Pete Woodcock - Political Theory

Bentham on the happiness principle,From Bentham, J. (2012) An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. New York: Cosimo Classics, p. 1

To this denomination has of late been added, or substituted, the greatest happiness or greatest felicity principle: this for shortness, instead of saying at length that principle which states the greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question, as being the right and proper, and only right and proper and universally desirable, end of human action: of human action in every situation, and in particular in that of a functionary or set of functionaries exercising the powers of Government. The word utility does not so clearly point to the ideas of pleasure and pain as the words happiness and felicity do: nor does it lead us to the consideration of the number, of the interests affected; to the number, as being the circumstance, which contributes, in the largest proportion, to the formation of the standard here in question; the standard of right and wrong, by which alone the propriety of human conduct, in every situation, can with propriety be tried. This want of a sufficiently manifest connexion between the ideas of happiness and pleasure on the one hand, and the idea of utility on the other, I have every now and then found operating, and with but too much efficiency, as a bar to the acceptance, that might otherwise have been given, to this principle.

Question 1: Do you agree with Aristotle when he says that a ‘good citizen need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man’? Why/why not?

Question 2: Can you think of any instances whereby your duty as a citizen overrides your duty as a good man/woman?

Question 3: Where would utilitarianism leave human rights?

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