BALDAN SOFIA                                                                                                                        5ALS

Identify from the text:

a)The definition of utility
By utility is meant the proprety of any object to produce benefit, pleasure, good or happiness, or to prevent pain or unhappiness.

b)The principle on which it is based
Utility is based on the principle of pain and pleasure (right and wrong/causes and effects).

c)The way in which utility can affect policies
Utility affects policies when a measure of government has the tendency to augment the happiness of the community more than any which it has to diminish it.

The extract is taken from the first chapter of “Of principle of utility” by Jeremy Bentham who was the main theorist of the doctrine of Utilitarianism. In the extract taken in consideration Bentham presents, as the intelligent reader could understand, some of the most significant elements in his doctrine. Utilitarianism is in line with Puritanism and so with the ideology of the middle class which was the main protagonists of the Industrial Revolution. Indeed the idea of utility is based on the principle of pain and pleasure, of right and wrong and in the same way puritans thought that who did not progress in life was making something wrong (this way of thought reminds also to the Manichaean  philosophy). 
Bentham makes the reader understand what he means for utility: the property of any object to produce benefit, pleasure, good or happiness, or to prevent pain or unhappiness. And the intelligent reader can also understand why Utilitarianism on the social-economic side and Puritanism on the religious one where taken in consideration by the emergent middle class during the 18th century, in particular during the industrial revolution. In this period, indeed, wealth depended on industrial progress and so on the capacity to produce something useful and that comported welfare and happiness to the community.
Bentham underline that is important, before start talking about the interest of the community, talk about the interest of an individual. And so, something is said to promote the interest of an individual when it tends to add pleasure or at least diminish pain. As a consequence an action or a measure of government may be said comfortable to the principle of utility when the tendency it has to to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it. So it is important starting from an individual dimension in order to understand what is useful for the community.
In conclusion the intelligent reader has understood that “utility” may be the key-word of the Industrial Revolution and of the middle class, because it reflects all the events and thoughts that were ordinary in the 18th century.