The author said that the right actions are those that produce the greatest possible balance of happiness over unhappiness.

            Is happiness the only thing that matters? This is the one of the questions asked in this chapter. Right actions are the ones that produce the most good. But then again this chapter asks what is good? The classical utilitarian reply is: one thing and one thing only, happiness. The idea that happiness is the one ultimate good is knows as Hedonism. It has always been an attractive theory because of its beautiful simplicity, and because it expresses the intuitively plausible notion that things are good or bad only on account of the way they makes us feel.

            This chapter mentioned also that Hedonism misunderstands the nature of happiness. Happiness is said that is not recognized as good. Instead, happiness is said to be a response of what we have to the attainment of things.

            Utilitarianism says that actions are defensible if they produce a favourable balance of happiness over unhappiness. Utilitarianism is said to be in some form, true.

            This chapter mentioned something about the line of defense. The first line of defense is pointing out that the examples used in antiutilitarian arguments are unrealistic and do not describe situations that come up in the real world. The second line of defense talks about how utilitarian comes into conflict with common sense. The second line of defense points out all this and proposes to save utilitarianism by giving it a new formulation. The last line of defense, the author said that admittedly utilitarianism does have consequences which are incompatible with the common moral consciousness. Our moral common sense is after all not necessarily reliable.

            Act-utilitarianism is a perfectly defensible doctrine and does not need to be modified. Rule-utilitarianism, by contrast, is an unnecessarily watered-down version of the theory, which gives rules a greater importance that they merit.