PP217 Chapter 1: CONSEQUENTIALIST MORAL THEORIES Winter 2019 Medical Ethics
Document Summary
The view that the normative properties of an action or event rely only on the consequences of that action or event. These notes cover a lot of material for you to come back to when you have questions throughout the term. We will be looking mostly at consequentialism through the lens of classical utilitarianism. This view was developed by jeremy bentham (1748- 1832), and a son of one of bentham"s colleagues james mill, namely john stuart mill (1806-1873) In its original formulation, utilitarianism was intended to be central to social reform. Bentham thought a society that maximized hedonic values would be more efficient , more moral, and more knowledgeable about itself. Hedonists come in many varieties, but they all think that pleasure is the only (or at least most significant) intrinsic value. Going back to the greeks, hedonism has two generally accepted divisions: cyrenaicism and.
