Final answer:
Utilitarianism is the philosophy that right actions bring happiness and wrong actions bring sadness, aiming for the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
Step-by-step explanation:
A philosophy that something that is right brings happiness, while something that is wrong brings sadness or despair is known as utilitarianism. This belief system is a form of consequentialism, which holds that the moral rightness of an action is determined by its outcomes. In the case of utilitarianism, the right action is the one that results in the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are two classical proponents of this philosophy. They argue that maximizing happiness (or utility) and minimizing unhappiness should be the underlying goal of society and government. This principle is known as the greatest happiness principle or the principle of utility.