ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the distinctive treatment of the meaning of 'utility' and of the idea of a 'principle of utility' provided by each of these four theorists is strongly shaped by, and indeed presupposes, a particular conception of the methodology, scope and goals of that science. The theorists are David Hume, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. They are often viewed as contributors to or participants in a common tradition of thought roughly characterized as 'the liberal tradition' or the tradition of 'bourgeois ideology'. Bentham had already identified the methodological master principle responsible for the proliferation of operative principles in Scottish moral theory. Bentham's social science is demonstrably radically different from that of the Scots in its language, method, structure and goals. Smith understands systems of science and philosophy as highly abstract intellectual constructs which are to be judged by their elegance, their neatness, and their logical beauty.
