Bentham's 'Rethinking Principle Of Utility'

Rethinking Principle of Utility

What is the guideline of your behavior and what does pleasure means to you? In Bentham’s book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, he gives a detailed explanation of principle of utility, a series of principles of behaviors. He thinks it is pleasure and pain that determine what human beings should do, and the motivation of humans’ behaviors can be attributed to the pursuit of happiness or the evasion of pain. Besides, he states that a good action should increase the happiness or diminish the pain, otherwise the action will be harmful to the whole community. However, Bentham’s principle of utility is under-developed because of his oversimplification of the relationships of individual and

His ideas might be true because utilitarianism provided a fertile soil for the rapid development of capitalism under the prevailing social conditions, but some of his opinions on many factors are too simple and he overlooks the inner most of human beings by putting too much emphasis on the external elements of moral sanctions. Nevertheless, morality, as a part of the rules of society, it still has positive significance. To begin with, it gives fundamental principles to the whole society and individuals equally, which restrict the privilege of a few people and make it possible for most people to get self-improvement because everyone has desires of progress and none of them are superior to the rest of them. And since morality is the optimal choices of human behaviors considering society, it maximizes the benefits, which contributes to the maintenance of sustainability. And it is key to economy because only in a stable environment can the economy achieves sustained growth. Moreover, it points out a goal for the whole society to achieve, which gives a direction of the future society. Therefore, the development will be on purpose and more