Utilitarianism

In 1923, public relations pioneer Edward Bernays wrote that a public relations counsel's social value stems from bringing “to the public facts and ideas of social utility which would not so readily gain acceptance otherwise” (Bernays, 1961, p. 216). In 1973, public relations pioneer Harold Burson replaced “social value” with “corporate social responsibility” and emphasized “the role of public relations in helping corporations fulfill both their business and social obligations” (Burson, 2008, para. 2). In 2002, Burson-Marsteller London promoted its corporate social-responsibility unit as moving public relations to the forefront in addressing social consciousness and recovering from corporate scandals. More recently, news accounts and media research illustrate that public relations continues to help corporations communicate their commitment to socially responsible action.

When public relations practices produce socially useful and responsible behavior, it fulfills a Utilitarian ethic that emphasizes acting in such a way to produce the greatest good for society. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist moral theory that mandates that a person or organization voluntarily choose actions that promote happiness, or in other words, promote the general welfare or the common good. The morality of an act is based on whether the accumulated good resulting from the action outweighs the bad. Modern consequentialists, such as G. E. Moore, define those acts that contain more good than bad as intrinsic goods because all or a part of the action results in an increase of pleasure and decrease of pain. Utilitarianism's greatest strength is that it provides individuals with a practical and democratic, common-sense approach to ethical decision making (Christians, 2007; Scarre, 1996).

This lack of depth and sophistication also represents the theory's greatest weakness because it confuses ethical principles with prosocial outward actions and processes that might obscure underlying foundational and structural moral problems. Writing in 2007, media ethicist Cliff Christians contended that Utilitarianism reinforces the status quo, undermines critical thinking, and relies too much on individual autonomy, neutrality, and detachment. Critics bristle at the idea that acts are not right in and of themselves, but dependent on consequences that, more often than not, elude prediction and measurement.

Despite the theory's many flaws, even critics admit that Utilitarianism has proven remarkably [Page 954]resilient and continues to wield significant influence on Western society. Although Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) is credited with providing the modern conception of the theory, the best-known and most articulate proponent of Utilitarianism is John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). In his 1863 book Utilitarianism, Mill identified happiness as the ultimate goal of human existence.

Mill defined happiness as pleasure or the absence of pain. The rightness of an action is based on the amount of pleasure produced for society by the action. Unlike deontological theories, the focus of utilitarian ethics is on the outcome of one's action, not the act itself. An act is judged right if it produces more good than evil or more pleasure than pain. In this sense, ethics scholar William Frankena (1973) explained that the theory combines the two main concepts of ethics—right and good. The good is defined independently from the right, and the right is defined as that which maximizes the good.

...