Welfare Utilitarianism
Classic Utilitarianism, described by Bentham and Mill, depends on the calculus of collective net “Utility”. And in Classic Utilitarianism, and all of its variants, the concept of “Utility” is couched in terms of the individual’s subjective evaluation of pleasure, happiness, pain, misery, preferences, motives, or dispositions. In other words, Classic Utilitarianism is dependent on the individual moral agents personal and subjective evaluation of the particular conception of “utility” involved. Even Rule Utilitarianism, in its pre-evaluation of the Rules to apply, must use the collective aggregation of individual and personal assessment of “utility”.
Welfare Utilitarianism, on the other hand, bases its calculus on the notion of collective net “Welfare”. Where this concept is framed in terms of something more objectively measurable than subjective personal evaluations. The most common variant defines “Welfare” in standard economic terms. Hence Economic Welfare Utilitarianism argues that alternative that provides “the greatest good for the greatest number” comes down to the alternative that provides the greatest net economic welfare for the greatest number.
Other variants of Welfare Utilitarianism expand the “welfare” concept beyond the simple economic definition, by providing some additional measures that it is claimed standard economics does not properly deal with. Some examples include the protection of the individual by various “rights”, standards of health, and social progress (see, for example, http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/global-index/).
The primary impetus behind Welfare Utilitarianism, is to ground the calculus on objectively measurable phenomenon, so that the “Greatest Good for the Greatest Number” can be scientifically investigated independent of how (or even whether) people might happen to think about the matter.
Still, Welfare Utilitarianism is still Utilitarianism, even though it is no longer hedonistic. It still suffers all of the problems that poison Classsic Utilitarianism.
Here are a couple of essays expanding on the connection between human well-being and morality:
