Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism argues that what is good is the promotion of pleasure and happiness (classical utilitarianism) or peoples preferences (modern utilitarianism). Jeremy Bentham suggests the idea of classical utilitarianism which argues that the ultimate pleasure or hapiness is a form of act utilitarianism. Human behaviour can be explained by physcological headonism. Pleasure is the sole good and pain is the sole evi. The rightness of an action depends entirely on the amount of pleasure it tends to produce. 

The principle of utiliity is that an action ought to be performed only if it brings about the maximum possible hapiness for those parties affected by the action. Bentham uses the quote "greatest happiness for the greatest number". This is essentially act utilitarianism. We should tally up the consequences of each action we perform, and determine on a case by case whether the act is morally right or wrong. Bentham assumed that pleasure and pain could be measured by the headonic calculus to measure the outcome. He suggested we measure specific criteria such as intentisty, duration and certainity. For each possibility we…