Courcelle-Seneuil, francés, humanista, economista, seguidor y admirador de Tocqueville, estuvo en Chile durante seis años, fue consejero del gobierno, dictó cursos en el Instituto Nacional, y fue admirado por todos por su seriedad y experiencia. Este estudioso cumplió papeles contradictorios: mientras un autor como Lastarria lo traduce y cita a menudo para combatir el autoritarismo de los gobiernos liberales que aplican la libertad sólo en el plano económico, por otra parte, sus alumnos en el Instituto pusieron en práctica, (...) de manera extremadamente liberal, sus lecciones de economía cuando ocuparon puestos de responsabilidad. Su rigidez empujó al país a una gran crisis económica por exceso de liberalismo económico. ¿Cómo es posible que un mismo personaje y sus enseñanzas sea utilizado por un lado para combatir el liberalismo económico y por otro dé origen a posturas librecambistas, que son un antecedente del neoliberalismo? (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Art of Life and Morality Morality: Act‐ and Rule‐Utilitarianism Further Reading.

This article addresses the utilitarian theory of life's meaning according to which a person's existence is significant just in so far as she makes those in the world better off. One aim is to explore the extent to which the utilitarian theory has counter-intuitive implications about which lives count as meaningful. A second aim is to develop a new, broadly Kantian theory of what makes a life meaningful, a theory that retains much of what makes the utilitarian view attractive, while (...) avoiding the most important objections facing it and providing a principled explanation of their force. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that one of the main objectives of government expenditure on health care is to generate health. Since health is a function of both length of life and quality of life, the quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) has been developed in an attempt to combine the value of these attributes into a single index number. The QALY approach - and particularly the decision rule that healthcare resources should be allocated so as to maximise the number of QALYs generated - (...) has often been equated with the utilitarian philosophy of maximising `the greatest happiness of the greatest number'. This paper considers the extent to which the measurement and aggregation of QALYs really is utilitarian by developing a new taxonomy in order to classify utilitarianism and the different aspects of the QALY approach. It is shown that the measurement of QALYs is consistent with a number of different moral positions and that QALYs do not have to be aggregated according to the maximisation rule. Therefore it is inappropriate to necessarily equate QALYs with utilitarianism. It is shown that much turns on what in principle the QALY represents and how in practice it can be operationalised. The paper highlights the category confusion that is often present here and suggests possible avenues for future theoretical and empirical research. (shrink)

Personal utilitarianism applies act-utilitarianism to the problem of individual choice. It is based on the view that the good life is achieved through maximizing the sum of individual measures of utility over a population. the population being the sequence of semi-autonomous selves from which the individual is composed. I begin by showing how our lives can usefully be partitioned into selves because the weights put on our various choice motives are constantly changing and, consequently, our preferences themselves concerning what we (...) should choose at any given time can also change from moment-to-moment. In particular, because we put disproportionate weight on our present needs relative to our future ones, we often become impatient and choose options that offer immediate gratification. I use concepts from game theory to describe multiple selves, and to discuss how strategic interactions between selves are possible, and then conclude by considering the practical problem of how to achieve the good life, or how can we get our selves to choose what is best for us in the long run. (shrink)

Bentham and Mill and probably most utilitarians have a good deal in common with Hobbes and Spinoza as moral thinkers. For they share a commitment to deriving ethics from the actual and normal motivitations of human beings as creatures of the natural world rather than, like Kant and many religious moralists, from some transcendent realm to the requirements of which natural man has a duty to submit without expecting any help therefrom in the satisfaction of his natural inclinations. In the (...) present context I shall call all such thinkers ethical naturalists, though I do not mean this expression in any very precise technical sense, only to indicate a commitment to somehow deriving morality from natural fact. (shrink)

There is a tradition of modern French philosophy that contains valuable resources for thinking about the nature and limits of obligation and how a higher calling of life beyond obligation might be conceived. This is a tradition of an ethics of generosity whose best exemplar is perhaps Henri Bergson and that extends in our own time to the writing of Gilles Deleuze.

In this essay I examine the contribution a philosophy of life is able to make to our understanding of morality, including our appreciation of its evolution or development and its future. I focus on two contributions, namely, those of Jean-Marie Guyau and Henri Bergson. In the case of Guyau I show that he pioneers the naturalistic study of morality through a conception of life; for him the moral progress of humanity is bound up with an increasing sociability, involving both the (...) intensification of life and its expansion. In the case of Bergson I show that he also pioneers a novel naturalistic appreciation of morality, one that is keen to demonstrate morality’s two sources and so as to give us a firm grasp of the chances of a moral progress on the part of humanity. I suggest that of the two appreciations of morality Bergson’s is the richer since it contains a set of critical reflections on humanity’s condition that is lacking in Guyau. I conclude by suggesting that Bergson’s idea that modern humanity is confronted with the decision whether it wishes to continue living or not has lost none of its relevance today. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend the position that aesthetics and ethics in sport are not two separate domains or aspects. In sport, the aesthetic and the ethical both arise from sport’s attractiveness or from the pleasure sport offers to its activists and consumers. To think about sport philosophically, we should find a link and a principle beyond this division as a source of both the aesthetic and the ethical in sport. The philosophy and philosophical sociology of Jean-Marie (...) Guyau is presented as a response to this problem. Two points of fundamental importance are considered critically here: his criticism of any reductionism, and life or the idea of life as key principle of a philosophical system which puts ethics and aesthetics together. (shrink)

Utilitarianism may well be the most influential secular ethical theory in the world today. It is also one of the most controversial. It clashes, or is widely thought to clash, with many conventional moral views, and with human rights when they are seen as inviolable. Would it, for example, be right to torture a suspected terrorist in order to prevent an attack that could kill and injure a large number of innocent people? In this Very Short Introduction Peter Singer and (...) Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek provide an authoritative account of the nature of utilitarianism, from its nineteenth-century origins, to its justification and its varieties. Considering how utilitarians can respond to objections that are often regarded as devastating, they explore the utilitarian answer to the question of whether torture can ever be justified. They also discuss what it is that utilitarians should seek to maximize, paying special attention to the classical utilitarian view that only pleasure or happiness is of intrinsic value. Singer and de Lazari-Radek conclude by analysing the continuing importance of utilitarianism in the world, indicating how it is a force for new thinking on contemporary moral challenges like global poverty, the treatment of animals, climate change, reducing the risk of human extinction, end-of-life decisions for terminally-ill patients, and the shift towards assessing the success of government policies in terms of their impact on happiness. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)

Utilitarianism - a philosophy based on the principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people - has been hugely influential over the past two centuries. Beyond ethics or morality, utilitarian assumptions and arguments abound in modern economic and political life, especially in public policy. An understanding of utilitarianism is indeed essential to any understanding of contemporary society. "Understanding Utilitarianism" presents utilitarianism very much as a living tradition. The book begins with a summary of the classical utilitarianism of (...) the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Subsequent chapters trace the development of the central themes of utilitarian thought over the twentieth century, covering such questions as: What is happiness? Is happiness the only valuable thing? Is utilitarianism about acts or rules or institutions? Is utilitarianism unjust, or implausibly demanding, or impractical? and Where might utilitarianism go in the future? (shrink)

Utilitarianism is the view according to which the only basic requirement of morality is to maximize net aggregate welfare. This position has implications for the ethics of creating and rearing children. Most discussions of these implications focus either on the ethics of procreation and in particular on how many and whom it is right to create, or on whether utilitarianism permits the kind of partiality that child rearing requires. Despite its importance to creating and raising children, there are, by contrast, (...) few sustained discussions of the implications of utilitarian views of welfare for the matter of what makes a child’s life go well. This paper attempts to remedy this deficiency. It has four sections. Section one discusses the purpose of a theory of welfare and its adequacy conditions. Section two evaluates what prominent utilitarian theories of welfare imply about what makes a child’s life go well. Section three provides a sketch of a view about what is prudentially valuable for children. Section four sums things up. (shrink)

There are no egalitarians in a pandemic. The scale of the challenge for health systems and public policy means that there is an ineluctable need to prioritize the needs of the many. It is impossible to treat all citizens equally, and a failure to carefully consider the consequences of actions could lead to massive preventable loss of life. In a pandemic there is a strong ethical need to consider how to do most good overall. Utilitarianism is an influential moral theory (...) that states that the right action is the action that is expected to produce the greatest good. It offers clear operationalizable principles. In this paper we provide a summary of how utilitarianism could inform two challenging questions that have been important in the early phase of the pandemic: (a) Triage: which patients should receive access to a ventilator if there is overwhelming demand outstripping supply? (b) Lockdown: how should countries decide when to implement stringent social restrictions, balancing preventing deaths from COVID‐19 with causing deaths and reductions in well‐being from other causes? Our aim is not to argue that utilitarianism is the only relevant ethical theory, or in favour of a purely utilitarian approach. However, clearly considering which options will do the most good overall will help societies identify and consider the necessary cost of other values. Societies may choose either to embrace or not to embrace the utilitarian course, but with a clear understanding of the values involved and the price they are willing to pay. (shrink)

Drawing on the author's recent bookEthics for a Broken World, this article explores the philosophical implications of the fact that climate change – or something like it – might lead to abroken worldwhere resources are insufficient to meet everyone's basic needs, and where our affluent way of life is no longer an option. It argues that the broken world has an impact, not only on applied ethics, but also on moral theory. It then explores that impact. The article first argues (...) that the broken world creates severe difficulties for both libertarians and contractualists. It then explores the impact of the broken world on utilitarianism – and especially on reflective equilibrium arguments for rule-utilitarianism. The article concludes that, while such arguments may still be viable, the form of rule-utilitarianism that results will be less moderate and less liberal than contemporary rule-utilitarians might hope. (shrink)

The aim of this commentary is to critically examine Matti Häyry’s article ‘Just Better Utilitarianism’, where he argues that liberal utilitarianism can offer a basis for moral and political choices in bioethics and thus could be helpful in decision-making. This commentary, while generally sympathetic to Häyry’s perspective, argues that Häyry should expand on who belongs to our moral community because, to solve practical ethical issues, we need to determine who (and what) deserves our moral consideration. Challenging Häyry’s principle of actual (...) or prospective existence, this commentary suggests that – at least sometimes – the quality of life of those who will never come into existence matters. In a similar vein, this commentary aims to show that determining how to treat mindless humans such as fetuses might pose difficulties for liberal utilitarianism unless the issue of the boundaries of the moral community is addressed. (shrink)

Drawing extensively on Bentham's unpublished civil and distributive law writings, classical and recent Bentham scholarship, and contemporary work in moral and political philosophy, Kelly here presents the first full-length exposition and sympathetic defense of Bentham's unique utilitarian theory of justice. Kelly shows how Bentham developed a moderate welfare-state liberal theory of justice with egalitarian leanings, the aim of which was to secure the material and political conditions of each citizen's pursuit of the good life in cooperation with each other. A (...) striking and original addition to the growing literature on Bentham's legal and political thought, this incisive study also makes a valuable contribution to contemporary political philosophy. (shrink)

Modern utilitarianism has largely abandoned the view that human well-being consists solely in pleasurable sensations. Too much was wanting in that view for it to withstand the critique of a more refined philosophical psychology than was available to Bentham and Mill. The objections are by now familiar and need no detailed rehearsal. The older view failed to characterize adequately the structure of human satisfactions, forgetting that we can care about things that will happen after we are dead, that we generally (...) prefer to be told a distasteful truth to a comforting lie, and that we wish to be actors in our own lives and not merely passive recipients of pleasures from external sources. The extent to which a life is a flourishing one cannot be determined by summing the pleasures and pains, and calculating the balance. Nor, indeed, can it be determined by summing anything else. A life that is happy or eudaimon in the Aristotelian sense is an organic unity in which the significance of its parts rests on their contribution to the meaning of the whole. Nur im Zusammenhange eines Lebens hat ein Erlebnis Bedeutung. Utilitarianism needs to find a way of incorporating an organic view of human satisfaction. (shrink)

abstract It is generally assumed that the link between utilitarianism and vegetarianism is relatively straightforward. However, a familiar objection to utility‐based vegetarianism maintains that, given the massive scale of animal agribusiness, any given person is causally impotent in reducing the overall number of animals raised for food and, thus, in reducing the unfathomably high quantity of disutility engendered thereby. Utilitarians have frequently responded to this objection in two ways: first, by appealing to expected utility and economic thresholds, and, secondly, by (...) appealing to publicity effects. In this paper, I will offer some reasons for thinking that, however far these responses go in the direction of ethical vegetarianism, both leave an important normative gap between the dietary prescription they are capable of underwriting and a ‘minimally‐genuine’ vegetarian obligation. What is needed to close this gap is a utility‐based reason that (1) generates an ethical prescription for minimally‐genuine vegetarianism and (2) circumvents the causal impotence objection. As I see it, there is a straightforward and auspicious reason that can perform both of the required tasks — namely, an appeal to the well‐documented welfare‐reducing effects of eating animal products upon human health. For, if causal impotence is to work as a global objection to utility‐based vegetarianism (rather than as a more local objection to certain reasons supporting that position), then it must operate as a general thesis about the incapacity for any given individual to bring about more utility solely through her own abstention from consuming animal products. However, for almost any given individual, the decision to maintain a vegetarian diet is causally potent in at least diminishing the expected disutility for herself of poorer health and a shorter life span associated with the consumption of animal products. Thus, it follows that (1) there are plausible, if not conclusive, utilitarian grounds for minimally‐genuine vegetarianism and (2) the causal impotence objection fails as a general criticism of utility‐based vegetarianism. (shrink)

Critics have argued that utilitarians, by the very nature of the system they endorse, cannot maintain their integrity; and that they cannot, in the end, be individuals of the sort human beings want to be. In my dissertation I explore this criticism and argue that utilitarianism need not endanger integrity, that it need not undercut autonomy, and that it need not deny individuality of any sort. ;Bernard Williams is the major proponent of this criticism. Williams argues that a utilitarian cannot (...) maintain the commitment to projects and principles which is necessary for a person to be an individual. He cannot have what Williams calls "ground projects," projects which are so central to him that they are what give point to his life. The reasons Williams gives for this are varied, and the connections between his various criticisms are not always clear. In the thesis I first analyze the arguments Williams uses against utilitarianism. I show that Williams' arguments that a utilitarian cannot have ground projects depends on a false assumption about the emotional attachment required for a person to be committed to his projects in a way that individuates. I argue that Williams demands an emotional attachment that blinds one to rational consideration, in a way that we will find unacceptable. ;Williams offers an account of individuality which claims that utilitarianism does not allow the proper sort of emotional attachment to projects because it is too necessarily rational a system. W. D. Falk, on the contrary, offers a theory which if correct will show utilitarianism to be an insufficiently rational system. Falk argues that any moral system which declares that there are universal moral rules by which all people's behavior should be regulated undercuts the autonomy of the agents to whom it dictates. If one is to be autonomous, one must do only what one has reason to do. An agent has reason to do something only if he would be motivated to do it upon reflection. If utilitarianism does not motivate some particular agent, that agent, in order to preserve rationality and autonomy, ought not to follow utilitarianism. ;In response to these criticisms I suggest a more plausible notion of individuality which requires neither irrational emotional attachment nor Falk's subjective standard of rational choice. I then advocate a modified form of utilitarianism which does not pose the dangers to individuality which traditional forms of utilitarianism may. In this version, we broaden the notion of utility so that our evaluative beliefs are of special importance in our determination of what things have utility. When utility-maximization is construed in this way it does not pose special dangers for individuality. (shrink)

This is a book about liberal democratic values and their implications for the design of political institutions. Its distinctive feature is the use of some simple mathematical techniques (known as social choice theory) to clarify and defend a rather complex utilitarian conception of the liberal democratic 'way of life' based on John Stuart Mill's work. More specifically, the text focuses on three well-known 'social choice paradoxes' which are commonly held to destroy any possibility of an ideal harmony among liberal democratic (...) values; and draws upon suggestions implicit in Mill's writings to develop an ethically appealing liberal democratic social choice framework in which the aforementioned paradoxes no longer cause concern. The revised framework is a rather complex version of utilitarianism and should be of special interest to welfare economists, social choice theorists, democratic political theorists and philosophers concerned with utilitarian ethics. (shrink)

Utilitarianism focuses on the optimization of personal well being in ways that seems to make the practice of medicine irrelevant to the well being of the practitioners, unless given external incentives such as money or honor. Care based on indirect incentives is considered inferior to care motivated internally. This leads to the paradox of utilitarian care. Following Nozick's conceptual Pleasure Machine it is argued that in addition to the promotion of personal well being, people care about fulfilling their well being (...) in a world which is real, just, good, and beautiful. Complete mechanization of social and personal life in accordance with a strict utilitarian regime is also incompatible with the kind of world people desire, even if it promises more fulfillments in terms of personal well being. This explains the so-called Taurek-Parfit paradox, according to which sometimes ethics seems “to count the numbers” and sometimes not. The very pursuit of utilitarianism does not contribute to any personal life plan. The helping professions make the world a better place for us to live in, even though they do not necessarily bear directly on the well being of any individual other than the recipients of care. This resolves the paradox of utilitarian care. (shrink)

Between 1787, and the end of his life in 1832, Bentham turned his attention to the development and application of economic ideas and principles within the general structure of his legislative project. For seventeen years this interest was manifested through a number of books and pamphlets, most of which remained in manuscript form, that develop a distinctive approach to economic questions. Although Bentham was influenced by Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he (...) neither adopted a Smithian vocabulary for addressing questions of economic principle and policy, nor did he accept many of the distinctive features of Smith's economic theory. One consequence of this was that Bentham played almost no part in the development of the emerging science of political economy in the early nineteenth century. The standard histories of economics all emphasize how little he contributed to the mainstream of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century debate by concentrating attention on his utilitarianism and the psychology of hedonism on which it is premised. Others have argued that the calculating nature of his theory of practical reason reduced the whole legislative project to a crude attempt to apply economics to all aspects of social and political life. Put at its simplest this argument amounts to the erroneous claim that Bentham's science of legislation is reducible to the science of political economy. A different but equally dangerous error would be to argue that because Bentham's conception of the science of legislation comprehends all the basic forms of social relationships, there can be no science of political economy as there is no autonomous sphere of activity governed by the principles of economics. This approach is no doubt attractive from an historical point of view given that the major premise of this argument is true, and that many of Bentham's ‘economic’ arguments are couched in terms of his theory of legislation. Yet it fails to account for the undoubted importance of political economy within Bentham's writings, not just on finance, economic policy, colonies and preventive police, but also in other aspects of his utilitarian public policy such as prison reform, pauper management, and even constitutional reform. All of these works reflect a conception of political economy in its broadest terms. However, this conception of political economy differs in many respects from that of Bentham's contemporaries, and for this reason Bentham's distinctive approach to problems of economics and political economy has largely been misunderstood. (shrink)

The object of this article is to examine, with the work of Jeremy Bentham as the principal example, one strand in the complex pattern of European social theory during the second half of the eighteenth century. This was of course the period not only of the American and French revolutions, but of the culmination of the movements of thought constituting what we know as the Enlightenment. Like all great historical episodes, the Enlightenment was both the fulfilment of long-established processes and (...) the inauguration of new processes of which the fulfilment lay in the future. Thus the seminal ideas of seventeenth-century rationalism realized and perhaps exhausted their potentialities in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. The ideas with which this article is concerned, however—conveniently grouped and labelled as the ideas of utilitarianism—only began to achieve systematic development in these later decades of the eighteenth century. Within that period—during the first half and more of Bentham's long life—attempts to apply those ideas to the solution of social problems met largely with failure and frustration. Yet unrealized potentialities remained, the realization of which was reserved for a time when the world of the philosophes no longer existed. The movements for social and political reform which have played so large a part in modern history since the French Revolution may be judged in widely differing ways; but whatever the verdict, these movements surely cannot be understood without due consideration of that part of their origins which lies in eighteenth-century utilitarianism. (shrink)

Being targeted by Nir Eyal's ingenious argument,1 I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond. It is fairly obvious that my utilitarian argument accomplishes what it is supposed to accomplish, namely a defence of the idea that the notion of informed consent should take roughly the form it takes in Western medicine. But does it fly in the face of commonsense moral thinking? I will argue that it does not.My argument is based on hedonistic utilitarianism.2 This means that it (...) is an instance of the general pattern of argumentation that Eyal presents. It takes slightly different forms in its defence of the place of informed content in research and in the clinic. For reasons of space I will focus exclusively on the clinic.The thrust of the argument is as follows. In many cases, we should allow people to refuse treatment for the simple reason that they presumably know best what is in their interest. As J S Mill used to argue, each person has a privileged position with respect to her own life, which, as it were, she experiences from the inside, and from which she cannot walk away. …. (shrink)

Jeremy Bentham was an ardent secularist convinced that society could be sustained without the support of religious institutions or beliefs. This is writ large in the commonly neglected books on religion he wrote and published during the last twenty-five years of his life. However his earliest writings on the subject date from the 1770s, when as a young man he first embarked on his calling as a legal theorist and social reformer. From that time on, religion was never far from (...) the centre of his thoughts. In Secular Utilitarianism, James Crimmins illustrates the nature, extent, and depth of Jeremy Bentham's concern with religion, from his Oxford days of first doubts to the middle years of quiet unbelief, and finally, the zealous atheism and secularism of his later life. Dr Crimmins provides an interpretation of Bentham's thought in which his religious views, hitherto of little interest to Bentham scholars, are shown to be integral: on the one hand intimately associated with the metaphysical, epistemological, and psychological principles which gave shape to his system as a whole, and on the other central to the development of his entirely secular view of society. (shrink)

Part of the Everyman series which has been re-set with wide margins for notes and easy-to-read type. Each title includes a themed introduction by leading authorities on the subject, life-and-times chronology of the author, text summaries, annotated reading lists and selected criticism and notes.

This article examines pragmatism and hermeneutics as kindred approaches to action as they face the persistent influence of utilitarianism in social life. The essential traits of the utilitarian paradigm in action theory are presented, together with critiques of the theory, as articulated by Hans Joas (partially with Wolfgang Knöbl). Pragmatism is then presented as a response to the flaws of utilitarianism. Next, the debate with utilitarianism is traced from Joas’s pragmatism to Ricœur’s hermeneutics. Ricœur’s distinction between hermeneutics as the recollection (...) of meaning, and hermeneutics as the exercise of suspicion, is used to foreground the argument that making utilitarian claims can function as an exercise of suspicion. Finally, some implications of coordinating pragmatism and hermeneutics in this way are outlined. (shrink)

The concepts behind three of the principal normative ethical theories (utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics) are evident in a real-life scenario. This case study involves videotapes recorded from inside Grootvlei Prison, Bloemfontein, South Africa in 2002. Prisoners captured sensational footage of warders selling alcohol, drugs, loaded firearms and juveniles for sex to inmates. It was footage every journalist would want to broadcast and it was for sale to the highest bidder. The country’s three flagship current affairs programs, broadcast on three different (...) channels, were each approached to buy the footage. Each of the television channels operates under different business models: one is the public broadcaster; another a free-to-air private channel; the third is a pay channel and part of a multinational listed company. Upon analysis it is clear that each executive producer/company espoused different ethical philosophies, yet each decision was ultimately ethical. The reasoning and philosophies of three ethical theories are highlighted in business decision-making, commercial judgments as well as journalistic choices. (shrink)

I think that utilitarianism is a good moral theory, and definitely better than its rivals, deontology and teleology. For practical purposes in multicultural contexts, at least, I think that no one should overlook a theory that is able to take into account a variety of ethical views and accommodate the ever-changing facts of the material world. But utilitarianism has a bad reputation in bioethics. It is often seen as the inhumane theory that allows the sacrifice of minorities, the killing of (...) the innocent, and simplistic calculations on the value of life. Hardly anyone cares to remember that most formulations of the theory do not allow these actions. The economic doctrine sometimes labeled as utilitarianism could be guilty as charged, but ethics and economy are not interchangeable words. Also as a theory that can actually propose answers to no-win situations, utilitarianism has been an easy target for criticism. (shrink)

Mill was one of the most important British philosophers of the nineteenth century; his Utilitarianism is a pivotal work in ethical thought. This book, written specifically for students coming to Mill - and perhaps philosophy - for the first time, will be an ideal guide. Mill on Utilitarianism introduces and assesses: * Mill's life and the background of Utilitarianism * the ideas and text of Utilitarianism * the continuing importance of Mill's work to philosophy This is the first book dedicated (...) to Utilitarianism itself. Concisely written and engaging, it is perfect reading for those studying Mill or moral philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Richard J. Arneson BENTHAMITE UTILITARIANISM AND HARD TIMES IT is commonly understood that Dickens's vaguely specified criticisms of the "Hard Facts" philosophy in Hard Times are intended as criticisms of Benthamite Utilitarianism. It is also commonly held that, on the level of theory at any rate, Dickens's criticisms are in the form of caricature so crudely painted as almost entirely to misrepresent its object. ' It would be foolish (...) to deny the presence of bathos, flat caricature, and stereotyped sentiment in this novel, or for that matter in any of Dickens's novels. But alongside the flamboyantly bad there is much stronger and subtler material. In this paper I examine the criticisms of Utilitarianism in Hard Times, and argue that Dickens's arguments possess more cogency than he is usually given credit for. It will turn out that much of the intellectual interest of the novel derives from the tension between what Dickens says to us in authorial sermons and what he shows us in the structure of his plot. One complaint Dickens offers is that Utilitarians like Thomas Gradgrind oppose fact to fancy and, in their gross worship of fact and downcrying of fancy, stifle much in human beings that is essential to their flourishing. The fact-versus-fancy theme is traceable in the novel's handling of education in the Gradgrind school, of the upbringing of the Gradgrind children, and of working-class life in industrial towns such as Coketown. Here as elsewhere Dickens means to present in tandem a criticism of the "Hard Facts" philosophy and of the society which he believed increasingly to be operating on the principles of that philosophy; hence a response to Hard Times must deal with social criticism as well as philosophical critique. What exactly is it that Gradgrind thinking aims to excise from Victorian culture by its campaign against "fancy"? Critics have objected that 60 Richard J. Arneson61 Dickens's notion of fancy comprehends only playful imagination and light-minded amusement and as such cannot bear the heavy burden of argument he rests upon it.2 In many passages of the novel fancy is indeed tantamount to play. But Dickens insists on the significance of fancy for moral education and on the continuity between light fancy and the poetical imagination that heightens moral sensibility. Fancy, nurtured in a child even in the humble pursuits of nursery rhymes and fairy tales, turns into moral imagination in an adult, who is thereby enabled to place himself in thought in the position of another, intuit his way of thinking, sense his feelings, and so acquire the knowledge and the inclination to treat the other with intelligent sympathy. That Gradgrind education frustrates this natural process is Dickens's complaint against it. It is worth calling attention to the similarity between Dickens's complaint against a vaguely discerned spirit of the times and the much more focused criticism urged by J. S. Mill against Bentham in his 1838 essay in London and Westminster Review. Bentham, says Mill, lacked himself, and failed to appreciate, a certain sort of imagination— that which enables us, by a voluntary effort, to conceive the absent as if it were present, the imaginary as if it were real, and to clothe it in the feelings which, if it were indeed real, it would bring along with it. This is the power by which one human being enters into the mind and circumstances of another. This power constitutes the poet, insofar as he does anything but melodiously utter his own actual feelings.... Mill concludes that Bentham, lacking imagination and an historical sense, "saw accordingly in man little but what the vulgarest eye can see."3 And in his Autobiography, Mill acknowledges that in the Benthamite Radical circles he frequented in the 1820's, "From this neglect both in theory and in practise of the cultivation of feeling, naturally resulted, among other things, an undervaluing of poetry, and of Imagination generally, as an element of human nature."4 A sympathetic internal critic of Utilitarianism, Mill tries to retain the essentials of Bentham's secular and empiricist moral doctrine while softening its cruder aspects. Like Bentham, Mill identifies morality with furthering the greatest happiness... (shrink)

Substituting comparative censuses for the hedonistic calculus that figures in standard utilitarianism, Braybrooke excludes gratuitous sacrifices also of happiness short of life-sacrifices.

Most ethical work is done at a low level of formality. This makes practical moral questions inaccessible to formal and natural sciences and can lead to misunderstandings in ethical discussion. In this paper, we use Bayesian inference to introduce a formalization of preference utilitarianism in physical world models, specifically cellular automata. Even though our formalization is not immediately applicable, it is a first step in providing ethics and ultimately the question of how to “make the world better” with a formal (...) basis. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism continues to serve as a rich source of moral and theoretical insight. This collection of articles by top scholars offers fresh interpretations of Mill's ideas about happiness, moral obligation, justice, and rights. Applying contemporary philosophical insights, the articles challenge the conventional readings of Mill, and, in the process, contribute to a deeper understanding of utilitarian theory as well as the complexity of moral life. Visit our website for sample chapters!

John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism continues to serve as a rich source of moral and theoretical insight. This collection of articles by top scholars offers fresh interpretations of Mill's ideas about happiness, moral obligation, justice, and rights. Applying contemporary philosophical insights, the articles challenge the conventional readings of Mill, and, in the process, contribute to a deeper understanding of utilitarian theory as well as the complexity of moral life.

The idea of utility as a value, goal or principle in political, moral and economic life has a long and rich history. Now available in paperback, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism captures the complex history and the multi-faceted character of utilitarianism, making it the first work of its kind to bring together all the various aspects of the tradition for comparative study. With more than 200 entries on the authors and texts recognised as having built the tradition of utilitarian thinking, (...) it covers issues and critics that have arisen at every stage. There are entries on Plato, Epicurus, and Confucius and progenitors of the theory like John Gay and David Hume, together with political economists, legal scholars, historians and commentators. Cross-referenced throughout, each entry consists of an explanation of the topic, a bibliography of works and suggestions for further reading. Providing fresh juxtapositions of issues and arguments in utilitarian studies and written by a team of respected scholars, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism is an authoritative and valuable resource. (shrink)

For many philosophers working in the area of Population Ethics, it seems that either they have to confront the Repugnant Conclusion , or they have to confront the Non-Identity Problem . To them it seems there is no escape, they either have to face one problem or the other. However, there is a way around this, allowing us to escape the Repugnant Conclusion, by using what I will call Negative Average Preference Utilitarianism – which though similar to anti-frustrationism, has some (...) important differences in practice. Current “positive” forms of utilitarianism have struggled to deal with the Repugnant Conclusion, as their theory actually entails this conclusion; however, it seems that a form of Negative Average Preference Utilitarianism easily escapes this dilemma. (shrink)

Peter Singer has argued that there are good utilitarian reasons for rejecting the prospect of superlongevity: developing technology to double (or more) the average human lifespan. I argue against Singer's view on two fronts. First, empirical research on happiness indicates that the later years of life are (on average) the happiest, and there is no reason to suppose that this trend would not continue if superlongevity were realized. Second, it is argued that there are good reasons to suppose that there (...) will be a certain amount of self-selection: the happiest are more likely to adopt superlongevity technology. This means that the adoption of superlongevity technology will have the effect of raising the level of aggregate utility. (shrink)

Theories of distributive justice are most severely tested in the area of disability. In this book, Mark Stein argues that utilitarianism performs better than egalitarian theories in this area: whereas egalitarian theories help the disabled either too little or too much, utilitarianism achieves the proper balance by placing resources where they will do the most good. Stein offers what may be the broadest critique of egalitarian theory from a utilitarian perspective. He addresses the work of egalitarian theorists John Rawls, Ronald (...) Dworkin, Amartya Sen, Bruce Ackerman, Martha Nussbaum, Norman Daniels, Philippe Van Parijs, and others. Stein claims that egalitarians are often driven to borrow elements of utilitarianism in order to make their theories at all plausible. The book concludes with an acknowledgment that both utilitarians and egalitarians face problems in the distribution of life-saving medical resources. Stein advocates a version of utilitarianism that would distribute life-saving resources based on life expectancy, not quality of life. Egalitarian theories, he argues, ignore life expectancy and so are again found wanting. _Distributive Justice and Disability _is a powerful and engaging book that helps to reframe the debate between egalitarian and utilitarian thinkers. (shrink)

Act-utilitarianism is often criticized as an unreasonably demanding moral philosophy that commits agents to a life of ceaseless and depersonalizing do-gooding. In this essay I argue in Sidgwickian vein that the strenuousness of act-utilitarianism has been greatly exaggerated and that the practical demands of the doctrine in the contemporary world are closer to those of commonsense morality than such critics as Derek Parfit and Brad Hooker allow.

In a lively, interesting, and provocative paper Tuija Takala charges Julian Savulescu and me with bringing utilitarianism into disrepute and indeed with attempting to shoot it down, presumably in flames.1 Takala does not mince words. When she suggests that in our writings “utilitarianism is turning into the monster its critics always thought it was”, she is associating herself with those who charge us with propounding, again her words, the “inhumane theory that allows the sacrifice of minorities, the killing of the (...) innocent, and simplistic calculations on the value of life”. Perhaps surprisingly for someone who identifies herself strongly with utilitarianism, Takala seems to take the worst and most ignorant critics of consequentialism generally, and of utilitarianism in particular, at face value and suggests that because their lazy, tendentious, and misdirected attacks on those they take to be utilitarians are often made against Savulescu and me that we somehow bear responsibility for this and for any charges they make, however ill judged or poorly supported by evidence. (shrink)

Mill was one of the most important British philosophers of the nineteenth century; his _Utilitarianism_ is a pivotal work in ethical thought. This book, written specifically for students coming to Mill - and perhaps philosophy - for the first time, will be an ideal guide. _Mill on Utilitarianism_ introduces and assesses: * Mill's life and the background of _Utilitarianism_ * the ideas and text of _Utilitarianism_ * the continuing importance of Mill's work to philosophy This is the first book dedicated (...) to _Utilitarianism_ itself. Concisely written and engaging, it is perfect reading for those studying Mill or moral philosophy. (shrink)

Contrasting loving our neighbors with utilitarians’ demand to maximize good reveals important metatheoretic structures and dynamics that I call virtues- basing, input drive, role centering, and patient focus. First, love (good will) is a virtue; such virtues are foundational to both moral obligations and the impersonally valuable. Second, part of loving is acting lovingly. Whether and how I act lovingly, and how loving it is, is a matter of motivation; this input-driven account contrasts with highlighting actions’ outcome. Third, in regarding (...) someone as our neighbor we view her in relation to ourselves; a role-centered perspective shows that a wide range of person-to-person role-relationships constitute moral life. Fourth, if our moral task is loving each person, the moral question is how we respond to each person’s relevant welfare and needs, focusing on those toward someone acts (moral patients), not on maximizing good across persons or producing an optimal world. (shrink)

One point fairly frequently argued by moral philosophers is the capacity of the various forms of Utilitarianism to handle the concept of a right. I want to show that any plausible moral theory must employ a concept of a right that does not allow of Utilitarian analysis. One requirement of any plausible moral code is that it allow us to live together peacefully; in that sense, at least, morality has its home in communities. Somebody might form their own purely personal (...) 'ethical' code according to which she would devote her life to private pleasure or the production of great art or whatever, but that sort of ethical code is of no concern to me here: what concerns me is the sort of ethical code put up as a candidate for regulating the life of a community. One necessary condition of our living together peacefully in communities is that we recognise the concept of a right (whether or not we have one word for that concept) which does not allow of Utilitarian treatment. We need that concept of a right, or something that is definitive in disputes, because of our need for a conventional decision-procedure. (shrink)