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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism

Mill, John Stuart

Paperback

PhilosophyMedical Reference

ISBN10: 1725051915
ISBN13: 9781725051911
Publisher: Createspace
Published: Aug 11 2018
Pages: 40
Weight: 0.26
Height: 0.08 Width: 8.50 Depth: 11.00
Language: English
Mill took many elements of his version of utilitarianism from Jeremy Bentham, the great nineteenth-century legal reformer, who along with William Paley were the two most influential English utilitarians prior to Mill. Like Bentham, Mill believed that happiness (or pleasure, which both Bentham and Mill equated with happiness) was the only thing humans do and should desire for its own sake. Since happiness is the only intrinsic good, and since more happiness is preferable to less, the goal of the ethical life is to maximize happiness. This is what Bentham and Mill call the principle of utility or the greatest-happiness principle. Both Bentham and Mill thus endorse classical or hedonistic forms of utilitarianism. More recent utilitarians often deny that happiness is the sole intrinsic good, arguing that a variety of values and consequences should be considered in ethical decision making. Although Mill agreed with Bentham about many of the foundational principles of ethics, he also had some major disagreements. In particular, Mill tried to develop a more refined form of utilitarianism that would harmonize better with ordinary morality and highlight the importance in the ethical life of intellectual pleasures, self-development, high ideals of character, and conventional moral rules.

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