An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation Jeremy Bentham,
Publisher: General Books LLC
ISBN: 021717308X
Edition: Paperback; 2009-08-09
Summary:
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for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AN
INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND LEGISLATION. CHAPTER I.
OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY. I. Nature has placed mankind under the
governance of two Mankind sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is
for them aloneto By pain and point nut what wg nnlit t,o p, as well
as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of
right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are
fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say,
in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our
subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a
man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain
subject to it all the while. The principle of utilityl recognises 1
Note by the Author, July 1822. To this denomination has of late been
added, or substituted, the greatest happiness or greatest felicity
principle: this for shortness, instead of saying at length that
principle which states the greatest happiness of all those whose
interest is in question, as being the right and proper, and only
right and proper and universally desirable, end of human action: of
human action in every situation, and in particular in that of a
functionary or set of functionaries exercising the powers of
Government. The word utility does not no clearly point to the ideas
of pleasure and pain as the words happiness and felicity do: nor does
it lead us to the consideration of the number, of the interests
affected; to the number, as being the circumstance, which co
tributes, in the largest proportion, to the formation of the standard
here in question; the standard of right and wrong, by which alone the
propriety of human conduct, in every situation, can with propriety be
tried. This want of a sufficiently mani...
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