Utilitarianism

　　Two essays on utilitarianism, written from opposite points ofview, by J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams. In the first part ofthe book Professor Smart advocates a modern and sophisticatedversion of classical utilitarianism; he tries to formulate aconsistent and persuasive elaboration of the doctrine that therightness and wrongness of actions is determined solely by theirconsequences, and in particular their consequences for the sumtotal of human happiness. This is a revised version of ProfessorSmart's famous essay 'an outline of a system of utilitarianethics', first published in 1961 but long unobtainable. In Part IIBernard Williams offers a sustained and vigorous critique ofutilitarian assumptions, arguments and ideals. He finds inadequatethe theory of action implied by utilitarianism, and he argues thatutilitarianism fails to engage at a serious level with the realproblems of moral and political philosophy, and fails to make senseof notions such as integrity, or even human happiness itself. Bothauthors are agreed on utilitarianism's importance: it cuts across anumber of different philosophical disputes and combines asystematic account of mata-ethical problems with a distinctive andsubstantive moral stand. It thus is, or involves, philosophy inboth the traditional and the narrower, professional sense of theword, and is a key topic (often the first topic) in introductoryphilosophy courses. This book should also be of interest to welfareeconomists, political scientists and decision-theorists.