ABSTRACT
The author discusses the question of whether utilitarianism, properly understood, is nonetheless an impoverished ethical theory and, if so, whether and in what ways this matters. A utilitarian might conceivably want to argue that people ought to aspire to be popular cricketers, trying to build a case to the effect that this would be a productive means to the sum of human happiness. The utilitarian seeks to establish that the nature of morality, what one understand morality to be, is best understood and most credible in terms of the promotion of happiness. To discredit the utilitarian account, which does after all explain the fact of many of our various moral commitments, and which does not deny various other moral and non-moral values, it is incumbent on critics to establish in some way or other that something other than happiness does have moral value in and of itself, and is necessarily good.
