Utilitarianism – a commitment to ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number’ – has been the target of endless opposition. According to its critics, it ignores the separateness of persons, cannot secure the protections of basic rights, demands extreme sacrifice, can justify anything – the list goes on. It has been implicated in the horrors of settler colonialism, imperialism, and racial capitalism, both historically and today, as the neoliberal world order faces a profound legitimation crisis.

Bart Schultz argues that utilitarian philosophy must be decolonized and reimagined for the current moment: a time of new and looming existential threats, in a world desperate for social change. Where dominant ethical and political approaches have failed to adequately deal with the enormous challenges we face, utilitarianism – as a set of lived practices, not simply a theoretical construction – may hold out some hope of seriously addressing them. Drawing on alternatives to the well-known Eurocentric story of utilitarianism (and an extensive review and critique of that story) and incorporating the works of Peter Singer, Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, Derek Parfit, Martha Nussbaum, and other major philosophers, Schultz crafts a groundbreaking new framework of utilitarianism born of struggle and resistance.

Utilitarianism as a Way of Life is an essential text for scholars and students of philosophy, political science, economics, decolonization studies, gender studies, psychology, environmental studies, and related fields.

“In this brilliant, engaging, and perceptive book, Bart Schultz breathes new life into the utilitarian project, illuminating its potential as a source of inspiration for living well in the modern world. A tour de force.”
Roger Crisp, University of Oxford

“This book provides an exciting new approach to one of the most important ethical theories – utilitarianism. Schultz uses critical race theory to resist and reshape Mill’s classical idea of liberalism. With his ‘Utilitarianism against Mill’ project, he shows that what we thought once to be a necessary value of Western thought has been shaped by colonialism and racism.”
Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, The European Graduate School

“[W]hile utilitarianism gives equal weight to each person’s happiness, regardless of race, gender or class, the three great classical utilitarian philosophers (Bentham, Mill and Henry Sidgwick) were apologists for British imperialism. It is this contradiction that Bart Schultz explores in Utilitarianism as a Way of Life. …The book’s most important message is one that everyone, utilitarian or not, should heed.”
The Times Literary Supplement

Bart Schultz is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Chicago.