PHIL 2380 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Intensive Animal Farming, John Stuart Mill, Ecological Footprint
3 Feb 2016
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Always act in such a way as to maximize the resulting happiness. Principle of utility- actions or behaviors are right in so far as they promote happiness or pleasure, wrong as they tend to produce unhappiness or pain. Argues that promoting welfare of poor is counterproductive because it encourages population growth (raises fertility rates) Malthus argued that human population would outgrow resources, and therefore population growth has the greatest influence on the environment. Resources are consequently the major limitation on human population growth. War, disease, and famine are therefore natural limits to population growth. According to malthus, therefore, helping the poor is counterproductive because it allows the population to grow instead of die from disease, starvation, or conflict. He suggested instead that people (primarily women) exercise moral restraint. Malthus"s views are recognized to contain a number of biases that absolve political or economic structures, the wealthy, and men from fault.
