PHL 214 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: John Stuart Mill, Act Utilitarianism, James Mill
14 Mar 2016
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Utilitarian: general happiness of everyone: goal: maximizing the greatest happiness for the greatest number. The idea is that actions are morally better or worse depending on whether they produce pleasure or pain or more abstractly, on how they afect human well-being and happiness. Unlike egoism, utilitarian focused on the sum of individual pleasure and pains it is not my pleasure or pains that matter- but the cumulative happiness of number of people . Peter singer: derives utilitarianism from the basic idea that each person"s interests ought to be given equal consideration. The basic procedure for utilitarianism is to add up the interests of everyone who is afected by an action without privileging the interests of anyone in particular. Utilitarianism suggests that we ought to consider the totality of consequences of a policy or action. Singer, for example, wants to focus on interests instead of pleasures or happiness.
