Philosophy: General Utilitarianism

General Utililitaianism

• Theory of utilitarianism devised by English Philsosopher Jeremy Bentham
• Bentham maintained that human beings were motivated by pleasure and pain, he said: "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two soverieign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do"
• Bentham believed that all human beings pursued pleasure and sought to avoid pain, and thus pain and pleasure identified what we should and shouldn't do
• Bentham developed the principle of utility: the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by its utility or usefulness
• Usefulness refers to the amount of pleasure/happiness created as a consequence of the action, and a right action is one that produces the most pleasure for the most amount of people

• Utilitarianism can be…