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habit of discussing philosophical questions with regard to their bearing upon matters of religious and political controversy. The British moralists who wrote with political prepossessions are interesting, not merely as contributors to speculation, but as exponents of spiritual tendencies which were expressed practically in the political agitations of their times. The See also:

HISTORY

history of utilitarianism (if we may use the term for the earlier history of a philosophic tendency which appeared See also:

long before the invention of the term) falls into three divisions, which may be termed theological, political and evolutional respectively. See also:

HOBBES, THOMAS (1588–1679)

Hobbes, when he laid it down that the See also:

state of nature is a state of See also:

war, and that See also:

CIVIL

civil organization is the source of all moral See also:

LAWS

laws, was under the See also:

INFLUENCE (Late Lat. influentia, from influere, to flow in)

influence of two See also:

GREAT

great aversions, political anarchy and religious domination. It is in a clerical See also:

WORK

work written to refute Hobbes, See also:

Bishop See also:

Cumberland's De Legibus Naturae (pub. in 1672), that we find the beginnings of utilitarianism. Hobbes's conception of the state of nature antecedent to civil organization as a state of war and moral anarchy was obviously very offensive to churchmen.

Their See also:

INTEREST

interest was to show that the See also:

GOSPEL (O. Eng. godspel, i.e. good news, a translation of Lat. bona annuntiatio, or evangelium, Gr. evayyeXwv; cf. Goth. iu spillon, " to announce good news," Ulfilas' translation of the Greek, from iu, that which is good, and spellon to announce)

gospel See also:

PRECEPT (Lat. praeceptum, a rule, from praecipere, literally to take beforehand, to give rules, instructions or orders)

precept of universal benevolence, which owes nothing to civil enactment, was both agreeable to nature and conducive to happiness. Cumberland, therefore, See also:

LAYS

lays it down that " The greatest possible benevolence of every rational See also:

AGENT (from Lat. agere, to act)

agent towards all the See also:

REST (O. Eng. rest, reste, bed, cognate with other Teutonic forms, e.g. Ger. Rast, Riiste, rest, and probably Gothic Rasta, league, i.e. resting or stopping place)

rest constitutes the happiest state of each and all. Accordingly See also:

COMMON

common good will be the supreme See also:

law "; and this supreme and all-inclusive law is essentially a law of nature. This important principle was See also:

DEVELOPED

developed by Cumberland with much originality and vigour. But his handling of it is clumsy and confused; and he does not make it sufficiently clear why the law of nature should be obeyed. He does, however, See also:

lay much stress upon the naturally social character of See also:

man; and this points forward to that treatment of morality as a See also:

FUNCTION

function of the social organism which characterizes See also:

MODERN

modern ethical theory. The further development of theological utilitarianism was conditioned by opposition to the Moral Sense doctrine of See also:

Shaftesbury and See also:

HUTCHESON, FRANCIS (1694-1746)

Hutcheson. Both these writers, more particularly the latter, had postulated in controverting Hobbes the existence of a moral sense to explain the fact that we approve benevolent actions, done either by ourselves or by others, which bring no See also:

ADVANTAGE

advantage to ourselves. There was a See also:

general feeling that the See also:

ADVOCATES, FACULTY OF

advocates of the moral sense claimed too much for human nature and that they assumed a degree of unselfishness and a natural inclination towards virtue which by no means corresponded with the hard facts. The See also:

FIRE (in O. Eng. f j'r; the word is common to West German languages, cf. Dutch vuur, Ger. Feuer; the pre-Teutonic form is seen in Sanskrit pu, pavaka, and Gr. irup; the ultimate origin is usually taken to be a root meaning to purify, cf. Lat. purus)

fire of human See also:

ENTHUSIASM

enthusiasm burnt See also:

low in the 18th See also:

CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

century, and theologians shared the general conviction that self-interest was the ruling principle of men's conduct. Moral sense seemed to them a subjective affair, dangerous to the interests of See also:

religion. For, if the ultimate ground of See also:

OBLIGATION

obligation lay in a refined sensitiveness to See also:

DIFFERENCES, CALCULUS OF (Theory of Finite Differences)

differences between right and wrong, what should be said to a man who might affirm that, just as he had no See also:

EAR (common Teut.; O.E. are, Ger. Ohr, Du. oor, akin to Lat. auris, Gr. ovs)

ear for See also:

MUSIC

music, he was insensitive to ethical differences commonly recognized?

Moreover, if See also:

mere sense were sufficient to See also:

DIRECT

direct our conduct, what need had we for religion? Such considerations prevailed where we might least expect to find them, in the mind of the idealist See also:

Berkeley. And it was another See also:

clergy-man, See also:

John See also:

Gay, who in a dissertation prefixed to Law's See also:

TRANSLATION

translation of See also:

ARCHBISHOP (Lat. archiepiscopus, from Gr. apxceatorcoros)

Archbishop See also:

King's Origin of Evil (pub. in 1731) made the ablest and most concise statement of this form of doctrine. What he says comes to this: that virtue is benevolence, and that benevolence is See also:

INCUMBENT (from Lat. incumbere, to lean, lie upon)

incumbent upon each individual, because it leads to his individual happiness. Happiness arises from the rewards of virtue. The mundane rewards of virtue are very great, but need to be reinforced by the favour or disfavour of See also:

God. Further advances along the same See also:

LINE

line of thought were made by See also:

ABRAHAM, or ABRAM (Hebrew for " father is high ")

Abraham See also:

Tucker in his See also:

LIGHT

Light of Nature Pursued (pub. 1768-74). Gay and Tucker supplied nearly all the important ideas of See also:

Paley's Principles of Moral and Political See also:

PHILOSOPHY (Gr. gthos, fond of, and vo4 (a, wisdom)

Philosophy(pub. in 1785), in which theological utilitarianism is summarized and comes to a See also:

close. Paley, though an excellent expositor and full of common sense, had the usual defect of common-sense people in philosophy—that of tame acquiescence in the prejudices of his See also:

AGE (Fr. age, through late Lat. aetaticum, from aetas)

age. His two most famous See also:

DEFINITIONS

definitions are that of virtue as " the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God and for the See also:

SAKE

sake of See also:

EVERLASTING, or IMMORTELLE

everlasting happiness," and that of obligation as being " urged by a violent See also:

MOTIVE (from Lat. movere, to move)

motive resulting from the command of another ": both of which bring See also:

home to us acutely the limitations of 18th-century philosophizing in general and of theological utilitarianism in particular. Before we proceed to the next See also:

period of utilitarian theory we ought to go back to See also:

NOTICE

notice See also:

Hume's Inquiry concerning' the Principles of Morals (pub. in 1751), which though utilitarian is very far from being theological.

Hume, taking for granted that benevolence is the supreme virtue, points out that the essence of benevolence is to increase the happiness of others. Thus he establishes the principle of utility. " See also:

PERSONAL

Personal merit," he says, " consists entirely in the usefulness or agreeableness of qualities to the See also:

PERSON, OFFENCES AGAINST THE

person himself possessed of them, or to others, who have any intercourse with him." This is See also:

PLAIN (O. Fr. plain, from Lat. plenum)

plain enough; what re-mains doubtful is the See also:

REASON (Lat. ratio, through French raison)

reason why we approve of these qualities in another man which are useful or agreeable to others. Hume raises the question explicitly, but answers that here is an ultimate principle beyond which we cannot See also:

hope to penetrate. For this reason Hume is sometimes classed as a moral-sense philosopher rather than as a utilitarian. From his point of view, however, the distinction was not important. His purpose was to defend what may be called a humanist position in moral philosophy; that is, to show that morality was not an affair of mysterious innate principles, or abstract relations, or super-natural sanctions, but depended on the See also:

FAMILIAR (through the Fr. familier, from Lat. familiaris, of or belonging to the familia, family)

familiar conditions of personal and social welfare. The rise of political utilitarianism illustrates most strikingly the way in which the value and dignity of philosophical principles depends on the purpose to which they are applied. Abstractly considered, Bentham's See also:

INTERPRETATION (from Lat. interpretari, to expound, explain, inter pres, an agent, go-between, interpreter; inter, between, and the root pret-, possibly connected with that seen either in Greek 4 p4'ew, to speak, or irpa-rrecv, to do)

interpretation of human nature was not more exalted than Paley's. Like Paley, he regards men as moved entirely by See also:

PLEASURE (through Fr. plaisir from Lat. placere, to please; Gr. rlbovii)

pleasure and See also:

pain, and omits from the See also:

list of pleasures most of those which to well natured men make See also:

LIFE

life really See also:

worth living: and he treats all pleasures as homogeneous in character so that they can be measured into equal and equally desirable lots. But his purpose was the exalted one of effecting reforms in the laws and constitution of his See also:

COUNTRY (from the Mid. Eng. contre or contrie, and O. Fr. cuntree; Late Lat. contrata, showing the derivation from contra, opposite, over against, thus the tract of land which fronts the sight, cf. Ger. Gegend, neighbourhood)

country. He took up the greatest happiness principle not as an attractive philosopheme, but as a criterion to distinguish good laws from See also:

BAD, BCD

bad.

See also:

Sir John See also:

BOWRING, SIR JOHN (1792-1872)

Bowring tells us that when Bentham was casting about for such a criterion " he met with Hume's Essays and found in them what he sought. This was the principle of utility, or, as he subsequently expressed it with more precision, the doctrine that the only test of goodness of moral precepts or legislative enactments is their tendency to promote the greatest possible happiness of the greatest possible number." These opinions are developed in his Principles of Morals and Legislation ,(pub. in 1789) and in the Deontology (published posthumously in 1834). Philosophically Bentham makes but little advance upon the theological utilitarians. His table of springs of actions shows the same mean-spirited omissions that we notice in his predecessors; he See also:

MEASURES

measures the quantity of pleasures by the coarsest and most See also:

MECHANICAL

mechanical tests; and he sets up general pleasure as the criterion of moral goodness. It makes no considerable difference that he looked for the moral See also:

SANCTION (Lat. sanctia, from sancire, to decree or ordain)

sanction not to God but to the state: men, in his See also:

SCHEME (Lat. schema, Gr. oxfjya, figure, form, from the root axe, seen in exeiv, to have, hold, to be of such shape, form, &c.)

scheme, are to be induced to obey the rules of the common good by legally ordained penalties and rewards. He never faced the question how a man is to be induced to See also:

ACT (Lat. actus, actum)

act morally in cases where these governmental sanctions could be evaded or did not exist in the particular state in which a man chanced to find himself. These principles of Bentham were the See also:

INSPIRATION (Lat. inspirare, breathe upon or into)

inspiration of that most important school of practical See also:

ENGLISH

English thinkers, the Philosophic Radicals of the See also:

early 1gth century; these were the principles on which they relied in those attacks upon legal and political abuses. From Bentham the. leadership in utilitarianism passed to See also:

James Mill, who made no characteristic addition to its doctrine, and from him to John See also:

Stuart Mill. John Mill wrote no elaborate See also:

TREATISE

treatise on the subject. But he did something better than this. His See also:

ESSAY, ESSAYIST (Fr. essai, Late Lat. exagium, a weighing or balance; exigere, to examine; the term in general meaning any trial or effort)

essay Utilitarianism (pub. in 1863) sums up in brief and perfect form the essential principles of his doctrine, and is a little masterpiece worthy to be set beside See also:

KANT, IMMANUEL (1724-1804)

Kant's Metaphysic of Morals as an authoritative statement of one of the two main forms of modern ethical speculation. Though in its abstract statement John Mill's doctrine may not differ very greatly from that of his predecessors, actually there is a vast See also:

CHANGE (derived through the Fr. from the Late Lat. cambium, cambiare, to barter; the ultimate derivation is probably from the root which appears in the Gr. «a urmu', to bend)

change.

To say that pleasure is the moral end is a merely formal statement: it makes all the difference what experiences you regard as pleasant and which pleasures you regard as the most important. Mill belonged to a See also:

GENERATION (from Lat. generare, to beget, procreate; genus, stock, race)

generation in which the most remarkable feature was the growth of sympathy. He puts far greater stress than his predecessors upon the sympathetic pleasures, and thus quite avoids that See also:

APPEARANCE (from Lat. apparere, to appear)

appearance of mean prudential selfishness that is such a depressing feature in Paley and Bentham. Moreover, it is in sympathy that he finds the obligation and sanction of morality. " Morality," he says, " consists in conscientious shrinking from the violation of moral rules; and the basis of this conscientious sentiment is the social feelings of mankind; the See also:

DESIRE

desire to be in unity with our See also:

FELLOW

fellow-creatures, which is already a powerful principle in human nature, and happily one of those which tend to become stronger from the influences of advancing See also:

CIVILIZATION

civilization." Such passages in Mill have their full significance only when we take them in connexion with that rising See also:

TIDE (O. Eng. lid, cf. Ger. Zeit, time or season, connected with root of Sanskrit a-diti, endless)

tide of humanitarian sentiment which made itself See also:

FELT (cognate with Ger. Filz, Du. vilt, Swed. and Dan. fill; the root is unknown; the word has given Med. Lat. filtrum, " filter ")

felt in all the literature and in all the practical activity of his See also:

time. The other notable feature of John Mill's doctrine is his distinction of value between pleasures: some pleasures, those of the mind, are higher and more valuable than others, those of the See also:

BODY

body. It is commonly said that in making this distinction Mill has practically given up utilitarianism, because he has applied to pleasure (alleged to be the supreme criterion) a further criterion which is not pleasure. But the validity of this See also:

criticism may fairly be questioned. Pleasure is nothing See also:

OBJECTIVE, or OBJECT GLASS

objective and objectively measurable: it is simply feeling pleased. The merest pleasure-See also:

LOVER, SAMUEL (1797-1868)

lover may consistently say that he prefers a single See also:

glass of good See also:

CHAMPAGNE

champagne to several bottles of cooking-See also:

SHERRY

sherry; the slight but delicate experience of the single glass of good See also:

WINE (Lat. vinum, Gr. oivos)

wine may fairly be regarded as preferable to the more massive but coarser experience of the large quantity of bad wine. So also Mill is justified in preferring a See also:

SCENE (Fr. scene, Lat. scaena, Gr. oflvil, a tent or booth, a stage or scene)

scene of See also:

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM (1564-1616)

Shakespeare or an See also:

HOUR

hour's conversation with a friend to a great See also:

mass of See also:

LOWER

lower pleasure. The last writer who, though not a political utilitarian, may be regarded as belonging to the school of Mill is See also:

Henry See also:

SIDGWICK, HENRY (1838-1900)

Sidgwick, whose elaborate Methods of See also:

Ethics (1874) may be regarded as closing this line of thought.

His theory is a sort of reconciliation of utilitarianism with intuitionism, a position which he reached by studying Mill in See also:

COMBINATION (Lat. combinare, to combine)

combination with Kant and See also:

Butler. ,His reconciliation amounts to this, that the See also:

RULE

rule of conduct is to aim at universal happiness, but that we recognize the reasonableness of this rule by an See also:

INTUITION (from Lat. intueri, to look at)

intuition which cannot be further explained. Even before the appearance of Sidgwick's See also:

BOOK

book utilitarianism had entered upon its third or evolutional phase, in which principles borrowed from biological See also:

SCIENCE (Lat. scientia, from scire; to learn, know)

science make their entrance into moral philosophy. The main doctrine of evolutional or biological ethics is stated with admirable clearness in the third See also:

CHAPTER (a shortened form of chapiter, a word still used in architecture for a capital; derived from O. Fr. chapitre, Lat. capitellum, diminutive of caput, head)

chapter _of See also:

Darwin's Descent of Man (pub. in 1871). The novelty of his treatment, as he says, consists in the fact that, unlike any previous moralist, he approached the subject " exclusively from the See also:

side of natural history." Theological and political utilitarianism alike had been individualistic. But Darwin shows how the moral sense or See also:

conscience may be regarded as derived from the social instincts, which are common to men and animals. To understand the See also:

genesis of human morality we must study the ways of sociable animalssuch as horses and monkeys, which give each other assistance in trouble, feel mutual See also:

AFFECTION (Lat. ad, and facere, to do something to, sc. a person)

affection and sympathy, and experience pleasure in doing actions that benefit the society to which they belong. Both in animals and in human See also:

SOCIETIES, LEARNED

societies individuals of this character, being conducive to social welfare, are encouraged by natural selection: they and their society tend to flourish, while unsociable individuals tend to disappear and to destroy the society to which they belong. Thus, in man, do sentiments of love and mutual sympathy become instinctive and, when transmitted by See also:

INHERITANCE

inheritance, innate. When man has advanced so far as to be sensitive to the opinions of his fellow-men, their approbation and disapprobation See also:

REIN

rein-force the influence of natural selection. When he has reached the See also:

STAGE (Fr. 6/age; from Lat. stare, to stand)

stage of reflection there arises what we know as conscience. He will approve or disapprove of himself according as his conduct has fulfilled the conditions of social welfare.

" Thus the imperious word ought seems merely to imply the consciousness of a persistent See also:

INSTINCT

instinct, either innate or partly acquired, serving as a See also:

GUIDE (in Mid. Eng. gyde, from the Fr. guide; the earlier French form was guie, English " guy," the d was due to the Italian form guida; the ultimate origin is probably Teutonic, the word being connected with the base seen in O. Eng. witan, to know)

guide, though liable to be disobeyed." The most famous of the systematic exponents of evolutional utilitarianism is, of course, See also:

Herbert See also:

Spencer, in whose Data of Ethics (1879) the facts of morality are viewed in relation with his vast conception of the See also:

TOTAL

total See also:

PROCESS

process of See also:

COSMIC (from Gr. Kovµos, order or universe)

cosmic See also:

EVOLUTION

evolution. He shows how morality can be viewed physically, as evolving from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; biologically, as evolving from a less to a more See also:

COMPLETE

complete performance of vital functions, so that the perfectly moral man is one whose life is physiologically perfect and there-fore perfectly pleasant; psychologically, as evolving from a state in which sensations are more potent than ideas (so that the future is sacrificed to the See also:

PRESENT

present) to a state in which ideas are more potent than sensations (so that a greater but distant pleasure is preferred to a less but present pleasure); sociologic-ally, as evolving from approval of war and warlike sentiments to approval of the sentiments appropriate to See also:

INTERNATIONAL, THE

international See also:

peace and to an See also:

INDUSTRIAL

industrial organization of society. The sentiment of obligation Spencer regards as essentially transitory; when a man reaches a See also:

CONDITION (Lat. condicio, from condicere, to agree upon, arrange; not connected with conditio, from condere, conditum, to put together)

condition of perfect See also:

ADJUSTMENT (from late Lat. ad juxtare, derived from juxta, near, but early confounded with a supposed derivation from justus, right)

adjustment, he will always do what is right without any sense of being obliged to it. The best feature of the Data of Ethics is its See also:

ANTI, or CAMPA

anti-ascetic vindication of pleasure as man's natural guide to what is physiologically healthy and morally good. For the rest, Spencer's doctrine is valuable more as stimulating to thought by its originality and width of view than as offering direct solutions of ethical problems. Following up the same line of thought, See also:

Leslie See also:

Stephen with less brilliance but more See also:

ATTENTION (from Lat. ad-tendo, await, expect; the condition of being " stretched " or " tense ")

attention to scientific method has worked out in his Science of Ethics (1882) the conception of morality as a function of the social organism: while See also:

PROFESSOR (the Latin noun formed from the verb profiteri, to declare publicly, to acknowledge, profess)

Professor S. See also:

Alexander in his Moral See also:

Order and Progress (pub. in 1889) has applied the principles of natural competition and natural selection to explain the struggle of ideals against each other within society: moral evil. says Professor Alexander, is in great part a defeated variety of moral ideal. There is no doubt that much remains still to be done in illustrating human morality by the facts and principles of See also:

BIOLOGY (Gr. Qios, life)

biology and natural history. A. See also:

SUTHERLAND, EARLS AND DUKES OF

Sutherland's Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct (pub. in 1898) is a capable piece of work in this direction. Professor L. T.

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