Utilitarianism Beyond Bentham and Mill

1 Negative Utilitarianism...
... claims that instead of focussing on pleasure (or equally on pleasure and pain), Utilitarianism should concentrate on avoiding pain and suffering. Two arguments speak in favor of negative Utilitarianism: - “From the moral point of view, pain cannot be outweighed by pleasure, and especially not one man’s pain by another man’s pleasure.” (Karl Popper: The open society and its enemys, London 1945)[1] - “It adds to clarity in the fields of ethics, if we formulate our demands negatively, i.e. if we demand the elimination of suffering rather than the promotion of happiness.” (ibid.)

2 Hedonistic vs. Pluralistic Utilitarianism:
1.1 Hedonistic Utilitarianism:
Utility is conceived entirely in terms of happiness or pleasure. Pleasure and the freedom from pain or the only things desirable as ends. (e.g. Bentham)
2.2 Pluralistic Utilitarianism:
There are different goods that should be maximized and that are desireable as ends, such as friendship, knowledge, courage, health, beauty, some states of consciousness. All these goods have intrisic value, ie. are desirable as ends. An action than has to be measured in terms of intrinsic values it produces. (e.g. Georg Edward Moore)[2]
(Mill might be seen as a philosopher, who is somehow between the two forms, as J.J.C. Smart points out.)

3 Act vs. Rule Utilitarianism
3.1 Act Utilitarianism...
... considers the consequences of each particular act. In order to decide, what we should do, we have to apply the principle of utility to individual actions. Question to ask: “What good and evil consequences will result from this action in this circumstance?”[3]
3.2 Rule Utilitarianism:
According to rule utilitarianism, one has to act according to rules, which bring about the best consequences. “The conformity of an act to a valuable rule makes the act right.”[4]

4 Preference Utilitarianism
What should be maximized are the preferences or interests of persons. People (and other sentient beings) have interests various as not feeling pain, increasing one’s reputation and becoming more knowledgable. Intrinsically valuable is what people prefer to obtain. Preference Utilitarianism avoids the dispute between hedonistic and pluralistic utilitarianism and makes utilitarian calculations easier. (e.g. Peter Singer)

[1] See: http://www.socrethics.com/www.negutil/www.monuism/NU.htm
[2] For a short account of hedonistic and pluralistic Utilitarianism see: Beauchamp, Tom and Childress, James: Principles of Biomedical Ethics, New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 23f.
[3] Beauchamp and Childress, p. 27
[4] Beauchamp and Childress, p. 30