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Utilitarians
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals. In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the greatest good for the greatest number. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different characterizations, the basic idea that underpins them all is, in some sense, to maximize utility, which is often defined in terms of well-being or related concepts. For instance, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, described ''utility'' as the capacity of actions or objects to produce benefits, such as pleasure, happiness, and good, or to prevent harm, such as pain and unhappiness, to those affected. Utilitarianism is a version of consequentialism, which states that the consequences of any action are the only standard of right and wrong. Unlike other forms of consequentialism, such as egoism and altruism, egalitarian utilitarian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (; 4 February Dual dating, 1747/8 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. [15 February 1748 Old Style and New Style dates, N.S.] – 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. Bentham defined as the "fundamental axiom" of his philosophy the principle that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong." He became a leading theorist in Anglo-Americans, Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. He advocated Individualism, individual and economic freedoms, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and (in an unpublished essay) the decriminalizing of homosexual acts. He called for the abolitionism, abolition of slavery, capital punishment#Abolition of capital punishment, capital punishment, and physical punishment, includ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century" by the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', he conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control. He advocated political and social reforms such as proportional representation, the emancipation of women, and the development of labour organisations and farm cooperatives. The ''Columbia Encyclopedia'' describes Mill as occasionally coming "close to socialism, a theory repugnant to his predecessors". He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor Jeremy Bentham. He contributed to the investigation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer's work specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He wrote the book ''Animal Liberation (book), Animal Liberation'' (1975), in which he argues for vegetarianism, and the essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", which argues the moral imperative of donating to help the poor around the world. For most of his career, he was a preference utilitarian. He revealed in ''The Point of View of the Universe'' (2014), coauthored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, that he had become a hedonistic utilitarian. On two occasions, Singer served as chair of the philosophy department at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996, he stood unsuccessfully as a Australian Greens, Greens candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004, Singer was recognise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethical Philosophy
Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied ethics, and metaethics. Normative ethics aims to find general principles that govern how people should act. Applied ethics examines concrete ethical problems in real-life situations, such as abortion, treatment of animals, and business practices. Metaethics explores the underlying assumptions and concepts of ethics. It asks whether there are objective moral facts, how moral knowledge is possible, and how moral judgments motivate people. Influential normative theories are consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. According to consequentialists, an act is right if it leads to the best consequences. Deontologists focus on acts themselves, saying that they must adhere to duties, like telling the truth and keeping promises. Virtue ethics se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Sidgwick
Henry Sidgwick (; 31 May 1838 – 28 August 1900) was an English Utilitarianism, utilitarian philosopher and economist and is best known in philosophy for his utilitarian treatise ''The Methods of Ethics''. His work in economics has also had a lasting influence. He was the Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy, Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1883 until his death. He was one of the founders and first president of the Society for Psychical Research and a member of the Metaphysical Society and promoted the higher education of women. In 1875, with Millicent Garrett Fawcett, he co-founded Newnham College, a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It was the second Cambridge college to admit women, after Girton College, Cambridge, Girton College. In 1856, Sidgwick joined the Cambridge Apostles intellectual secret society. Biography Henry Sidgwick was born at Skipton in Yorkshire, where his father, the Reverend W. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Happiness
Happiness is a complex and multifaceted emotion that encompasses a range of positive feelings, from contentment to intense joy. It is often associated with positive life experiences, such as achieving goals, spending time with loved ones, or engaging in enjoyable activities. However, happiness can also arise spontaneously, without any apparent external cause. Happiness is closely linked to well-being and overall life satisfaction. Studies have shown that individuals who experience higher levels of happiness tend to have better physical and mental health, stronger social relationships, and greater resilience in the face of adversity. The pursuit of happiness has been a central theme in philosophy and psychology for centuries. While there is no single, universally accepted definition of happiness, it is generally understood to be a state of mind characterized by positive emotions, a sense of purpose, and a feeling of fulfillment. Definitions "Happiness" is subject to deb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rule Utilitarianism
Rule utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that says an action is right as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good, or that "the rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the correctness of the rule of which it is an instance". Philosophers Richard Brandt and Brad Hooker are major proponents of such an approach. For rule utilitarians, the correctness of a rule is determined by the amount of good it brings about when followed. In contrast, Act utilitarianism, act utilitarians judge an act in terms of the consequences of that act alone (such as stopping at a red light), rather than judging whether it faithfully adhered to the rule of which it was an instance (such as, "always stop at red lights"). Rule utilitarians argue that following rules that tend to lead to the greatest good will have better consequences overall than allowing exceptions to be made in individual instances, even if better consequences can be demonstrated in those instances. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epicurus
Epicurus (, ; ; 341–270 BC) was an Greek philosophy, ancient Greek philosopher who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy that asserted that philosophy's purpose is to attain as well as to help others attain tranquil lives, characterized by freedom from fear and the absence of pain. Epicurus advocated that people were best able to pursue philosophy by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends; he and his followers were known for eating simple meals and discussing a wide range of philosophical subjects at "the Garden", the school he established in Athens. Epicurus taught that although the gods exist, they have no involvement in human affairs. Like the earlier philosopher Democritus, Epicurus claimed that all occurrences in the natural world are ultimately the result of tiny, invisible particles known as ''Atomism, atoms'' moving and interacting in empty space, though Epicurus also deviated from Democritus by proposing the idea of Clinamen, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hedonism
Hedonism is a family of Philosophy, philosophical views that prioritize pleasure. Psychological hedonism is the theory that all human behavior is Motivation, motivated by the desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. As a form of Psychological egoism, egoism, it suggests that people only help others if they expect a personal benefit. Axiological hedonism is the view that pleasure is the sole source of Intrinsic value (ethics), intrinsic value. It asserts that other things, like knowledge and money, only have value insofar as they produce pleasure and reduce pain. This view divides into quantitative hedonism, which only considers the intensity and duration of pleasures, and qualitative hedonism, which identifies quality as another relevant factor. The closely related position of prudential hedonism states that pleasure and pain are the only factors of well-being. Ethical hedonism applies axiological hedonism to morality, arguing that people have a moral obligation, moral dut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Total Utilitarianism
Average and total utilitarianism (also called averagism and totalism) are variants of utilitarianism that seek to maximize the average or total amount of utility; following Henry Sidgwick's question, "Is it total or average happiness that we seek to make a maximum?". They are theories of population ethics, a philosophical field that deals with problems arising when our actions affect the number or identity of individuals born in the future. Total utilitarianism Total utilitarianism is a method of applying utilitarianism to a group to work out what the best set of outcomes would be. It assumes that the target utility is the maximum utility across the population based on adding all the separate utilities of each individual together. The main problem for total utilitarianism is the " mere addition paradox", which argues that a likely outcome of following total utilitarianism is a future where there is a large number of people with very low utility values. Parfit terms this "the rep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
State Consequentialism
State consequentialism is a modern minority theoretical interpretation of Mohist consequentialist ethics in Sinology, often intersecting with Chinese Legalism. Sinologist Fraser of the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' interprets Mohist consequentialism, dating back to the 5th century BC, as the "world's earliest form of consequentialism, a remarkably sophisticated version based on a plurality of intrinsic goods taken as constitutive of human welfare". An ancient Chinese ''State'' consequentialist might evaluate the moral worth of an action based on how it contributes to the basic goods of a more particular entity: a state, with social order, basic material wealth, and population growth valued by both Mohists and "Legalists" like Shang Yang. The term has also been applied to the political philosophy of the Confucian philosopher Xunzi. Although some scholars have argued Mohist consequentialism as a type of state consequentialism, Mohism more generally holds that right and wro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
