Ethics

Utilitarianism

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John Stuart Mill

1863

Mill's brief but inexhaustible essay is the central statement of the utilitarian tradition after Bentham. Responding to critics who found utility a vulgar or unprovable standard, Mill argues that the greatest-happiness principle rests on a deeper truth about human nature: that we naturally desire not only pleasure but the higher pleasures of the intellect and the moral sentiments, and that justice is the most binding department of utility. The work distinguishes quality as well as quantity in the assessment of pleasures and offers a celebrated if contested proof of the utilitarian first principle.