IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ovi/oviste/vxiy2011i9p273-276.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Utilitarianism – Origins and Evolution

Author

Listed:
  • Cosma Sorinel

    („Ovidius” University of Constanta, Faculty of Economic Sciences)

Abstract

The history of ethics is an essencial part of the history of philosphy. Utilitarianism is an abstract ethical doctrineat the core of which lie the concepts of pleasure and pain. This approach to normative ethics may be regarded as England’s most prominent contribution to the development of the ethical theory, since two English philosophers, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) are considered to be classical utilitarians. Bentham described utilitarianism as the greatest happiness principle. The principle of utility, forms the cornerstone of all his thought. Mill's famous formulation of utilitarianism holds that one must always act so as to produce the greatest aggregate happiness among all sentient beings, within reason. Mill's major contribution to utilitarianism is his argument for the qualitative separation of pleasures.

Suggested Citation

  • Cosma Sorinel, 2011. "Utilitarianism – Origins and Evolution," Ovidius University Annals, Economic Sciences Series, Ovidius University of Constantza, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 0(2), pages 273-276, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:ovi:oviste:v:xi:y:2011:i:9:p:273-276
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://stec.univ-ovidius.ro/html/anale/RO/cuprins%20rezumate/volum2011p2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    utility; utilitarianism; ethics; hedonism; consequentialism.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B12 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Classical (includes Adam Smith)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ovi:oviste:v:xi:y:2011:i:9:p:273-276. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gheorghiu Gabriela (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feoviro.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.