Jeremy Bentham Quotes

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

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

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

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness.

The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected.

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

Utilitarianism is a philosophy from the olden days exploring the idea that whatever is best for the majority is the fairest.

I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.

The nineteenth century, utilitarian throughout, set up a utilitarian interpretation of the phenomenon of life which has come down to us and may still be considered as the commonplace of everyday thinking. ... An innate blindness seems to have closed the eyes of this epoch to all but those facts which show life as a phenomenon of utility

Voting has not been tough for me, for the most part, because there's guideposts about what will bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people.

Mankind have, not only in their individual character, but in their collective capacity as nations, recognized and avowed in their opinions and actions, a system of laws calculated to produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.

Immoral: Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. If mans notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of expediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other way; if actions have in themselves a moral character apart from and nowise dependent on, their consequences-then all philosophy is a lie and reason a disorder of the mind.

For the lesser evil is reckoned a good in comparison with the greater evil, since the lesser evil is rather to be chosen than the greater. .

According to classical utilitarianism, the only intrinsic good is happiness; the only intrinsic bad is pain. That implies no intrinsic value in preserving nature, that preserving an endangered plant is valuable only if it benefits humans or other animals. Intuitively, that seems wrong but perhaps I shouldn't trust my intuition here.

[U]sefulness is happiness, and... all other things are but incidental.

To what shall the character of utility be ascribed, if not to that which is a source of pleasure?

The content of scientific theory itself offers no moral foundation for the personal conduct of life.

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves. This ethical basis I call the ideal of the pigsty.

No philosophy based on an incorrect view of the nature of man is likely to produce social good.