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/
An excellent overview, Griffin!
Next, you need to get into scholarly articles. This will be tricky since your focus is still extremely broad. However, you might want to focus on the development of thinking about ethics, the history of the development of the ideas about ethics, and then narrow to a theme that emphasizes a particular thread within that development. But we don’t want a philosophy paper, so your thesis needs to focus on historical connections: either why those developments took place in response to events, or how changes in intellectual development caused a new perception that changed something in reality.
Try some basic search terms on the history of ethics first – see if you can find a scholarly (and historical rather than philosophical) journal article on a step in the historical development of ethical philosophy in the modern West.
According to some of my sources, John Stuart Mill was an avid supporter of Colonizations and English supremacy. I have a copy of his work, Utilitarianism, that I still need to read through; but I’m curious how this may have factored into his philosophy. The colonization of Africa and India was tremendously profitable to the British empire and the culture of those colonized areas was greatly essentialized/fetishized during that period. I wonder if Mill had any of that in mind when establishing the premise for his good/wrong dichotomy and if contributed to the justifying British imperialism.
Also, David Hume is pretty phenomenal if you are still trying to decide on something more specific. He’s the apogee of Empiricism, and his logic is incredible. I was considering something on him or Emmanuel Kant (although, Hume is more favorable because he writes in English.)
excuse the typos
From what I’ve read of and from Mill, British Imperialism did play a large part in his foundation of beliefs. His father James Mill, an avid colonialist, had a large effect on him and J.S. Mill shared a good amount of his father’s beliefs. I’ve skimmed through Utilitarianism myself, and it looks like chapter 5, “Connecting Justice with Utility,” shares much of that world view.
I’m still attempting to do research on the overall development of ethical thinking and the philosophers behind it, so I will definitely be reading more into Hume & Kant when the time comes.