As a proponent of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham believed that the morality of an action should be determined by:

• A. Whether it enriches the person committing the act
• B. How much it contributes to the good of the majority
• C. How closely it aligns with one's religious upbringing
• D. How closely it aligns with the law

Answer: (B)

The main idea is that morality, for Bentham, is determined by the consequences of an action on overall well-being. He argued that the right action is the one that produces the greatest net happiness for the greatest number of people, focusing on utility—the balance of pleasure over pain for everyone affected—rather than on personal gain, religious upbringing, or strict adherence to law. In this view, what matters is how much good (or harm) the action creates for the majority, not how much wealth it brings to the person who acts, nor whether it aligns with a person’s upbringing or with legal rules. The other options miss the central Bentham insight by tying morality to self-enrichment, religious conditioning, or legality rather than to the overall balance of happiness across affected individuals.