Utilitarianism: A Selfless Ethical Standard of Judgement and its Relevance in Building a Just Society.

Man is not a finished product. In other word, he is both a creature and a creator, using his rational powers to actively participate in the business of creation, by constantly inventing and modifying existing things to suit his being. Man's effort to answer the question "what is moral standard?", led to a set of compelling, sometimes complementary, theories, the major ones of which includes: eudaimonism, hedonism, egoism, altruism and utilitarianism. The major concern of this paper is utilitarianism, a moral standard of judgement which holds that actions are right if they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Using evaluative research method, this paper seeks to assess this ethical standard of moral judgement to unearth its strengths and weaknesses as well as its relevance in building a just society. The discovery is that utilitarianism advocates for self-sacrifice which when embraced by every member of the society will curb selfishness as only actions that promote greatest good for the greatest numbers will be considered worthy and taken, which will ultimately play a significant role in building a just society, where the common pursuit will be actions that will promote the collective good of the human family. Materials used of this research were sourced from libraries and internet.