---
title: "Utilitarianism · Library · Simulation Hypothesis"
url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/utilitarianism
description: "Utilitarianism is the theory that the right action is the one that does the most good overall."
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)"
---

## Ethics & metaphysics

# Utilitarianism

Definition

Utilitarianism is the theory that the right action is the one that does the most good overall. Classically, that means the most pleasure over pain.

On this site

The Util. column. It scores the Dialed-up setting poorly and the Experience machine highly.

Role in the model

The Util. column adds up the suffering in a scenario, weighted by how much each being can experience it. It scores Dialed up poorly and the Afterlife preset highly, because a painless world of maximum bliss is what hedonic arithmetic recommends. That’s the hedonic version of utilitarianism. The preference and objective-list versions wouldn’t endorse the Afterlife preset.

Related

[Moral status](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/moral-status)[The experience machine](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/experience-machine)

In the trees

[Count the consequences · Ethics](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/trees/ethics?n=g-util)

## The people behind the terms

14 short pages, one per thinker, each with its matching dial. See also the [reading list](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/reading).

[Plato’s cave](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/plato)[Zhuangzi’s butterfly](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/zhuangzi)[Vasubandhu’s dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/vasubandhu)[Shankara’s māyā](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/shankara)[al-Ghazali’s doubt](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ghazali)[Ibn Arabi’s imagination](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ibn-arabi)[Calderón’s life is a dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/calderon)[Descartes’ demon](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/descartes)[Berkeley’s perceiver](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/berkeley)[Borges’ circular ruins](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/borges)[Nozick’s experience machine](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/nozick)[Putnam’s brain in a vat](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/putnam)[Bostrom’s trilemma](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/bostrom)[Chalmers: virtual worlds are real](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/chalmers)