  Utilitarian pacifists must appeal to empirical and historical data to support this rule. A utilitarian argument for pacifism could be grounded in the claim that history shows us that wars tend to produce more harm than good. As Bentham put it, “The happiest of mankind are sufferers by war; and the wisest, nay, even the least wise, are wise enough to ascribe the chief of their sufferings to that cause” (Bentham 1789, Fourth Essay)  One of the problems for consequentialist arguments against war is that judgments vary about whether war always causes more suffering than it prevents. Utilitarian defenders of the just war theory will argue that some wars help alleviate suffering, as for example, in the case of humanitarian wars in defense of human rights. 