Philosophy 1020 Lecture : 32. Utilitarianism.docx

• School: Western University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: Philosophy 1020
• Professor: John Thorp

Document Summary

We will meet mill again in political philosophy; he was the originator of what we loosely call liberalism, individual freedom, women s right, freedom of the press: utility. The foundation of morals is utility, or the greatest happiness principle: Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness : the idea of happiness. Presence of pleasure and absence of pain. Pleasure, or happiness, is the only thing desirable as an end (it is therefore an intrinsic good) and all other desirable things are so desired for the pleasure that they produce. These other goods are simply means towards pleasure (and are therefore instrumental goods. ) This is opposed to asceticism, a moral principle that seems to find pain and discomfort to be good things: the hedonic calculus. For any act, determine the amount of pleasure it will immediately produce. Then sum the results for the individual.