PHIL-P 140 Lecture 1: P140 John Stewart Mill Professor notes
Document Summary
There ought to be one, fundamental principle of morality; or, if there are several, there should be a way to rank order them where they conflict. (2r) Claim: many have accepted the same moral rules and tacitly accept a utilitarian principle grounding those rules (2r). The foundational principle of morality, the criterion of judging right or wrong actions, is the principle of utility, or greatest happiness principle (ghp): Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness (5l) Happiness : pleasure and the absence of pain (5l) Further claim: pursuit of higher" pleasures more likely to promote greater happiness amongst others, and so better for this reason, acc. to ghp. (8l) What sorts of consequences? (actual, intended, expected: what makes actions morally right/wrong is their tendency to produce pleasure or pain actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness.
