Unformatted text preview:

MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu 21L.017 The Art of the Probable: Literature and Probability Spring 2008This content is in the public domain.-1-Jeremy Benthan: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)PrefaceThere is, or rather there ought to be a logic of the will as well as of the understanding: the operations ofthe former faculty, are neither less susceptible, nor less worthy, then those of the latter, of beingdelineated by rules. Of these two branches of that recondite art, Aristotle saw only the latter: succeedinglogicians, treading in the steps of their great founder, have concurred in seeing with no other eyes. Yet sofar as a difference can be assigned between branches so intimately connected, whatever difference thereis, in point of importance, is in favour of the logic of the will. Since it is only by their capacity ofdirecting the operations of this faculty, that the operations of the understanding are of any consequence. . ..Strictly speaking, nothing can be said to be good or bad, but either in itself; which is the case only withpain or pleasure: or on account of its effects; which the case only with things that are the causes orpreventives of pain and pleasure. . . .Chapter 1 Of the Principle of UtilityI. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is forthem alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one handthe 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 oursubjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure theirempire: but in reality he will remain. subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes thissubjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric offelicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead ofsense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light. But enough of metaphor and declamation: it is not by such means that moral science is to be improved. To this denomination [i.e., the principle of utility] has of late been added, or substituted, the greatesthappiness or greatest felicity principle: this for shortness, instead of saying at length that principle whichstates the greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question, as being the right and proper, andonly 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. Theword utility does not so clearly point to the ideas of pleasure and pain as the words happiness and felicitydo: nor does it lead us to the consideration of the number, of the interests affected; to the number, asbeing the circumstance, which contributes, in the largest proportion, to the formation of the standard herein question, namely, the standard of right and wrong, by which alone the propriety of human conduct, inevery situation, can with propriety be tried. II. The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work: it will be proper therefore at the outset togive an explicit and determinate account of what is meant by it. By the principle of utility is meant thatprinciple which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency it appearsto have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is thesame thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever, andtherefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government.III. By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage,pleasure, good, or happiness, (all this in the present case comes to the same thing) or (what comes againto the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whoseinterest is considered: if that party be the community in general, then the happiness of the community: if aparticular individual, then the happiness of that individual.-2-IV. The interest of the community is one of the most general expressions that can occur in thephraseology of morals: no wonder that the meaning of it is often lost. When it has a meaning, it is this.The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered asconstituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what is it?—the sum of theinterests of the several members who compose it.V. It is in vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of theindividual. A thing is said to promote the interest, or to be for the interest, of an individual, when it tendsto add to the sum total of his pleasures: or, what comes to the same thing, to diminish the sum total of hispains.VI. An action then may be said to be conformable to then principle of utility, or, for shortness sake, toutility, (meaning with respect to the community at large) when the tendency it has to augment thehappiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it.VII. A measure of government (which is but a particular kind of action, performed by a particular personor persons) may be said to be conformable to or dictated by the principle of utility, when in like mannerthe tendency which it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any which it has todiminish it.VIII. When an action, or in particular a measure of government, is supposed by a man to be conformableto the principle of utility, it may be convenient, for the purposes of discourse, to imagine a kind of law ordictate, called a law or dictate of utility: and to speak of the action in question, as being conformable tosuch law or dictate.IX. A man may be said to be a partizan of the principle of utility, when the approbation or disapprobationhe annexes to any action, or to any measure, is determined by and proportioned to the tendency which heconceives it to have to augment or to diminish the happiness of the community: or in other words, to itsconformity or unconformity to the laws or dictates of utility.X. Of an action that is


View Full Document

MIT 21L 017 - Study Guide

Download Study Guide
Our administrator received your request to download this document. We will send you the file to your email shortly.
Loading Unlocking...
Login

Join to view Study Guide and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or
We will never post anything without your permission.
Don't have an account?
Sign Up

Join to view Study Guide 2 2 and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or

By creating an account you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use

Already a member?