ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that utilitarianism is not only compatible with feminism: historical feminism was produced by classical utilitarianism. Utilitarianism was a positivist and empirical philosophy that ignored a question which had inflamed argument for centuries. The principle of utility assumed a fundamental equality in the structure of human psychology. The psychological axioms of utilitarianism provided the intellectual and ideological background of feminism and offered a general view of human nature and social life compatible with the political goals of historical feminism. Historical feminism, indeed, restricted itself to women's right to vote and to equal education, without touching the economic structure of Victorian society. The principle of utility, used as a fundamental means of explaining human behaviour, had to be applied to the whole of mankind. The limits of historical feminism were not 'strategic' but the direct ideological consequence of the limits of classical utilitarianism.
