Utilitarian Calculus (Bentham & Mill)

Utilitarian calculus evaluates actions by their consequences: the morally right action is the one that produces the greatest total well-being for the greatest number of people. Jeremy Bentham proposed quantifying pleasure and pain across seven dimensions (intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity, extent), while John Stuart Mill refined the theory by distinguishing higher pleasures (intellectual, moral) from lower pleasures (bodily). The framework requires estimating all consequences for all affected parties, then selecting the action that maximizes net positive outcomes. Modern effective altruism applies utilitarian calculus rigorously: if $3,000 can save a life through malaria prevention in Africa, spending $3,000 on anything else is implicitly choosing that purchase over a human life.

When to use it

When making decisions that affect many people and you need a systematic way to weigh competing impacts. When allocating scarce resources (time, money, attention) and want to maximize total benefit. When evaluating policies or proposals that trade off one group's interests against another's.

How it can help

Use utilitarian calculus as a first-pass ethical analysis for any decision with significant consequences. When facing a business decision that affects many stakeholders, map out who is affected and how—quantify impacts where possible. This prevents the common error of optimizing for one stakeholder group while ignoring others. For resource allocation decisions, utilitarian thinking demands you ask: 'What's the maximum positive impact I can achieve with these resources?' This is especially powerful for philanthropic decisions and organizational prioritization.