Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, holding that pleasure is the only good and that the greatest happiness for the greatest number should be the ultimate goal of humans.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The political and ethical system taught by Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), who held that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the rational end of moral rules, and ought to be the aim of governments and individuals alike; utilitarianism (which see).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun That phase of the doctrine of utilitarianism taught by Jeremy Bentham; the doctrine that the morality of actions is estimated and determined by their utility; also, the theory that the sensibility to pleasure and the recoil from pain are the only motives which influence human desires and actions, and that these are the sufficient explanation of ethical and jural conceptions.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- proper noun philosophy The
utilitarianist doctrines of Jeremy Bentham.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Benthamism and rational calculations of measured welfare would be for Vico the ideal case of the "barbarism of reflection."
Vico for Now Hampshire, Stuart 1994
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In a precisely opposite direction, Marx took the pleasure theory to be the most significant theoret - ical feature of Benthamism.
HAPPINESS AND PLEASURE ABRAHAM EDEL 1968
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Green used it favorably, while Dicey, in an influential use, equated it with Benthamism and utilitarian liberalism (see below).
TYPES OF INDIVIDUALISM STEVEN LUKES 1968
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Benthamism is thus seen by Marx as the exaltation in ethics of a view of private exploitation of the world.
HAPPINESS AND PLEASURE ABRAHAM EDEL 1968
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The student, therefore, comes to wonder if there is anything which is not Benthamism.
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The period of Benthamism or individualism (1825-70). iii.
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Bentham himself was an admirer of Owen and supported his philanthropy, but, as expressions of a social attitude, Benthamism and
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To waive my astonishment at the _Benthamism_ of the phrase, pray what is "International Copyright" to Godfrey, that he should weep for such a Hecuba?
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. Various
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Benthamism, he says to himself, stands for individualism.
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How then can the period of Benthamism include the humanitarian legislation which begins with the first Factory Act of 1802 and broadens out during the middle of the century into the elaborate code regulating from then onwards the conditions of employment in workshops, factories, and mines?
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