PHLA11H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, Jeremy Bentham
Document Summary
: attempt to explain, at the most general and fundamental level, what differentiates right acts from wrong acts. Three categories of moral evaluation: obligatory, permissible, or right. Impermissible, or wrong: every act is either permissible (right) or impermissible (wrong) Classic formulations: jeremy bentham; john stuart mill; henry sidgwick. In defense of utilitarianism an excerpt from mill"s book utilitarianism (1861) The happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is not the agent"s own happiness, but that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. (mill: universality. An act"s utility = the sum of all the pleasure it produces minus the sum of all the pain it produces: hedon: a unit of pleasure, dolor: a unit of pain.