act utilitarianism
E84419
Act utilitarianism is a moral theory that judges the rightness of each individual action solely by how much overall happiness or utility it produces compared to alternative actions.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| act utilitarianism canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T693189 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: act utilitarianism Context triple: [Utilitarianism, hasVariant, act utilitarianism]
-
A.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a foundational work of moral philosophy that systematically defends the view that actions are right insofar as they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
-
B.
categorical imperative
The categorical imperative is Immanuel Kant’s central moral principle that commands universally applicable duties based on reason alone, regardless of personal desires or consequences.
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C.
kingdom of ends
The kingdom of ends is Immanuel Kant’s ethical ideal of a moral community in which all rational beings legislate and follow universal moral laws while treating each other always as ends in themselves, never merely as means.
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D.
The System of Ethics
The System of Ethics is a foundational philosophical work by Johann Gottlieb Fichte that systematically develops his idealist moral philosophy and theory of human freedom.
-
E.
The Elements of Morality
The Elements of Morality is a 19th-century philosophical treatise by William Whewell that systematically explores ethical theory, moral duties, and the foundations of human conduct.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: act utilitarianism Target entity description: Act utilitarianism is a moral theory that judges the rightness of each individual action solely by how much overall happiness or utility it produces compared to alternative actions.
-
A.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a foundational work of moral philosophy that systematically defends the view that actions are right insofar as they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
-
B.
categorical imperative
The categorical imperative is Immanuel Kant’s central moral principle that commands universally applicable duties based on reason alone, regardless of personal desires or consequences.
-
C.
kingdom of ends
The kingdom of ends is Immanuel Kant’s ethical ideal of a moral community in which all rational beings legislate and follow universal moral laws while treating each other always as ends in themselves, never merely as means.
-
D.
The System of Ethics
The System of Ethics is a foundational philosophical work by Johann Gottlieb Fichte that systematically develops his idealist moral philosophy and theory of human freedom.
-
E.
The Elements of Morality
The Elements of Morality is a 19th-century philosophical treatise by William Whewell that systematically explores ethical theory, moral duties, and the foundations of human conduct.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
consequentialist theory
ⓘ
moral theory ⓘ utilitarian theory ⓘ |
| aimsAt | maximizing overall well-being ⓘ |
| allows | breaking moral rules when doing so maximizes utility ⓘ |
| appliedIn |
applied ethics
ⓘ
cost–benefit analysis ⓘ public policy analysis ⓘ |
| associatedWith |
J. J. C. Smart
ⓘ
Jeremy Bentham ⓘ John Stuart Mill ⓘ |
| basedOn | principle of utility ⓘ |
| contrastedWith | rule-based moral theories ⓘ |
| contrastsWith | rule utilitarianism ⓘ |
| coreIdea | rightness of an action depends solely on its consequences ⓘ |
| criticizedFor |
demandingness
ⓘ
difficulty of predicting consequences ⓘ ignoring individual rights ⓘ potentially justifying injustice ⓘ time-consuming decision procedures ⓘ |
| decisionProcedure | choose the action with the highest expected utility ⓘ |
| defendedBy |
J. J. C. Smart
ⓘ
Peter Singer ⓘ |
| denies | absolute moral rules ⓘ |
| ethicalType |
maximizing consequentialism
ⓘ
teleological ethics ⓘ |
| evaluates | individual actions ⓘ |
| focusesOn |
maximization of overall happiness
ⓘ
maximization of overall utility ⓘ |
| holdsThat |
an action is right if it produces at least as much utility as any alternative
ⓘ
no action is intrinsically right or wrong independent of consequences ⓘ |
| implies | each person’s happiness counts equally ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Enlightenment rationalism
ⓘ
hedonism ⓘ |
| moralCriterion |
greatest balance of happiness over unhappiness
ⓘ
greatest net utility compared to alternatives ⓘ |
| normativeStatus | normative ethical theory ⓘ |
| opposedBy |
deontological ethics
ⓘ
virtue ethics ⓘ |
| requires |
assessment of consequences for all affected
ⓘ
comparison of available actions ⓘ impartial aggregation of utilities ⓘ |
| scope | all sentient beings affected by an action ⓘ |
| timePeriodOfDevelopment | 19th century ⓘ |
| usesConcept |
impartiality between persons
ⓘ
pleasure and pain ⓘ utility ⓘ |
| variantOf | classical utilitarianism ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: act utilitarianism Description of subject: Act utilitarianism is a moral theory that judges the rightness of each individual action solely by how much overall happiness or utility it produces compared to alternative actions.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.