Utilitarianism

In Benjamin Franklin — An American Life, utilitarianism is the lens through which Max Weber indicts Franklin’s morality. Weber charged that “all Franklin’s moral attitudes are colored with utilitarianism,” accusing Franklin of believing only in “the earning of more and more money combined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous engagement of life.” Isaacson’s response, as captured in the wiki page, is to redirect the attack: the cold, instrumental morality Weber describes belongs to the Poor Richard persona — Franklin’s literary mask of thrift and self-improvement — not to the man himself, who was warmer, more sociable, and more spontaneous than the maxims suggest. The episode is a small case study in how a public persona can be mistaken for the person.

Context: Utilitarianism is the ethical doctrine, associated with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, that the rightness of an action is judged by its consequences — typically the greatest happiness or utility for the greatest number. Max Weber’s famous use of Franklin in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism treats Franklin’s maxims as an emblem of a calculating, money-getting ethic.

Where this appears

• Benjamin Franklin — An American Life — Max Weber’s charge that Franklin’s morality is “colored with utilitarianism,” which Isaacson redirects at the Poor Richard persona rather than the man.