Hedonic Calculus

The Hedonic Calculus was formulated by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. It is used by practitioners of the Benthamite school of Utilitarianism to measure how much pleasure/pain actions will create. Actions are "good" if they maximise pleasure and minimise pain for the greatest number. However, unlike John Stuart Mill, Bentham had no hierarchy of pleasure, and so, went for quantity over quality (Mill classified intellectual pleasures as superior to base bestial pleasures e.g. learning the violin was superior to having an orgy).

This page contains too many unsourced statements and needs to be improved.

Hedonic Calculus could use some help. Please research the article's assertions. Whatever is credible should be sourced, and what is not should be removed.

Thinking hardly
or hardly thinking?
Philosophy
Major trains of thought
The good, the bad
and the brain fart
Come to think of it
v - t - e

The criteria for measuring whether actions are moral are as follows:

  1. Intensity: How strong is the pleasure?
  2. Duration: How long will the pleasure last?
  3. Certainty or uncertainty: How likely or unlikely is it that the pleasure will occur?
  4. Propinquity or remoteness: How soon will the pleasure occur?
  5. Fecundity: The probability that the action will be followed by sensations of the same kind.
  6. Purity: The probability that it will not be followed by sensations of the opposite kind.
  7. Extent: How many people will be affected?
This article is a stub.
You can help RationalWiki by expanding it.
This article is issued from Rationalwiki. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.