SOURCE: Hollander, Samuel. “Utilitarianism in a Theological Context.” In The Economics of Thomas Robert Malthus, pp. 917-48. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.

In the following excerpt, Hollander explores Malthus's version of theological utilitarianism, claiming that his roles as Christian moralist and political economist were not incompatible.

I Introduction

Whether Malthus was a ‘Utilitarian’ is still a debated issue. D. P. O'Brien, for example, maintains that ‘only the two Mills, part from Bentham himself, were really Utilitarians' (1975, 25). Against this we have the view of Lord Robbins: ‘The principle that the test of policy is to be its effect on human happiness … is common to all the English Classical Economists. We get the picture badly out of focus if we conceive that reliance on the principle of utility was confined to Bentham and his immediate circle’ (1952, 177). The justice of Robbins's perspective has been demonstrated in chapter 18 with specific reference to...