command theory. (To this is sometimes added the category of intuitionism: more on that later.) Recently,
Utilitarianism, in most formulations, says something along the lines of, "Act in such a way as to cause the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people." But what it cannot answer is the simple question: why? Why should I act in such a way as to cause the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people? In particular: why should I sacrifice some part of my own happiness, in order to make a large number of people happier? Utilitarianism doesn't really have an answer to this question, except: "Because I said so." If it has any answer at all, it's just that "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" just seems right, and so we have some kind of at least implied intuitionism.
Most textbooks will tell you that utilitarianism began with Jeremy Bentham, or they may mention precursors such as Francis Hutcheson and John Gay. The more perspicuous may note some ancient Greek precursors, or better yet some part of the tradition of Mohism in ancient China. But in my opinion, neither Bentham nor any of these other candidates really invented utilitarianism - they merely articulated utilitarianism. Something like utilitarianism can be found in nearly every culture, at least in some form of nascent, nebulous, common-sense notion.
A very simplistic version of utilitarianism exists in almost every family, usually expressed by a parent. Let's say you have five children, and one of them is hogging the video game controller to himself. What do you do? You tell him to let his sisters have a turn. Why? Because that's what will make everyone happy - or at least, it will make more members of the family happy. Every administrator in every organization will, at times, enact policies in order to try to make everyone happy, or at least the most possible people happy. It's a simplistic formulation, but it works... at least some of the time.
My guess is that some form of something loosely approximating these kinds of considerations has probably existed for as long as human beings have been on Earth. Something like the ability to calculate this way may indeed even be "built in" at a neurological level.
Traditionally, academics have divided meta-ethics into several categories: utilitarianism is considered a form of consequentialism, and besides this are deontology, virtue ethics, and command theory. (To this is sometimes added the category of intuitionism: more on that later.) Recently,
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