The Greatest Happiness Principle*: T. L. S. Sprigge

Utilitas 3 (1):37-51 (1991)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

My purpose in what follows is not so much to defend the basic principle of utilitarianism as to indicate the form of it which seems most promising as a basic moral and political position. I shall take the principle of utility as offering a criterion for two different sorts of evaluation: first, the merits of acts of government, social policies, and social institutions, and secondly, the ultimate moral evaluation of the actions of individuals. I do not take it as implying that the individual should live his life on the basis of constant evaluations of this sort. For there are different levels of decision making each with its appropriate criteria. For example, we each inevitably make many of our decisions from the point of view of our own personal self-fulfilment and this cannot regularly take a directly utilitarian form, nor should the utilitarian want it to do so. His claim is at most that we should sometimes review our life from the point of view of a kind of impersonal moral truth of a universalistic utilitarian character.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 98,386

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The Common Point of View in Hume’s Ethics.Rachel Cohon - 1997 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (4):827-850.
Brief notes on reasons for action in John Stuart Mill's utilitarian ethics.Lucas Taufer - 2022 - Pólemos - Revista de Estudantes de Filosofia da Universidade de Brasília 11 (23):141-157.
Rights, Consequences, and Mill on Liberty.D. A. Lloyd Thomas - 1983 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures 15:167-180.
Ideal Utilitarianism.Susan Mary Kozal Brennan - 1988 - Dissertation, The University of Iowa

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-08-30

Downloads
73 (#239,505)

6 months
13 (#206,112)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Happiness.Dan Haybron - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Happiness and pleasure.Daniel M. Haybron - 2001 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (3):501-528.
On being happy or unhappy.Daniel M. Haybron - 2005 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2):287–317.
Six theses about pleasure.Stuart Rachels - 2004 - Philosophical Perspectives 18 (1):247-267.
What do we Want from a Theory of Happiness?Daniel M. Haybron - 2003 - Metaphilosophy 34 (3):305-329.

View all 7 citations / Add more citations