Thus in Bentham s view the punishments prescribed by law should be proportionate to the disutility created by the crime and not based on notions of intrinsic rightness or morality. Bentham described utility as the principle that approves or disapproves of actions according to their tendency to increase or decrease an individual s pleasure. Bentham was a hedonist and so believed that pleasure is the only intrinsic good or end against which acts are to be evaluated. The net utility to all members of society for a given policy alternative is called net social utility. The utilitarian-ethical policy alternative is the one that generates the largest net social utility.
Utilitarianism also allows for the evaluation of efficiency .
There are two different efficiency criteria commonly used by economists for evaluating social policy. Economists argue that the Pareto criterion is a very difficult criterion to apply to social policy, and that it is biased toward the status quo. The Kaldor-Hicks efficiency criterion is sometimes referred to as being potentially Pareto efficient because the potential exists for those made better off under a policy change to compensate those made worse off and thus share the net benefits with all members of society. Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. This transparent framework of law and institutions must be supplemented by at least a minimum level of social capital .