It does not require appeal to transcendental or religious sources. If God is dead, your church membership lapsed, and you do not have an ongoing religious practice of any sort, and you still see the need for a moral outlook, utilitarianism is just the ticket. Its third attraction is that moral issues can, in principle, be determined by empirical calculation, of consequences. Moral thought becomes empirical, and on questions of public policy, a matter of social science. . . . All moral obscurity becomes a matter of technical limitations.
Utilitarianism places a moral veneer over our silence about ethics.
He is supremely reasonable. But once again, the price of self-delusion can be high. Utilitarianism appears to avoid the controversies about the ethical character of present acts by placing the facts relevant for decisions in a future where only the outcomes, and no longer the acts, are in question. Present acts are neutral save in their consequences. We need never ask if we are doing right, so long as we survive the judgment of history.