Quotes About Utilitarianism

As Western societies became more educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic, the minds of its intellectuals changed. They became more analytic and less holistic.26 Utilitarianism and deontology became far more appealing to ethicists than Hume's messy, pluralist, sentimentalist approach.

Me parece irónico que los liberales acepten a Darwin y rechacen el -diseño inteligente- como la explicación del diseño y la adaptación en el mundo natural, pero no aceptan a Adam Smith como la explicación del diseño y la adaptación en el mundo económico. Algunos países a veces prefieren el -diseño inteligente- de las economías socialistas, que en ocasiones suele acabar en desastre desde un punto de vista utilitarista.

I do not want to suggest that utilitarianism and Kantian deontology are incorrect as moral theories just because they were founded by men who may have had Asperger's syndrome. That would be an ad hominem argument, a logical error, and a mean thing to say.

Hume's pluralist, sentimentalist, and naturalist approach to ethics is more promising than utilitarianism or deontology for modern moral psychology. As a first step in resuming Hume's project, we should try to identify the taste receptors of the righteous mind.

The crisis besetting America is not just an economic or political crisis; something deeper is wreaking havoc across the land, a mercenary and utilitarian attitude that demonstrates little empathy for people's actual well-being, that dismisses imagination and thought, branding passion for knowledge as irrelevant.

It's true enough that the Victorians were grappling with heady issues like utilitarianism and class consciousness. But the finest minds of the era were also devoted to an equally pressing question: What are we going to do with all of this shit?

Here the rule-utilitarian believes that the only justifiable rules are ones that will promote the greatest happiness, when generally adhered to in a deontic fashion. Thus the rule-utilitarian rejects "deontology" as a theory of moral justification, but accepts deontic constraints as an essential element of moral action.

O]ur relationship with nature has become warped. You see, nature has acquired a purpose where we are concerned. Its task is to amuse us. It no longer exists for its own sake.

Utilitarians are often immensely conscientious people, who work for humanity and give up meat for the sake of the animals. They think this is what they morally ought to do and feel guilty if they do not live up to their own standard. They do not, and perhaps could not, ask: How useful is it that I think and feel like this?

In Europe, it's a done deal. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's social contract is being slowly but surely replaced by a life contract inspired by Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism and the "panopticon" of his surveillance state.

The examination system, and the fact that instruction is treated mainly as a training for a livelihood, leads the young to regard knowledge from a purely utilitarian point of view as the road to money, not as the gateway to wisdom.

The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.

To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality

The examination system, and the fact that instruction is treated mainly as training for a livelihood, leads the young to regard knowledge, from a purely utilitarian point of view, as the road to money, not as the gateway to wisdom.

Morala curent? este un amestec bizar de utilitarism È™i superstiÈ›ie, unde îns?, cum e È™i firesc, precump?neÈ™te componenta superstiÈ›ioas?, de vreme ce superstiÈ›ia se afl? la obârÈ™ia regulilor morale.

El lenguaje de la política -en contra de sus propias intenciones- suele ser impreciso y ambiguo, de ahí el riesgo de su transformación, por pereza mental o por motivos utilitarios, en etiquetas o fórmulas estereotipadas, en eslóganes publicitarios o simples estribillos que no dicen nada.

Es gibt immer eine Lösung, die alle glücklich macht. Die muss gefunden werden. Nicht aus Menschenliebe, sondern aus Vernunft. Größtmögliche Zufriedenheit bringt den größtmöglichen Nutzen. Auch wenn manche Leute zur Zufriedenheit gezwungen werden müssen.

Utilitarianism holds that an action, or a law, is right only if it produces the best outcome – only if it brings about the "greatest good for the greatest number.

It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.

Custom adapts itself to expediency.

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.

XinWey's Doctrine states that the most essential morality of mankind is to create the greatest amount of happiness among the greatest number of people while using the least amount of resources.

The religion of orgasm: utilitarianism projected into sex life; efficiency versus indolence; coition reduced to an obstacle to be got past as quickly as possible in order to reach an ecstatic explosion, the only true goal of love-making and of the universe.

Adam Smith, capitalism's original storyteller, "wrote that the ultimate goal of business is not to make a profit. Profit is just the means. The goal is general welfare" (Wink 1992, 68). Instead, the view of capitalism in play today tends to reduce people to economic beings driven by utilitarian self-interest toward the goal of accumulating wealth. What