Conclusion

Utilitarianism is an old idea of economics which secularized economic thinking and favored decisions on empirical foundation, consistent with the ideas of equality and human happiness. It was a movement against elitist theory and assertion of a democratic principle that each counts for one. It combines moral issues with economic issues by claiming that the moral worth of an action is determined by its contribution to maximization of sum of utilily for all individuals. At one time it made a significant contribution to development of economic thinking. In recent times, however, there has been a lot of controversy regarding definition of happiness, state interventions in the name of ideologies, and the relationship between individual and universal happiness. It has been increasingly given way to what is broadly called the behavioral economics.