Early utilitarians : lives and ideals / Ken Binmore.
Binmore, K. G., 1940-
2021
B843
Available Online

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Title Early utilitarians : lives and ideals / Ken Binmore.
Author Binmore, K. G., 1940-
ISBN 9783030745837 (electronic bk.)
303074583X (electronic bk.)
3030745821
9783030745820
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74583-7
Imprint Cham, Switzerland : Springer, 2021.
Language English
Description 1 online resource
Other Standard Identifiers 10.1007/978-3-030-74583-7 doi
Call Number B843
Dewey Decimal Classification 144/.6
Summary People who put the public good before their own self interest have been admired throughout history. But what is the public good? Sages and prophets who think they know better what is good for us than we know ourselves held sway on this subject for more than two thousand years. The world had to wait for the Enlightenment that burst upon the world in the eighteenth century for an account of the public good free from the prejudices of the privileged classes. Utilitarianism is our name for this new way of thinking about morality. Francis Hutcheson encapsulated its aims by inventing its catchphrase the greatest happiness for the greatest number fifty years before Jeremy Bentham, to whom the slogan is usually attributed. But what is happiness? Why did Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill prefer to speak of utility? How did economists develop this notion? Does it really make sense to compare the utilities of different people? Bob may complain more than Alice in the dentist's chair, but is he really suffering more? Why should I put the sum of everybody's utility before my own utility? This short book asks how such questions arose from the social and political realities of the times in which the early utilitarians lived. Nobody need fear being crushed by heavy metaphysical reasoning or incomprehensible algebra when this story is told. This book argues that the answers to all the questions that the early utilitarians found so difficult are transparent when we stand upon their shoulders to look back upon their work. The problem for the early utilitarians was to free themselves from the prejudices of their time. The lesson for us is perhaps that we too need to free ourselves from the prejudices of our own time.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Online resource; title from PDF title page (SpringerLink, viewed September 21, 2021).
Available in Other Form Print version: 9783030745820
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Introduction
Shaftesbury
Hutcheson
Helvétius
Hume
Beccaria
Godwin
Bentham
Mill
Jevons
Sidgwick
Edgeworth
Hare
Rawls
Harsanyi.

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