UtilitarianismA renowned writer on animals offers a collection of stories about the cats he has known. |
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action admit attainable believe benefit binding force capable character ciple common conduct conse consider considerations contrary cultivated degree derive deserve desire distinction duty Epicurean Epicurus equally eral ethics evil excitement existence expediency external sanctions fact fellow-creatures give Greatest Happiness Principle habit Herbert Spencer human nature hurt idea of justice impartiality individual inflict influence injustice instinct interest mankind maxims of justice means means of happiness ment mind mode moral obligation moral right moralists motive ness noble notion of justice objects obligation of justice opinion origin pain particular person philosophical piness pleasure positive law present principle of utility proof punishment question rational regard requires right and wrong rule selfish sentiment of justice siderations social Social Statics society solely Stoic superior supposed sympathy tarian theory things tice tion transcendental treme ultimate uncon unjust utilitarian ethics utilitarian morality vated violate virtue virtuous word
Popular passages
Page 80 - ... the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.
Page 34 - All the grand sources, in short, of human suffering are in a great degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort; and though their removal is grievously slow — though a long succession of generations will perish in the breach before the conquest is completed, and this world becomes all that, if will and knowledge were not wanting, it might easily be made — yet every mind sufficiently intelligent and generous to bear a part, however small and unconspicuous, in the...
Page 17 - The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a beast's pleasures do not satisfy a human being's conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification.
Page 145 - As every other maxim of justice, so this is by no means applied or held applicable universally; on the contrary, as I have already remarked, it bends to every person's ideas of social expediency. But in whatever case it is deemed applicable at all, it is held to be the dictate of justice. All persons are deemed to have a right to equality of treatment, except when some recognized social expediency requires the reverse.
Page 22 - It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.
Page 15 - To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure, and to what extent this is left an open question.
Page 24 - Neither pains nor pleasures are homogeneous, and pain is always heterogeneous with pleasure. What is there to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and judgment of the experienced ? When, therefore, those feelings and judgment declare the pleasures derived from the higher faculties to be preferable in kind, apart from the Question of intensity, to those of which the animal nature, disjoined from the higher faculties, is susceptible,...
Page 79 - The utilitarian doctrine is that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end.
Page 93 - ... certainty; and it is because of the importance to others of being able to rely absolutely on one's feelings and conduct, and to oneself of being able to rely on one's own, that the will to do right ought to be cultivated into this habitual independence. In other words, this state of the will is a means to good, not intrinsically a good; and does not contradict the doctrine that nothing is a good to human beings but in so far as it is either itself pleasurable, or a means of attaining pleasure...
Page 7 - Bentham latterly called it, the greatest happiness principle, has had a large share in forming the moral doctrines even of those who most scornfully reject its authority. Nor is there any school of thought which refuses to admit that the influence of actions on happiness is a most material and even predominant consideration in many of the details of morals, however unwilling to acknowledge it as the fundamental principle of morality, and the source of moral obligation. I might go much further, and...