Abstract

This study traces the fundamental stages of Benedetto Croce’s moral thought, focusing on the concept of ‘ethical-utility’ (etico-utile). In his texts, Croce understands utility as inseparable from morality. Moral action is good precisely because it is first and foremost useful. He distinguishes between a merely personal utility (which is the basis of all economic and moral action) and a utility that may develop into universal-utility (ethical- utility). Compared to the economic individual who aims at private profit, the moral person would instead tend to privilege the profit that concerns the ‘greater number’, going so far as to make his own individual interest coincide with interest in the universal good. The pursuit of common utility thus seems to be the distinctive attitude of morality (and also of politics). This utility, in favour of the interest of the community does not mean altruism; rather, the moral act requires to be put before any personal interest and the interest of others, in order to favour, ultimately, only that of the Spirit. This concept of ‘ethical-utility’, theorised by the Neapolitan thinker, seems to have been materialised in the only political-legislative act, promoted by Croce himself: the law for the protection of the Italian landscape heritage (no. 778 of 11 May 1922). Croce’s law is in fact characterised by a defence of the national cultural and environmental heritage motivated precisely by the concept of the latter’s ‘public interest’.