| Product Summary | | Format: Paperback | | ISBN: 9781425033972 | | Publisher: WWW.Readhowyouwant.com | | Publish Date: 4/10/2007 | | Buy.com Sku: 202708357 | | Item#: RCSL9R | | Pages: 148 |
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| | | The philosophy of utilitarianism can trace its origins back thousands of years but it's most famously associated with the 18th century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The basic principle of utilitarianism is that ones actions should be guided towards outcomes that create the greatest good for the greatest numbers of people. This simple guiding principle creates a host of challenging moral dilemmas. John Stuart Mill's "Utilitarianism" is the classic exposition of this simple and yet complex philosophy.
Annotation:
In UTILITARIANISM, published in 1863, Mill discusses the nuances of his foundational ethical principal that: "Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."
| Author Bio| John Stuart Mill | | John Stuart Mill's unorthodox education, a strict and rigorous tutorial program administered by his father James, had him reading Greek by the age of 3, economics by 11, and the finer points of Aristotelian logic by 12. At 16, he was so moved by the Utilitarian doctrine of Jeremy Bentham--who was a close friend of the Mills--that he "now had opinions; a creed, a doctrine, a philosophy...," one which young Mill defended in a Utilitarian Society that he founded in 1822. Yet, despite his acuity, he did not attend university nor did he ever hold a university position. Instead, with the aid of his father, Mill took a post as a clerk at the British East India Company in 1923, where he remained and in 1956 was promoted to the head of office. In this capacity, Mill found he could dedicate his leisure time to Utilitarianism, editing Bentham's five-volume RATIONALE OF EVIDENCE in 1825. Thus his reputation as a forceful thinker began to grow. However, at the age of 21, Mill fell into something of a personal crisis, where the doctrines of Bentham's Utilitarianism lost the force of their attraction for him. It was during this period that Mill discovered Coleridge and Wordsworth, opening himself to the human spirit present in works of literature--something which Bentham was inherently opposed to. This new perspective did not drive him from philosophy, however. Rather, Mill used it to inform his interpretation of Utilitarianism and to break out from under Bentham's rather narrow umbrella. With renewed vigor, Mill published many and varied articles in publications such as The Westminster Review and The London Review, on topics as diverse as politics, economics, logic, and equality of the sexes. Many of these articles he co-wrote with his wife, Harriet Taylor, who aided Mill in the formulation of his humanitarian Utilitarianism. Mill's most lasting work, ON LIBERTY, was published in 1859; his reformulation of the Benthamite creed and his contribution to political and economic philosophy continues to influence readers into the twenty-first century. |
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