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From
UTILITARIANISM (1863) |
John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873 |
![[Image: J. S. Mill]](images/jsmill.gif)
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"Those who know anything about the matter are
aware that every writer, from Epicurus to Bentham,
who maintained the theory of utility, meant by it,
not something to be contradistinguished from
pleasure, but pleasure itself, together with
exemption from pain."
"The creed which accepts as the foundation of
morals utility, or the greatest happiness principle,
holds that actions are right in proportion as they
tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to
produce the reverse of happiness. By 'happiness'
is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain."
"The utilitarian standard ... is not the agent's own
greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of
happiness altogether."
"Utilitarian moralists have gone beyond almost all
others in affirming that the motive has nothing to
do with the morality of the action, though much
with the worth of the agent."
This page is:
http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~mulligan/3p82jsmill.html
Maintained by: Prof. Thomas Mulligan, Brock University, St. Catharines,
Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1