a)      Definition of utility:

By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, (all this in the present case comes to the same thing) or (what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered: if that party be the community in general, then the happiness of the community: if a particular individual, then the happiness of that individual.

b)      The principle on which it is based:

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and

pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine

what we shall do.

c)      The way in which utility can affect policies:

A measure of government (which is but a particular kind of action, performed

by a particular person or persons) may be said to be conformable to or dictated by the

principle of utility, when in like manner the tendency which it has to augment the

happiness of the community is greater than any which it has to diminish it.