Greatest Happiness Research Articles

Justice and Equality

IN HIS judicious and scholarly essay Professor Sabine has clearly indicated what lawyers and social scientists can do in the determination of justice; but I am not sure how he thinks philosophers make their contribution to the subject. If you are in doubt about the justice of action, Mr. Sabine does not direct you to the avowedly universal moral maxims of Plato, Kant, or Bentham. Rather, following his formula, you are to make a factual investigation to determine an equivalence of burdens and advantages in a relationship that is defined by rules. In this formula there is unknown, x, a blank that has to be filled in by empirical inquiry at the scene of judgment. That blank is for the specific rules defining the specific relationships of the persons whose action and treatment are to be judged just or unjust. If you suspect that the rules and relationships are in the process of changing, you will make further factual studies, as Mr. Sabine did in tracing the changing conceptions of justice in compensating workmen for accidents. The application of the formula of justice clearly calls for the fact-finding methods and the predictions of legal and social science. What I should like to have clarified is whether Professor Sabine believes that not only the application, but also the formulation, of the concept of justice is a fact-finding problem for legal and social science. Is his statement of the nature of justice empirical generalization that can be verified by examining common usage (to which he frequently refers)? The maxims of Plato, Bentham, and other philosophers are notoriously inaccurate as generalizations of common usage. If we try, as Plato did, to define justice as every man doing that for which he is best fitted, or, with Bentham, say that it is equal consideration in determining the greatest happiness of the greatest number, we are always bumping into situations where application of the maxim runs counter to common usage. The application seems unjust to us and to other persons whose judgment we respect. The maxims of the grand philosophers do not describe the actual judgments of good and competent men. As Stuart Hampshire has said:

The Benthamite Theory of Democracy

Successful political movements are frequently accompanied by, and well served by, theoretical defences of their positions which later reflection shows to be inadequate for purposes other than popular political polemics. The history of the reform movement in England in the early decades of the nineteenth century provides an excellent example. The defence of political democracy offered by Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and their followers gave the Radicals of the 1820's and 1830's their main intellectual arguments for the Great Reform Act. A close examination of this theory suggests, however, that it is inadequate in its view both of the nature of a democratic society and of the process of policy formation therein. It is, moreover, also apparent that Bentham's theory of democracy is sharply inconsistent with the main body of Benthamite doctrines.The basic problem in Bentham's political theory is a product of the manner in which he resolved a contradiction that exists between his ethical and his psychological theory. Utilitarian ethics rests on the principle that the rightness or wrongness of an act is decided by its effect on the happiness of the greatest number. Bentham's psychological theory, however, is egoistic and hedonistic. He offered no hope that a man will act other than in pursuit of his own interests, and little hope that these interests will naturally be associated with the interests of others.If this psychology is valid, individuals will choose, voluntarily, the ethically proper act only when, by chance, it coincides with that act which they perceive will maximize their own personal pleasure. Bentham realized this. As a consequence, he argued that if individuals are to be brought into harmony and if the greatest happiness is to be achieved, then legal sanctions and incentives must be introduced to influence individual hedonistic calculations in favour of acts that do not diminish the happiness of others more than they increase the happiness of the doer.

Psychology and Politics: The Freudian Connection

For roughly a century—if we take the years from Fourier and Bentham to the triumph of Freud—the study of politics concerned itself mainly with institutions. Fourier, in plotting a Utopia, took his individuals just as they were, expecting by the perfection of social arrangements to turn individual weakness and vice into virtues. Bentham also by-passed the infinite problem of the individual (this was relegated to religion) and concentrated on the finite reform of institutions; the greatest happiness of the greatest number was never the principle of an individual psychology, although since 1832 Bentham's formula has grown ironically appropriate as the individual in a mass society has become, characteristically, a quantity.

James Thomson and John Norris

In a previous article I showed that James Thomson's juvenile poem, “The Works and Wonders of Almighty Power,” was for the most part a paraphrase of certain passages in the Moralists, a philosophical rhapsody, by the Earl of Shaftesbury. Another one of Thomson's juvenile poems, “Upon Happiness,” contributed to The Edinburgh Miscellany in 1720, was inspired by a letter John Norris wrote at All-Souls College, April 18, 1683, entitled “An Idea of Happiness: Enquiring wherein the greatest Happiness Attainable by Man in this Life does consist.” In addition, Thomson was perhaps indebted to John Norris for some of the general treatment of theme found in his “Preface” to the second edition of Winter (1726).

Twelve Thousand Criminals

A study by our psychiatric department of the criminals admitted to the Virginia State Penitentiary has revealed findings that should be of value in a more logical handling of this major community problem. It is fair to say that the criminal as a whole is an inadequate personality. He is inadequate in some phases of his personality development. He cannot or will not meet the problems that present themselves as his adequate neighbor does. In his attempt to maintain security and to carry on his self-preservation, he has not been able to play the game according to the rules and customs that have as their purpose a social orderliness which in turn will give to the individual and to the mass the greatest happiness. The psychiatric department is concerned about the forces motivating abnormal reactions, or crime, in these cases. We have constantly attempted to keep before us the problem of the individual as an organism. Thus, in our present civilization this organism is constantly in a state of reaction to its environment. The way in which one reacts to environment is, as I have observed, more dependent upon the organization of the individual than the stimulus to which one reacts. The monotonous repetition of the stress and strain of unusual circumstances-broken homes, foreign born, feeblemindedness, worry, and financial difficulties-is recorded and tabulated with the greatest exactitude as causative factors of crime. We cannot overlook the large number of individuals who have gone through all of the above so-called causes of crime who have never committed crime. Furthermore, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that the individual who has committed crime continues frequently to commit crime. Thus I cannot help but conclude that criminal reaction is not wholly explained by the nature of the stimulus, but is dependent primarily upon the individualhis original endowments plus the changes which have been caused by past experiences and disease. Crime is motivated by processes of mentation and the forces operating to produce these reactions are to be attacked if we are to prevent crime.

The Greatest Happiness Regardless of Number

Previous articleNext article FreeThe Greatest Happiness Regardless of NumberAnderson WoodsAnderson Woods Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 35, Number 4Jul., 1925 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/intejethi.35.4.2377447 Views: 25Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in The International Journal of Ethics (1890-1938), which is continued by Ethics (1938-present). PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Ben Saunders Democratic Politics between the Market and the Forum, Political Studies Review 10, no.11 (Jan 2012): 23–35.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-9302.2011.00242.x

Olive Thorne Miller

noted circle of popular bird writers from the east who found within her gates, amid her myriad birds and flowers, rare satisfaction and ministration for their declining years. Bradford Torrey, whose last days were spent in Santa Barbara, died on October 7, 1912, at the age of sixty-nine, leaving eleven bird books; and Mrs. Harriet Mann Miller, better known by her pen name of Olive Thorne Miller, whose last years were spent in Los Angeles, died on December 26, 1918, at the ripe age of eighty-seven, also leaving eleven bird books as her contribution to bird lore. Both were members of the American Ornithologists' Union, Mrs. Miller having joined in 1887 and been made a Member, as Mr. Torrey was, when the class of Members was established in 1901. To those familiar with the writings of these two there is still further parallelism, for in their books we find much the same leisurely literary quality, the charm of humor, and the pervading vital interest in the birds whose ways they are portraying. But while Mr. Torrey was well satisfied to accept the Rambler's Lease, and in his delightful discursive essays, such as those in Nature's Invitation and Field Days in California, man and bird figure with equal interest, Mrs. Miller's greatest happiness was to find the one bird she had perhaps traveled hundreds of miles to see, and hour after hour, day after day, and week after week, by patient, tireless study, note-book in hand, master the secret of that bird's home life. As she wrote, prefacing her chapters on the Kingbird's Nest and Three Little Kings, which represented nearly two months of field work, However familiar the bird, unless the student has watched its ways during the only domestic period of its life-nesting time-he has still something to learn. In fact he has almost everything to learn, for into those two weeks is crowded a whole life-time of emotions and experiences which fully bring out the individuality of the bird. . . . Moreover, to the devotee of the science that someone has aptly called Ornithography, nothing is so attractive. What hopes it holds out! Who can guess what mysteries shall be disclosed, what interesting episodes of life shall be seen around that charmed spot? For twenty years she spent from one to three months in the country watching birds, visiting various parts of New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Ohio, Michigan, Utah, Colorado, and Califor nia; accumulating the material which appeared in With the Birds in Maine, Upon the Tree Tops, True Bird Stories from My Note Books, In Nesting Time, Little Brothers of the Air, and A Bird Lover in the West. In New York and Utah I was with her and found that her one thought was to make an exhaustive study of birds unconscious of observation, a method which gave peculiar value to her work. To me, at that time, birds were companions from whom I wanted some response, but when I answered their calls and tried to get them to talk to me in her presence, I felt rebuked; she would never intrude upon them in that

"The greatest happiness of tee greatest number": "Happy is the nation without a history"

"The greatest happiness of tee greatest number": "Happy is the nation without a history" Get access Ed. Marshall Ed. Marshall Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s8-XII, Issue 289, 10 July 1897, Pages 36–37, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s8-XII.289.36i Published: 10 July 1897

"The greatest happiness of tee greatest number": "Happy is the nation without a history"

"The greatest happiness of tee greatest number": "Happy is the nation without a history"

"The greatest happiness of the greatest number"

Journal Article "The greatest happiness of the greatest number" Get access F. Adams F. Adams 1106A, Albany Boad, Camberwell Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s8-XI, Issue 281, 15 May 1897, Page 392, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s8-XI.281.392f Published: 15 May 1897

"The greatest happiness of the greatest number"

Journal Article "The greatest happiness of the greatest number" Get access T. Wilson T. Wilson Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s8-XI, Issue 281, 15 May 1897, Page 392, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s8-XI.281.392g Published: 15 May 1897

"The greatest happiness of the greatest number"

Journal Article "The greatest happiness of the greatest number" Get access C. E. Doble C. E. Doble Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume s8-XI, Issue 281, 15 May 1897, Page 392, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s8-XI.281.392h Published: 15 May 1897

"The greatest happiness of the greatest number"

"The greatest happiness of the greatest number"

"The greatest happiness of the greatest number."

"The greatest happiness of the greatest number."

The Evolution of the Family

We live in an age when the theory of evolution is being applied to all the phenomena of the universe. It is natural, therefore, that we should attempt to explain the sequence of the various forms of government by this hypothesis. Political science, although it is a favourite study in America, is not much regarded in England. We are, perhaps, too much absorbed in political practice to believe in the reality of political theory. Still it is probable that, as democracy advances, and as the necessity of educating the masses of our population in politics becomes more imperative, political science will claim a larger share of attention. This science is divided into two branches, the one deductive and speculative, the other inductive and historical. The Elements of Politics, by Professor Sidgwick, is perhaps the first attempt to treat the first division thoroughly and systematically in the English language. The writer essays, with more or less success, to trace every ramification of the perfect modern state, as it ought to be, based upon the theory of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The second department has not yet been worked out, but there is no reason why this should not be done. Anyone who attempted it would have to separate the facts of government from all other social phenomena, and to seek to arrange them in such an order, proceeding from the more simple to the more complex, that he could arrive at some conclusion, more or less valid, as to the manner in which the state had been evolved and differentiated amongst human beings. Attempts have been made to effect this in isolated parts of the whole field.

“The Greatest happiness,” &c

“The Greatest happiness,” &c

“The greatest happiness of the greatest number.”

“The greatest happiness of the greatest number.”

XXXII. A letter to the Rev. Dr. Hales, F. R. S. from Captain Henry Ellis, F. R. S. dated Jan. 7, 1750-51, at Cape Monte Africa, ship Earl of Hallifax

Sir, I make use of this opportunity of writing to you, less from the vanity I have of having such a correspondent, than the desire of contributing to his satisfaction, who esteems it his greatest happiness to promote the interest of mankind.