Rawls’s work marked a significant shift away from utilitarianism, which was the predominant political theory in the United States and Great Britain during the 19th and 20th centuries. Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that holds that the best action is the one that maximizes overall happiness, or utility. Developed by English philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill in the mid-19th century, utilitarianism is grounded in the principle of creating the greatest good for the greatest number of people. It is a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral value of an action is determined by its outcomes or consequences. According to utilitarianism, an action is morally right if it leads to the greatest amount of happiness or the least amount of suffering for the majority of people. This approach emphasizes the well-being of society as a whole rather than focusing on individual rights or duties.

There are different forms of utilitarianism, including act utilitarianism, which assesses each individual action by its ability to produce happiness, and rule utilitarianism, which evaluates the morality of actions based on whether they adhere to rules that generally promote the greatest good. While utilitarianism has a straightforward and pragmatic approach to ethics, it also potentially justifies actions that harm individuals or minority groups if such actions result in greater overall happiness.