Utilitarianism was originally proposed in 18th century England by Jeremy Bentham and others. However, the tradition of utilitarian ideas can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophers such as Parmenides. Bentham was born at a time of great scientific and social change, and there were many demands for greater democracy. He worked on legal reform and wrote "Principles of Morals and Legislation" in which he set out his ethical theory. It can be divided into 3 parts: Views on what motivated human beings, the principle of utility, the Felicific calculus.


*From the principle of utility, he found pain and pleasure to be the only absolutes in the world: "nature has put man under the governance of two sovereign masters: pleasure and pain." From this he derived the rule of utility: that the good is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. Later, after realizing that the formulation recognized two different and potentially conflicting principles, he dropped the second part and talked simply about "the greatest happiness principle".


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You know, that makes sense. For a few months I've been ranting about how there isn't any definite right and wrong, good and bad, etc etc. This actually makes sense. Someone should've told this to me earlier. =

I'm contemplating whether I should actually agree with what's typed above.


Anyway, Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism


I want don't want to get started on my holiday homework. Three Chinese comprehensions. blah.