ABSTRACT
In SSA, Parsons attacked utilitarianism, yet accepted the unit act understood in a means-end way as his core case. From this tension results a strand in his work that can perhaps best be described as social utilitarianism. It is social in that the ends are seen as social (e.g. a love relationship, honour, happiness for someone else) as opposed to being based on individual advantage. The classical economists' and Hobbes' view of man as motivated by egoistic greed is rejected. The ends are social also in that they are formed by society. Society is not threatened by a war of all against all or held together only by the advantages men gain from exchanging goods and services with each other. Instead society ties the individual to it by forming ends that fit into that society's system of common values.
