Preference utilitarianism
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Preference utilitarianism is probably the most popular form of utilitarianism in contemporary philosophy. In the same way as other utilitarian theorists, preference utilitarians define a morally right action as that which produces the most favourable consequences for the people involved. However, preference utilitarians interpret the best consequences in terms of 'preference satisfaction'. This means that 'good' is described as the satisfaction of each person's individual preferences or desires, and a right action is that which leads to this satisfaction. Since what is good depends solely on individual preferences, there can be nothing that is in itself good or bad except for the resulting state of mind. Preference utilitarianism therefore can be distinguished by its acknowledgement that every person's experience of satisfaction will be unique.
Traditionally, utilitarians subscribed to a hedonistic philosophy, which states that utility consists in achieving pleasurable mental states. For example, the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham argued that the right thing to do was to produce the maximum amount of pleasure for all affected.
One problem with hedonistic utilitarianism is that it does not consider any action to be wrong if the individual in question is unaware of it, as long as it is not causing that person any pain or displeasure. For example, a possible case could be imagined in which person A spreads rumours about person B. If person B were never to become aware of this and therefore did not experience any resulting displeasure from the act, then, in this case, the hedonistic utilitarian would state that the act was not an immoral one, since no ill-effects were produced. This is often known as "the experience requirement": hedonism requires that for something to be defined as 'good' or 'bad', the subject must experience it as such. Preference utilitarianism, however, could be argued to contradict the experience requirement. Assuming that the person has a preference (or desire) for a good reputation, spreading rumours behind their back would harm them even if they never experienced any ill effects from it.
Peter Singer is generally regarded as the leading contemporary advocate of preference utilitarianism. He was greatly influenced on this by R. M. Hare.
