ABSTRACT
In the rough sketch of the ideological background the authors have tried to summarize certain criticisms of utilitarianism. Indeed, utilitarianism may be considered as an English offshoot of the philosophy of natural law. Legal historians have stressed the fact that utilitarianism as a legal philosophy is just a new cloak for the teaching of natural law. In economics, the direct contribution of utilitarianism amounted to little more than a more elaborate formulation of the natural law doctrines. The liberal utilitarian atomism and the more heterogeneous organic or legalistic German philosophy of the state are at heart akin. Both use in some form or other an objective political concept with respect to society as a whole, whether it be 'social welfare' or 'the will of the state', etc. The theory of 'wealth' or 'welfare' or 'Volkswirtschaff' becomes a theory of how a nation, guided by a common purpose, runs or ought to run its economic affairs.
