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ArgumentOnly results count
An action touches the world only through its effects: it must therefore be judged by the good and harm it produces, not by intention or by rule.
Supports
Mill, Bentham · Utilitarianism, ch. II · 1863
- An action changes the world only through its effects: the good and harm actually produced, the suffering spared or inflicted, the lives saved or lost.
- Whatever else one invokes is worth something only in view of that: we praise a good intention because it aims at the good, we follow a rule because it usually produces good results. Remove every beneficial effect, and pure intention or the observed rule relieve no one.
- There remains, then, in the last resort, a single criterion that reduces to no other: the amount of good and harm produced. To judge an action by anything else is to prefer a principle to the real beings it affects.
Therefore So the right action is the one that produces the best consequences, for instance the greatest happiness for the greatest number: effects, not intentions or rules, are the ultimate measure.
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