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Utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) is commonly acknowledged as the founder of utilitarianism as a systematic theory, employable as a critical tool of analysis and guide to moral action, law, and public decision making. In A Fragment on Government (1776), he declared it “a fundamental axiom” that “it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong,” and that “the obligation to minister to general happiness, was an obligation paramount to and inclusive of every other” (as quoted in Burns and Hart 1977, 393 and 440–41). In 1781, Bentham coined the name “utilitarian” for this theory. At that time, he had largely completed but not published An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), in which he delineated ...
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