utilitarianism

utilitarianism is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 2 senses, and appears in Roget's Thesaurus (1911) with 40 related terms. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.The doctrine that virtue is founded in utility, or that virtue is defined and enforced by its tendency to promote the highest happiness of the universe. J. S. Mill.
  2. 2.The doctrine that utility is the sole standard of morality, so that the rectitude of an action is determined by its usefulness.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

Synonyms

Related questions

Reverse-dictionary questions

Definition-first questions whose answer is utilitarianism.

Sources