When faced with ethical dilemmas, many people instinctively believe that the complexities of making the right decision can be easily solved by following one simple rule: Always act to bring about the best consequences. This approach is intuitive and seems straightforward—but is it really the right answer?

The Core of Utilitarianism

The ethical philosophy known as utilitarianism was first developed in the 19th century. It suggests that all ethical decisions boil down to determining how to produce the best possible outcomes. Specifically, utilitarians argue that our actions should minimize pain and maximize pleasure—or, in other words, minimize unhappiness and maximize happiness.

According to utilitarianism, to judge any action, we only need to consider its likely outcomes. For example, a utilitarian would view theft as generally wrong because it typically causes significant pain for the person who is robbed while providing a lesser amount of pleasure for the thief. Similar reasoning can be applied to other actions, such as lying or murder.

The Appeal of Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism often aligns with our moral intuitions. A utilitarian would rarely, if ever, consider theft morally neutral simply because both parties gain something—there’s a clear respect for natural moral sensibilities in this way of thinking.

Moreover, because this philosophy is rational, empirical, and generally intuitive, many people have adopted utilitarianism as their default ethical approach. In day-to-day life, many people use a similar thought process to consider the ethical implications of their actions, often subscribing to an “all’s well that ends well” mentality.

Utilitarianism is particularly appealing for addressing large-scale ethical issues. For instance, a massive multinational corporation with thousands of employees might find it easiest to address ethical problems through this objective, calculating lens. In such a context, ethical concerns can be reduced to determining which actions lead to the most favorable outcomes.

Potential Problems with Utilitarianism

While utilitarianism’s benefits are clear—it offers a simple, objective way to approach ethics that often results in straightforward, intuitive solutions—there are also significant drawbacks.

One of the most intuitive criticisms of utilitarianism is that it can justify terribly immoral actions if they lead to the best possible outcome. Classic examples include life-or-death scenarios like the trolley problem, where diverting a trolley from killing five people would result in it killing one person instead. Other examples include the necessity of accepting civilian casualties in war or allowing people to die during a famine. For a utilitarian, these actions, though tragic, are justified if they produce the best overall outcome.

However, this focus on the “best possible outcome” can distort our understanding of morality. By reducing ethics to a matter of outcomes, we risk turning human happiness and ethical behavior into a numbers game, where the only goal is to “maximize” pleasure or happiness—however that might be quantified.

Moreover, utilitarianism introduces the dangerous idea that anything might be permissible as long as it results in good consequences. For example, torture might be justifiable for a military if it helps to speed up a conflict, or cannibalism might be acceptable in a survival situation if it keeps people alive.

In more everyday contexts, similar issues arise. Is it acceptable to lie to a spouse to spare them from an uncomfortable truth? Is it okay to enter into a contract that you’re not sure you can fulfill without disclosing your concerns to your business partners? Is it alright to steal something small if you know the owner will never notice?

In many of these situations, the outcome that maximizes “happiness” (in a shallow sense) may still be unethical. Yet, within a purely utilitarian framework, there’s no way to assert that lying is wrong regardless of the results or that theft is never the “best” solution.

The Human Cost of Utilitarian Thinking

Utilitarian logic can also enable immoral actions on a massive scale. When no actions are inherently wrong, there’s always a justification for them. Perhaps underpaying workers is necessary to keep a business profitable for shareholders, or environmental recklessness can be justified if it means lower prices for customers. This mindset opens the door to rationalizing behavior that is clearly unethical.

Above all, utilitarianism seems to strip humanity from the ethical equation. This approach to ethics is not really concerned with human dignity but rather with finding a pragmatic solution to ensure the average person leads a more pleasurable life. If we seek an ethical framework that truly respects human dignity and offers a meaningful view of the human person, utilitarianism falls short and likely never will suffice.

Beyond Utilitarianism

Does this mean we should ignore consequences when making ethical decisions? Of course not. But we should never focus solely on achieving the “best possible outcome” while disregarding the means. There are terrible and dehumanizing ways to reach desirable outcomes, and it seems that the ends can never justify such means.