UTILITARIANISM, a principle or doctrine of ethics proclaiming that (only) what is useful is good, and that usefulness (utility) can be rationally determined. It also denotes the political, economic, and social theories and policies based on this principle.

功利主义，一种强调（只有）有用即好，且有效性（实用）可由理性来决定的伦理学原则或学说。它还指基于这一原则的政治、经济和社会理论以及政策。

Utilitarian ethics and utilitarian political philosophies have been expounded by various thinkers and schools in various parts of the world since ancient times. But the founder of the formal system of Utilitarianism, who also introduced the term (first in 1781) and who, above all, drew from it the most far-reaching theoretical and practical implications, was Jeremy Bentham. Although he was in many ways a strict individualist, the test that Bentham applied for the “usefulness” of the conduct either of the individual or of the government was social usefulness or, in his often-quoted summation of his philosophy, “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.” Bentham himself acknowledged his indebtedness to Joseph Priestley who wrote in his Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768) that “all people live in society for their essential advantage, so that the goodness and happiness of the member, that is, the majority of the members of every State, is the great standard by which everything relating to the State must finally be determined.”

自古以来，世界各地各式各样的思想者和学派都阐述过功利主义伦理学和功利主义政治哲学。但功利主义正式体系的创立者，也是他引入了该术语（第一次于1781年），最重要的是，从中获得了最深远的理论和实践意义，他就是杰里米·边沁。尽管他在许多方面是个严格的个人主义者，但边沁提出了个体行为，或政府行为的“有用性”就是社会有用性的准则，又或在他常被引用的哲学总结中“最大多数人的最大幸福（ 善就是最大地增加了幸福的总量,）”。边沁自己也承认受益于约瑟夫·普里斯特利在《论政府的第一原则》中所写的“生活在社会中的所有人都是为了他们的基本利益，因此，人们的善良和幸福，换句话说，每个政府的大多数成员，是最终决定与该政府相关的一切事物的重要标准。”

The significance of Bentham’s theory, and that of his forerunners and followers, lie in the fact that they based their system on a doctrine that claims that the ethically good can be ascertained and proved, not by dogma or outside prescription but by starting from the elementary motivations of human nature—namely, the evident wish of human nature to obtain happiness, or pleasure, and to avoid pain. The principle is thus EXPRESSED in the opening sentence of Bentham’s best-known book, Principles of Morals and Legislation (printed in 1781 but not published until 1789): “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand, the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effect, are fastened to their throne.” Hence the relation between man and man, as well as public politics, governmental systems, economic and legal institutions, and so on, will be good if they are useful—that is, if they increase happiness or pleasure and reduce pain.

边沁及其先驱者和追随者们的理论意义在于他们将系统建立在一种学说的事实上，即声称，合乎伦理的善是可以被确定和证明的，不是通过教条或外在的规定，而是从人类本性的基本动机出发—也就是说，人类本性获得幸福或快乐以及避免痛苦的明显愿望。这一原则在边沁最著名的著作《道德与立法原则》（1781年印刷，直到1789年才出版）的开篇得到了这样的表达：“大自然将人类置于两个至高无上的主人，痛苦与快乐的统治之下。只有它们才能指出我们应该做什么和决定我们要做什么。一方面，是对与错的标准，另一方面，是系于它们宝座之上的因果链”。因此，人与人之间的关系，以及公共政治，政府制度、经济和法律体系等等，如果它们有用的话，换言之，如果它们增加了幸福和快乐而减少了痛苦，就是善。

In other words, the Utilitarians claimed to have answered the most perplexing questions: What should be the guide for individual conduct? What should be the functions of government, the main organizational aspect of the community? And how can one’s interests be reconciled with opposing interests of others and of the community as a whole? According to Utilitarianism, the pleasure-pain principle not only answers the first two questions, but it also proves that there can be no clash between individual and group interest because if the conduct of both is based on “utility,” the interest of both will be the same. This holds true for every field—for example, in economic matters, religion, education, the administration of justice, or international affairs. As long as the criterion of usefulness is applied, there will be harmony between private and public and national and international interests.

换句话说，功利主义者声称已回答了最令人困惑的问题：个体行为的准则应该是什么？政府的功能，社会的主要组织方式是什么？还有，个人的利益如何与他人的，以及作为整体社会的利益相协调？根据功利主义的观点，快乐-痛苦原则不仅回答了前两个问题，它也证明在个体与团体利益之间不可能发生冲突，因为，如果两者的行为都是基于“实用”，那么两者的利益就会是相同的。这适用于各个领域—比如，在经济事务、宗教、教育、司法行政，或国际事务中。只要有用性的标准得到应用，那么在私人与公共利益之间，以及国家与国际利益之间就会和谐。

To be sure, Bentham realized the need of defining “pleasure.” Since asceticism condemns pleasure, he was against asceticism, but he did not favor selfishness and licentiousness. He worked out a system that acknowledges four categories of sources of happiness: physical, political, moral, and religious. Except for some (namely, transcendental) religious pleasures, however, all pleasures can be EXPRESSED in the physical sense, since they will create a feeling of well-being. Bentham added two regulatory factors—benevolence and sympathy. As far as the individual was concerned, the Utlitarians saw a main problem in making people aware of what pleasures they should seek, of understanding their true interests. Hence they insisted on the need for more education and were confident that a well-ordered society would disapprove socially harmful conduct. (Bentham was among the first to demand public instruction and was one of the founders of the University London.) Through education and social disapproval, the individual will learn that evil action—that is, action causing pain to others—is a “miscalculation of self-interest.”

的确，边沁已意识到定义“快乐”的必要。因为禁欲主义谴责快乐，他反对禁欲主义，但他确实不喜欢自私和放荡。他设计了一个系统，承认幸福来源的四种分类：身体的，政治的，道德的和宗教的。然而，除了一些（即先验的）宗教快乐以外，所有快乐都能在身体上表现出来，因为它们会产生一种幸福的感觉。边沁还增加了两个调节因素—仁慈与同情。就个人而言，功利主义者看到了一个主要问题，想使人们意识到他们应该寻求什么样的快乐，并理解他们真正的利益是什么。因此，他们强调需要更多的教育，并相信一个良序社会不会赞成对社会有害的行为。（边沁是他们中的第一个要求进行公共指导的人，也是伦敦大学的创始人之一）。通过教育与社会的反对，个人就会了解有害行为—换言之，给别人带去痛苦的行为---就是一种“对自身利益的误判”。

The conclusions that the Utilitarians drew from their basic tenets were of great sweep but are difficult to label. For example, Bentham was opposed to revolution because he believed in progress by persuasion, but he ardently admired the young United States. In 1792 the French National Assembly made him a “citizen” of the new French Republic, but in his letter of thanks he criticized the proscription of French Royalists. The doctrine of the identity of self-interest with public interest was exceedingly well fitted for the breaking down of the restrictive rules and practices of feudal and preindustrial times, as required for the industrialization of England. Some of the later Utilitrians, especially Herbert Spencer, became outstanding exponents of unlimited laissez-faire, while others, such as John Stuart Mill, emphasizing the need for sympathy and benevolence, demanded social legislation to improve conditions for workers and the poor.

功利主义者从他们基本原则中得到的结论是广泛的，但很难将它们称作什么。例如，边沁反对革命，因为他相信通过说服才能进步，但他热情赞美了年轻的美国。1792年，法国国民议会授予他新法兰西共和国“公民”，但他在感谢信中却批评了对法国保皇党的放逐。自身利益与公共利益相一致的学说极其适合于打破封建时代和前工业时代的限制性规则和惯例，这正是英格兰工业化所需要的。后来的一些功利主义者，特别是赫伯特·斯宾塞，成为了无限自由放任的倡导者，而其他的人，如约翰·斯图尔特·密尔强调需要同情和仁慈，强烈要求社会立法来改善工人和贫困者的条件。

During his long life, Bentham initiated many, and became prominently associated with most, of the reforms that changed the face of England and, to a large measure, of the world. He was in the forefront of the fight for universal suffrage, the improvement of the status of women, the abolition of trade restrictions, the development of international law, and even urged the establishment of a world court.

在边沁漫长的一生中，他开创了许多与大多数改革密切相关的改革，它们改变了英格兰的面貌，而且在很大程度上也改变了世界的面貌。他站在争取普选，改善妇女地位，取消贸易限制的最前沿，甚至还力促建立一个世界法庭。

One of his main efforts, aided and continued by a follower, John Austin, was a thorough reform of the legal system. With characteristic vehemence, Bentham attacked a criminal law that prescribed the death penalty for 200 different types of offenses, including, for example, the theft of an object worth two-pence committed by a child under ten by breaking into a house. The Utilitarians were successful, also, in the modernization of the prison system and the abolition of such forms of punishment as the whipping of women, the pillory, and the transportation of convicts to colonies. In other fields of law they fought with equal tenacity, though with less success, against excessive formalism and costliness and slowness of procedure. They did not obtain the “codification” of English law, but under their influence and advice, codifications were carried out in several other countries, including czarist Russia.

在追随者约翰·奥斯汀的帮助和支持下，他的努力之一是对司法制度的彻底改革。边沁以特有的激烈，抨击了200种处以死刑的不同类型的刑法，例如，包括不满十岁儿童入室偷窃价值两便士物品的犯罪。功利主义者还在监狱系统的现代化方面取得了成功，废除了鞭打妇女、戴镣铐以及把罪犯运送到殖民地的各种形式的处罚。在法律的其它领域，他们同样顽强地反对过度的形式主义和高昂且迟缓的程序，尽管没有那么成功。虽然他们没有获得英国法律的“法典化”，但在他们的影响和建议下，法典化在其它几个国家得以实施，包括沙皇俄国。

Bentham fully backed the movement for the repeal of the anti-Catholic law in England, but he was dissatisfied with the attitudes of the clergy, especially of the Church of England. He went so far as to describe them as “wonder-workers,” interested in maintaining superstition and ignorance, organized as an “array of force and fraud” (Church-of-Englandism and the Catechism Examined, 1818). At the age of 75, he published his own ideas about a “natural religion” (Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the temporal Happiness of Mankind, 1823).

边沁完全支持英国废除反天主教法律的运动，但他对神职人员的态度不满意，尤其是对英格兰教会。他甚至将他们描述成“创造奇迹者”，有志维护迷信和无知，组成一个“强迫和欺诈的阵营”（《英国教会与教义问答》，1818年）。在75岁时，他发表了自己关于“自然宗教”（《自然宗教对人类短暂幸福的影响分析》，1823年）的看法。

The Utilitarians were never numerous and never formed a political or movement. But the influence exercised by Bentham and his principal followers, especially Austin, James Mill, Spencer, and John Stuart Mill, has been profound and lasting.

功利主义者从来都不是很多，也从未形成一种政治或运动。但由边沁及其重要追随者，尤其是奥斯汀，詹姆斯·密尔，斯宾塞和约翰·斯图尔特·密尔产生的影响却是深远而持久的。

                                       JOHN H. E. FRIED

                         Author of “The Relevance of International Law”

                                      约翰·H. E. 弗里德

                                      《国际法的关联性》的作者

                                     2023年3月2日译

（译者注：该词条位列《大美百科全书》1985年版，第27卷，第843页至844页）