The Late Arrival of Utilitarianism: Why Did It Take So Long?

They say common sense ain’t so common.

That’s the funny part. People love utilitarianism today—maximize happiness, minimize pain.

Easy. Obvious. But somehow, philosophy took a few thousand years to write it down properly.

First came virtue ethics—because Aristotle thought the best way to live was to act like some idealized Greek dude.

Then came deontology—because Kant was convinced moral duty meant following a bunch of strict, cold rules.

But utilitarianism? The “let’s just make things better” philosophy?

That had to wait.

And that’s weird. Because nothing about utilitarianism feels unnatural.

People stumble into it on their own. So why did it take Bentham and Mill so long to bring it to life?

1. The “Enemy Problem” – Morality Wasn’t for Everyone

For most of human history, morality wasn’t about making the world better.

It was about protecting your world. Your tribe. Your kingdom. Your people.

The idea that we should maximize happiness for everyone?

Laughable.

Your enemies deserved pain, not pleasure.

That’s how things worked. It took the slow decline of constant warfare, the rise of cosmopolitan societies, and a few revolutions to get people thinking, “Hey, maybe those folks across the river deserve happiness too.”

2. The Lack of a Calculator – No Way to Measure Happiness

Utilitarianism loves numbers. Cold, clean numbers. Greatest good for the greatest number. Simple. But only if you can measure “good.”

For most of history, happiness was a fog.

A thing you chased but never caught. People sang about it, wrote about it, prayed for it. It was in wine, in love, in the sun warming a tired back. But nobody tried to pin it down with a formula.

Then science came stomping in.

Industrialization. Steam. Factories spitting out progress. The world became gears and levers, steel and soot.

If you could measure profits, coal, and miles of railroad track, why not happiness too?

Bentham thought you could. Bentham, who dreamed in numbers. Bentham, who designed the Panopticon—a prison where the watched never knew if they were being watched.

A man who wanted to weigh pleasure and pain like a banker counting coins.

So he turned ethics into an equation.

Pain minus pleasure. Suffering divided by joy. If the math worked, the world would be better. Cleaner. More efficient.

But real life doesn’t fit on a ledger.

Because who decides what happiness is worth?

How much laughter equals one broken heart?

How many full bellies erase a dream deferred? Numbers don’t answer that. They never have. But people keep trying.

3. The Religion Roadblock – Suffering Was Holy

For centuries, suffering wasn’t a thing to be avoided. It was noble.

Saints suffered. Martyrs suffered. Buddha left his palace because suffering was the thing to understand. Christianity practically runs on the idea that pain leads to salvation.

Then, a few thinkers had the audacity to ask: What if suffering is just… bad?

What if we should stop it instead of glorifying it? That was a long, slow shift.

But once it happened, utilitarianism had a clear runway.

4. Retribution Was King – And Mercy Was for Fools

People like justice. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Someone wrongs you? You hit them back. Harder, if possible. That’s how justice functioned for most of history.

Utilitarianism, though, is soft on punishment.

Why? Because it asks: “Does this actually make life better?”

Instead of throwing criminals into dungeons, it suggests rehabilitation.

Instead of revenge, it suggests progress. That kind of thinking didn’t have much of a home in ancient ethics.

5. Philosophy Was for Elites, Not the Masses

Here’s the ugly truth: the earliest philosophers weren’t exactly thinking about factory workers, farmers, or everyday people.

They debated abstract virtues, divine commands, and hypothetical duties.

Utilitarianism, on the other hand, is practical. It’s about real-world consequences.

And for a long time, philosophy didn’t care about being practical.

Not until the Enlightenment, when people started asking: “Okay, but how do we actually make life better?”

6. The Industrial Revolution – More Problems, More Solutions

Ancient ethics worked fine when people lived in villages, when life was slow and choices were few. But then came factories. Cities. Crowds. Smog.

The world grew teeth, and the old virtues weren’t enough.

Now there were machines that ran all night, children coughing in coal dust, men losing fingers to gears.

Hunger swelled. Tenements stacked up like hives. The question was no longer how to be good—it was how to fix this mess before it ate everyone alive.

Utilitarianism thrives in chaos. It steps into the wreckage, rolls up its sleeves, and starts counting.

Pain here. Pleasure there. If suffering can be measured, it can be reduced. If happiness has a price, someone can pay it.

It’s an ethic for the calculated world. A world of policies, ledgers, statistics, and systems that run whether you understand them or not.

It was a way to make morality useful. To take ethics out of the philosopher’s study and put it on the factory floor.

And modernity?

It didn’t creep in—it slammed the door open, late and uninvited.

The world was already burning when the numbers arrived.

7. The Ego Problem – Philosophers Like Complexity

There’s something about philosophers—they love making things complicated.

Utilitarianism? It’s almost too simple.

Too intuitive. “Do the thing that makes life better” doesn’t sound like deep, mysterious wisdom.

So, of course, it got ignored. For a while.

Until Bentham and Mill came along, dressed it up with enough jargon to make it respectable, and suddenly, everyone realized:

Oh, yeah. That makes sense.

Pros and Cons of Utilitarianism

Pros	Cons
Simple, intuitive, and practical	Can justify terrible things if they “maximize happiness”
Focuses on real-world outcomes	Hard to actually measure happiness
Works well in policymaking	Can ignore individual rights
Adaptable to new problems	Can lead to “ends justify the means” thinking

Conclusion: The Wait Was Inevitable

So why did it take so long?

Because morality used to be about us vs. them. Because suffering was sacred.

Because justice was about payback, not progress.

Because philosophy was an elite game.

Because we didn’t have the tools to quantify happiness.

Because we weren’t ready.

And yet, the funniest part? Even now, people resist it.

We know suffering is bad.

We know making life better is good.

And yet, we still fight over it.

We still build systems that don’t maximize well-being.

We still let our old instincts—revenge, tribalism, tradition—get in the way.

So maybe the question isn’t why utilitarianism took so long to arrive.

Maybe the question is: Why haven’t we fully embraced it yet?