The Issues in Value Theory

Utilitarianism assumed that what is good is a matter of personal preference (No. 2 in the list) but that the distribution of the good, or the means to the good (the writers thought it always a matter of means) was subject to obligation. (They had no use for esthetics, or beauty except as measured by actual desire or pleasure – they confused desire and pleasure again.) I'm not sure about Bentham (ought to read him!), having impression he thought of society as a system of “sanctions” mechanically harmonizing interests, rather than of obligations. But Albee says he recognized obligation.