GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

CHAPTER IX: OBJECTIVE
UTILITARIANISM
Sidgwick, Bentham, John Stuart Mill
Intended and Actual Consequences. Objective Utilitarianism
may be briefly defined as the view that the moral
worth of an action must be assessed by reference to its
consequences, the characteristic utilitarian assertion being
that a right action is one which has the best consequences
on the whole. According to one form of the theory these
are the intended consequences; according to another they
are the actual consequences. If the intended consequences
are those which are meant. Utilitarianism has much in
common with the form of Intuitionism, described in the
last chapter, which asserts that the object of our moral
judgments is motive, or that it must include motive, and
that motive includes a view of the consequences which
the agent expects to follow from the action which he is
motivated to perform. 1
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