ABSTRACT
This chapter finds plausible answers to the ethical problems war can pose, that is, to use utilitarianism to resolve or at least shed light on some vexed and unresolved issues in this area. It shows that utilitarianism and war will hold true if one substitutes other variants of the theory and, indeed, with only modest adjustments, it will hold true, or largely true, if one substitutes many non-utilitarian forms of consequentialism as well. Utilitarianism represents an old and distinguished tradition in moral philosophy, the influence of which extends to law, economics, public policy, and other realms and is evident in much of our everyday moral thinking. Beginning with Jeremy Bentham and continuing down to the present day, many able philosophers have expounded, defended, and enriched utilitarian theory. Utilitarianism is first and foremost a kind of consequentialism. Philosophers use the term consequentialism to identify a general way of thinking about right and wrong. Consequentialism is not a complete ethical theory.
