The Happiness Philosophers (eBook)

The Lives and Works of the Great Utilitarians

Bart Schultz (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF | EPUB

2017
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-1-4008-8495-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Bart Schultz is senior lecturer in the humanities and director of the Civic Knowledge Project at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the Universe, An Intellectual Biography.

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A colorful history of utilitarianism told through the lives and ideas of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and its other foundersIn The Happiness Philosophers, Bart Schultz tells the colorful story of the lives and legacies of the founders of utilitarianism-one of the most influential yet misunderstood and maligned philosophies of the past two centuries.Best known for arguing that "e;it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong,"e; utilitarianism was developed by the radical philosophers, critics, and social reformers William Godwin (the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft and father of Mary Shelley), Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart and Harriet Taylor Mill, and Henry Sidgwick. Together, they had a profound influence on nineteenth-century reforms, in areas ranging from law, politics, and economics to morals, education, and women's rights. Their work transformed life in ways we take for granted today. Bentham even advocated the decriminalization of same-sex acts, decades before the cause was taken up by other activists. As Bertrand Russell wrote about Bentham in the late 1920s, "e;There can be no doubt that nine-tenths of the people living in England in the latter part of last century were happier than they would have been if he had never lived."e; Yet in part because of its misleading name and the caricatures popularized by figures as varied as Dickens, Marx, and Foucault, utilitarianism is sometimes still dismissed as cold, calculating, inhuman, and simplistic.By revealing the fascinating human sides of the remarkable pioneers of utilitarianism, The Happiness Philosophers provides a richer understanding and appreciation of their philosophical and political perspectives-one that also helps explain why utilitarianism is experiencing a renaissance today and is again being used to tackle some of the world's most serious problems.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.4.2017
• Zusatzinfo: 10 halftones.
• Verlagsort: Princeton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Geschichte der Philosophie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
• Schlagworte: Aaron Burr • agnosticism • Bertrand Russell • Calculation • Cambridge University Press • Career • C. D. Broad • Chrestomathia • Colonialism • Conscience • Consciousness • Consequentialism • Consideration • Criticism • critique • Derek Parfit • despotism • Determination • Economics • Education • Epistemology • ethics • Europe • Experience machine • Explanation • Feminism • Feminism (international relations) • First principle • Font Bureau • Frank Podmore • G. E. Moore • Good and evil • Happiness • Harriet Taylor Mill • Hedonism • henry sidgwick • idealism • Ideology • Individualism • Intuitionism • Irony • James Mill • Jeremy Bentham • John Addington Symonds • John Stuart Mill • KANTIANISM • Laissez-faire • Law Reform • Lecture • Legislation • Liberalism • Literature • Martha Nussbaum • Mary Jane Clairmont • Mary Wollstonecraft • Morality • Obedience (human behavior) • of education • On Liberty • On Religion • Oppression • Pain • Pamphlet • Parapsychology • Percy Bysshe Shelley • Peter Singer • phenomenon • philanthropy • Philosopher • Philosophical Radicals • Philosophy • Pleasure • Political Economy • Political justice • Political Philosophy • Politician • Politics • Poor Law Amendment Act • Poor Laws • poor relief • positive psychology • Poverty • Practical reason • Prejudice • Principle • Principles of Political Economy • Psychological egoism • Racism • Radicalism (historical) • radical philosophers • rational egoism • reason • Religion • Requirement • Roger Crisp • Romanticism • Rule utilitarianism • Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Science • Self-Interest • seriousness • Sexuality • skepticism • Slavery • social reform • Suggestion • Superiority (short story) • The Elements of Politics • Theism • The Methods of Ethics • theory • Theory of Fictions • The Other Hand • The Subjection of Women • The Various • Thomas Robert Malthus • Thought • treatise • Utilitarianism • Wealth • well-being • William Godwin • Writing
• ISBN-10: 1-4008-8495-0 / 1400884950
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4008-8495-7 / 9781400884957