Utility
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(1): ( n.) Adaptation to satisfy the desires or wants; intrinsic value. See Note under Value, 2.
(2): ( n.) Happiness; the greatest good, or happiness, of the greatest number, - the foundation of utilitarianism.
(3): ( n.) The quality or state of being useful; usefulness; production of good; profitableness to some valuable end; as, the utility of manure upon land; the utility of the sciences; the utility of medicines.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [2]
in ethico-philosophical terminology, is the doctrine that actions are right because they are useful or tend to promote happiness. It is thus, defined by Mill (Utilitarianisn, p. 9): "The creed-which accepts as the foundation of morals utility, or the greatest happiness principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure." The fundamental objection to the doctrine is thus stated by Dr. Reid (Actie Powers, essay 5, ch. 5): "Agreeableness and utility are not moral conceptions, nor have they any connection with morality. What a man does, merely because it is agreeable, is not virtue." See Fleming, and Krauth, Vocab. of Philos. s.v.
