ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at what utilitarianism is, and investigates some of the criticisms that are often made of it and the way utilitarian theory can develop to accommodate such criticism. The chapter focuses on the way in which considerations that naturally arise in thinking about morality can lead readers to the utilitarian tradition, and how it might then seem worthwhile to get into the business of refining and developing the theory to overcome objections. Utilitarians think that it is "spooky" to talk about acts being inherently required or forbidden – it would be to invoke something like a taboo. One advantage of utilitarianism is its apparently ready compatibility with naturalism: that readers can understand what is good about happiness and bad about suffering, without appealing to anything mysterious or intrinsically valuable. Utilitarianism at its outset was a radical theory that preached that "each should count for one and none for more than one".
