1. Maximizing happiness is intrinsically good

 

According to Thomas Hurka (2005) Hedonistic utilitarianism has three main features:

FIRST

“Utilitarianism identifies good states of affairs independently of claims about the right, so even pleasure in a wrong act, such as a sadist's pleasure in torturing, is intrinsically good; and these goods are always consequences in the ordinary sense of acts that produce them, that is, separate states that follow after the acts."

Utilitarianism is grounded in the basic human need to seek pleasure. 

Like Kant, Utilitarian’s believed that a moral theory should apply equally to everybody, but they believed that the best way to do this was to ground it in something intuitive, like seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.