Secondary Source & Research Post: The History of Utilitarianism

As I stated previously,  I will be studying the history of intellectuals and ideas in the time of modern Western Civilization. Narrowing my scope, I have decided to look into the concept of “ethics” and its history throughout this time period. The article, The History of Utilitarianism, offers an in depth look at Classic Utilitarianists and their views on the subject of ethical theory. As the article starts, it lays out the precursors of the Classical Utilitarian approach with thinks and British moralists such as Richard Cumberland, John Gay, Francis Hutcheson, and David Hume, all of which were 17-18th century philosophers. Each of these men contributed some kind of work that spoke on moral obligations and ideas and would influence modern ethical thought as well as the “Fathers of Utilitarianism.” The article then gives an account of Jeremy Bentham(1748-1832) and his “utility theory” which, in short, believes that an of a person action has an overall tendency to choose pleasure over pain and that it is right, or at least not wrong. John Stuart Mill(1806-1873), who was a fan of Bentham though he disagreed with several of his points, wrote the essay Utilitarianism in which he defines Utilitarianism as a theory based on the principle that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” This theory has been criticized and it has been pointed out that it does not provide adequate protection for individual rights, and not everything is black and white and can be measured in the same standard. Henry Sidgwick(1838-1900) believed that the study of ethics is the attempt to bring coherency when deciding between one’s actions. His book, The Methods of Ethics, asserts that Modern Western people use three different methods in determining their actions, being what is best for them, what their duty is, and what could the effect of their action be. Sidgwick believed that the ordinary person do not find it necessary to choose between these methods, believing that they tend to choose one or the other, not attempting to incorporate all three. G.E. Moore(1873-1958), the last of the Classic Utilitarians the article speaks on, agreed that actions should be done for an overall good, but thought that “good” included much more that what could be considered “pleasure.” Each philosopher offers his view of ethics and builds off the last, as much of philosophy tends to do, and their works have become a influential factor in the Modern World’s policy making. What I find most interesting about the history of the individuals, is that many of them were social reformers, arguing for things like women’s rights and education, welfare, separation of church and state, freedom of expression, and the decriminalization of homosexual acts. Many of these philosophers lived in England during the 19th century, a time of large scale political reform.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/utilitarianism-history/