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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND LEGISLATION, Jeremy Bentham, 1789.
from Preface:
"Note.—The First Edition of this work was printed in the year 1780; and first published in 1789. The present Edition is a careful reprint of 'A New Edition, corrected by the Author,' which was published in 1823."
also
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Introduction_to_the_Principles_of_Morals_and_Legislation
“ . . . and in the first edition of this book I suggested that somewhere between shrimp and an oyster seems as good a place to draw the line as any. Accordingly, I continued occasionally to eat oysters, scallops, and mussels for some time after I became in every other respect, a vegetarian. But while one cannot with any confidence say that these creatures do feel pain, so one can equally have little confidence in saying that they do not feel pain. Moreover, if they do feel pain, a meal of oysters or mussels would inflict pain on a considerable number of creatures. Since it is so easy to avoid eating them, I now think it better to do so.” -Peter Singer, Animal Liberation. 1990, (171-174) http://www.wesleyan.edu/wsa/warn/singer_fish.htm
An obvious question, to which I couldn't find a ready answer in this article, is which takes precedence? The greater good for the lesser number, or the lesser good for the greater number? Or is this variable dependent on circumstance? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.151.210.84 ( talk) 09:59, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Dear Phlsph7, lying is not as complicated as torture; my ref gave explanation and the lead is the proper place because there is Utilitarian Evil in utilitarianism and people should know it. May I proceed now? Zopyr ( talk) 17:28, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
... but there are some cases - white lies or mercy lies - where it may be OK to tell lies. This is an example of 'rule-utilitarianism'; considering every single action separately is 'act-Utilitarianism'. These two forms of Utilitarianism could lead to different results: An act-Utilitarian might say that telling a lie in a particular case did lead to the best results for everyone involved and for society as a whole, while a rule-Utilitarian might argue that since lying made society a less happy place, it was wrong to tell lies, even in this particular case.
Every system needs key phrases that briefly describe it. May I proceed now? Zopyr ( talk) 09:25, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Utilitarianism article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives:
Index,
1,
2Auto-archiving period: 100 days
![]() |
![]() | This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
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|
Priority 1 (top)
|
Index
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This page has archives. Sections older than 100 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND LEGISLATION, Jeremy Bentham, 1789.
from Preface:
"Note.—The First Edition of this work was printed in the year 1780; and first published in 1789. The present Edition is a careful reprint of 'A New Edition, corrected by the Author,' which was published in 1823."
also
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Introduction_to_the_Principles_of_Morals_and_Legislation
“ . . . and in the first edition of this book I suggested that somewhere between shrimp and an oyster seems as good a place to draw the line as any. Accordingly, I continued occasionally to eat oysters, scallops, and mussels for some time after I became in every other respect, a vegetarian. But while one cannot with any confidence say that these creatures do feel pain, so one can equally have little confidence in saying that they do not feel pain. Moreover, if they do feel pain, a meal of oysters or mussels would inflict pain on a considerable number of creatures. Since it is so easy to avoid eating them, I now think it better to do so.” -Peter Singer, Animal Liberation. 1990, (171-174) http://www.wesleyan.edu/wsa/warn/singer_fish.htm
An obvious question, to which I couldn't find a ready answer in this article, is which takes precedence? The greater good for the lesser number, or the lesser good for the greater number? Or is this variable dependent on circumstance? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.151.210.84 ( talk) 09:59, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Dear Phlsph7, lying is not as complicated as torture; my ref gave explanation and the lead is the proper place because there is Utilitarian Evil in utilitarianism and people should know it. May I proceed now? Zopyr ( talk) 17:28, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
... but there are some cases - white lies or mercy lies - where it may be OK to tell lies. This is an example of 'rule-utilitarianism'; considering every single action separately is 'act-Utilitarianism'. These two forms of Utilitarianism could lead to different results: An act-Utilitarian might say that telling a lie in a particular case did lead to the best results for everyone involved and for society as a whole, while a rule-Utilitarian might argue that since lying made society a less happy place, it was wrong to tell lies, even in this particular case.
Every system needs key phrases that briefly describe it. May I proceed now? Zopyr ( talk) 09:25, 3 April 2024 (UTC)