Utilitarianism

When we want to know whether a society is just or whether a life is going well, what should we measure? Income? Wealth? Reported happiness? The capability approach, developed by the Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen (b. 1933) and the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum (b. 1947), answers differently: what matters is what people are actually able to be and to do — the real freedoms they have to live the life they have reason to value. It is one of the most influential contributions to political philosophy and normative economics in recent decades, at the frontier between the two disciplines. ...

A Silent Moral Revolution In 1975, Australian philosopher Peter Singer published Animal Liberation — a book that would become one of the philosophically most practically impactful texts of the twentieth century, giving decisive impetus to the animal rights movement and motivating legislative changes in several countries. The central thesis is at once simple and radical: the exclusion of non-human animals from full moral consideration has no rational justification — it is a form of prejudice comparable to racism and sexism. ...

Few concepts have persisted across the entire history of philosophy with as much tenacity as justice. From fifth-century Athens to twentieth-century lecture halls, the question has remained essentially the same: what is just? The answers, however, vary dramatically — and it is precisely in that variation that the philosophical interest lies. This article traces the major landmarks in Western reflection on justice, from Socrates’ confrontation with Thrasymachus to the contemporary theories of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. ...

Of all the answers that philosophy has offered to the question “what is the good?”, few have been as intuitive — or as widely misunderstood — as that of hedonism: pleasure is the supreme good. In everyday usage the word conjures images of excess and indulgence, Roman banquets and moral abandon. But philosophical hedonism is something else entirely: a millennia-old ethical tradition that begins with Aristippus of Cyrene in the fifth century BCE, reaches its most refined form in Epicurus, and re-emerges in modernity as the cornerstone of Bentham’s and Mill’s utilitarianism. ...

Jeremy Bentham Founder of Utilitarianism. English jurist and philosopher; radical social reformer. His skeleton (Auto-Icon) is displayed at University College London, in accordance with his will. Key Concepts Principle of Utility: every action should be judged by its result — the greatest happiness for the greatest number Psychological hedonism: nature has placed mankind under two sovereign masters — pleasure and pain Felicific Calculus (felicific calculus): measuring pleasures and pains by intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity, extent Panopticon: circular prison where a guard can observe all without being seen — model of social control through surveillance Reform of legislation: laws must be calculated to maximize public utility Influenced by Hume — sentiments of pleasure/pain as criterion Helvétius — social happiness as the end of legislation Locke — empiricism Influenced John Stuart Mill — disciple who qualified utilitarianism Foucault — analysis of the Panopticon in Discipline and Punish Contemporary law and politics Works Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789); writings on the Panopticon. ...

John Stuart Mill Born in London in 1806, John Stuart Mill was subjected by his father, James Mill, to an extraordinarily precocious and rigorous education — designed by Bentham’s circle to form a utilitarian thinker: he learned Greek at the age of three and devoured the classics and economics in childhood. At twenty he suffered a profound existential crisis, from which he recovered partly through Romantic poetry — an experience that led him to correct the arid utilitarianism in which he had been raised. He was also an economist, a Member of Parliament, and the intellectual companion of Harriet Taylor. He became the most influential liberal of the nineteenth century. ...

Peter Singer Australian philosopher, professor at Princeton University. He is the most influential living utilitarian philosopher and one of the founders of the contemporary animal rights movement. His book Animal Liberation (1975) introduced the concept of speciesism and transformed the ethical debate on the treatment of animals. He defends a preference utilitarianism (later revised toward hedonistic utilitarianism) and applies moral philosophy to practical issues: global poverty, euthanasia, abortion, the environment, and effective altruism. ...