SPCOM475 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Felicific Calculus
7 Dec 2016
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The principle of utilitarianism has a goal of aiming for happiness for the greatest number of people. Happiness can be related to pleasure and contrasted with pain. Utilitarianism focuses on what we ought to do and what we ought not to do in certain situations to have the best consequences and is context dependent (35). Best action generates the most hedons (the unit of measurement of pleasure) for the most people. Need to think of each individual (it is in vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the individual) (12) Bentham: of principles adverse to that of utility. Sympathy: how we feel may make us do one thing but the behaviour is not ethical/ reasonable because you are just acting on a gut impulse.
