UTILITARIANISM • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Utilitarianism

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noun

Utilitarianism n.

The doctrine that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the end and aim of all social and political institutions.

The doctrine that virtue is founded in utility, or that virtue is defined and enforced by its tendency to promote the highest happiness of the universe.

The doctrine that utility is the sole standard of morality, so that the rectitude of an action is determined by its usefulness.

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Etymology of 'Utilitarianism'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Utilitarianism" Quotes from Famous Books

... science and philosophy can bring are of any moment; then is it desirable that the instinctive inclination which every child shows to observe natural beauties and investigate natural phenomena, should be encouraged. But this gross utilitarianism which is content to come into the world and quit it again without knowing what kind of a world it is or what it contains, may be met on its own ground. It will by and by be found that a knowledge of the laws of life is more ...

— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... hunter who lived on the bank. He was a very shrewd, quaint old boy, "good for a novel." He examined Goshorn's spectacles with so much interest, that I suspect it was really the first time in his life that he ever fully ascertained the "true inwardness and utilitarianism" of such objects. He expressed great admiration, and said that if he had them he could get twice as many deer as he did. I promised to send him a pair. I begged from him deer-horns, which he gave me very willingly, expressing wonder that I wanted such rubbish, and at my ...

— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

Words linked to "Utilitarianism" : doctrine, philosophical system, ism