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Background:
Industrial
Revolution
and Rise of
Capitalism
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- That to secure
these rights [to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness],
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as
to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. (Jefferson, Declaration of Independence)
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Bentham:
Hedonistic
Utilitarianism
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- [T]he greatest
happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and
legislation.
- Moral good is good
only on account of its tendency to secure physical benefits: moral evil
is evil only on account of its tendency to induce physical
mischief.
- [W]e must
discover some calculus or process of moral arithmetic.
- Every one to
count for one and nobody to count for more than one.
- Nature has
placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, Pleasure
and Pain. To them ... we refer all our decisions, every resolve
that we make in life. ( 165)
- I am an
adherent of the Principle of Utility when I measure my approval
or disapproval of any act, public or private, by its tendency to produce
pains and pleasures. (165)
- [Q]uantity of
pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry.
- Now, if we
examine the value of a pleasure considered by itself and in
relation to a single individual, we shall find that it depends on four
circumstances: ( 1 ) Its Intensity; (2) its Duration;
(3) its Certainty; (4) its Proximity. (165)
- The day may
come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which
never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny.
... The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk?
but Can they suffer?
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J. S. Mill:
Eudaemonistic
Utilitarianism
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- It is better to
be a human being dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied; better to be
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied". (John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism,
1863
- [T]he sole end
for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in
interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self
protection. ... Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual
is sovereign. (166)
- This then is
the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward
domain of consciousness; ... liberty of thought and feeling; . . . of
tastes and pursuits; ... of doing what we like ... without impediment
from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them,
even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong.
(167 )
- We can never be
sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion;
and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. (167 )
- [I]t is as
certain that many opinions now general will be rejected by future ages,
as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present. (167)
- But much more
of the meaning ... would have been understood, and what was understood
would have been far more deeply impressed on the mind, if the man had
been accustomed to hear it argued pro and con .... (167)
- Individuality
is the same thing with development, and it is only the cultivation of
individuality which produces or can produce, well-developed human
beings. (168)
- [Drugs] may,
however, be wanted not only for innocent but for useful purposes, and
restrictions cannot be imposed in the one case without operating
in the other. (l68)
- [F]ornication,
for example, must be tolerated, and so must gambling; but should a
person be free to be a pimp, or to keep a gambling house?
... There are arguments on both sides. ( 168)
- That the
principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two
sexes -- the legal subordination of one sex to the other -- is wrong
itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and
that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equalitv,
admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the
other. ( The Subjection of Women)
- I am conscious
in myself of a series of facts connected by an uniform sequence, of
which the beginning is modifications of my body, the middle is feelings,
the end is outward demeanour. In the case of other human beings I have
the evidence of my senses for the first and last links of the series,
but not for the intermediate link....by supposing the link to be of the
same nature as in the case of which I have experience ... I bring other
human beings, as phenomena, under the same generalizations which I know
by experience to be the true theory of my own existence. (An
Examination of Sir William Harmilton's Philosophy 6th edition)
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Criticisms of
Utilitarianism
“One
man ought never to be dealt with as a means subservient to the purposes of
another.” (Kant)
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- The only proof
capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people
actually see it. The only proof that sound is audible, is that people
hear it: and so of the other sources of experience. In like
manner, I apprehend the sole evidence it is possible to produce that
anything is desirable, is that people actually do desire it. ... This
being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of
but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that
each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general
happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons. (Mill:
171)
- Juridical
punishment can never be administered merely as a means for promoting
another good either with regard to the criminal himself or to civil
society, but must in all cases be imposed only because the individual on
whom it is inflicted has committed a crime. (Kant)
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Comte:
Postive
Knowledge
& Sociology
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- Now that the
human mind has grasped celestial and terrestrial physics -- mechanical
and chemical; organic physics, both vegetable and animal -- there
remains one science, to fill up the series of sciences of observation --
Social physics. This is what men have now most need of and this it is
the principal aim of the present work to establish. (Positive
Philosophy, Ch.1)
- In the final,
the positive state, the mind has given over the vain search after
Absolute notions, the origin and destination of the universe, and the
causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws --
that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance.
Reasoning and observation, duly combined, are the means of this
knowledge. What is now understood when we spcak of an explanation offacts
is simply the establishment of a connection between single phenomena and
some general facts, the number of which continually diminishes with the
progress of science. (Positive Philosophy, Ch.1)
- From the study
of the development of human intelligence, in all directions, and through
all times, the discovery arises of a great fundamental law ... that each
of our leading conceptions -- each branch of our knowledge -- passes
successively through three different theoretical conditions: the
theological, or fictitious; the metaphysical, or abstract; and the
scientific, or positive. (Positive Philosophy, Ch.1)
- Can it be
supposed that the most important and the most delicate conceptions, and
those which by their complexity are acccssible to onlv a small number of
highly-prepared understandings, are to be abandoned to the arbitrary and
variable decisions of the least competent minds? (177 )
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