Abstract Utilitarianism today is a consequentialist theory: it requires that we maximise the good. By contrast, deontological theories constrain our pursuit of the good by independent demands of justice and directed duties to individuals. This article argues that the utilitarian duty to maximise welfare was originally embedded in the Protestant work ethic, a deontological theory invented by 17th-century Puritan theologians. Political strategies for inculcating the work ethic in the poor during the Industrial Revolution drove the elimination of deontological constraints from the foundations of utilitarianism and thereby turned it into a consequentialist theory. This episode, along with JS Mill’s critique and transformation of Bentham’s utilitarianism, illuminates the importance of recognising the irreducibility of the moral right to the good.
Elizabeth Anderson (Fri,) studied this question.