What is utilitarianism?

Utilitarianism is an eighteenth century doctrine of ethics that virtue and goodness are based on the utility and that the end of human conduct is happiness. It is a theory that the aim of action should be the largest possible balance of pleasure over pain or the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. Thus, the theory holds that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes overall happiness. 

According to John Stuart Mill, “the creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, utility or the greatest happiness principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.” 

Bacon is a utilitarian. His outlook on life is undoubtedly utilitarian. He makes a utilitarian approach even to studies. His pragmatism is seen in his classifications of books: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” But studies do not shape a perfect man without the needed conference and writing. “And therefore if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.” He wants studies to be supplemented by practical experience. Bacon thinks that wise men put their studies to practical use. In the essay Of Studies Bacon points out that different branches of studies have different effects on human mind. He also speaks of curing different mental defects by means of an appropriate choice of studies.