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The felicific calculus is an algorithm formulated by utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) for calculating the degree or amount of pleasure that a specific action is likely to induce. Bentham, an ethical hedonist , believed the moral rightness or wrongness of an action to be a function of the amount of pleasure or pain that it ...
As the hedonic calculus shows "expectation utilities" to be much higher than natural ones, it follows that Bentham does not favour the sacrifice of a few to the benefit of the many. Law professor Alan Dershowitz has quoted Bentham to argue that torture should sometimes be permitted.
The Introduction also contains Bentham's famous discussion of the "felicific (or hedonic) calculus"—his proposed method for determining which future course of action would produce the greatest net amount of pleasure over pain. According to Bentham, seven factors should be considered in weighing the value of a pleasure or pain: its intensity ...
The best action is the one that procures the greatest happiness to the greatest numbers, and the worst is the one that causes the most misery. In the first three editions of the book, Hutcheson included various mathematical algorithms "to compute the Morality of any Actions." In doing so, he echoed the later-proposed hedonic calculus of Bentham.
The idea of a rational agent is important to the philosophy of utilitarianism, as detailed by philosopher Jeremy Bentham's theory of the felicific calculus, also known as the hedonistic calculus. The action a rational agent takes depends on: the preferences of the agent; the agent's information of its environment, which may come from past ...
Impulsive criminals, a category which included alcoholics and the insane, were to be imprisoned. Professional criminals were psychologically normal individuals who utilize the hedonistic calculus before committing their crimes, and thus require "elimination," either by life imprisonment or transportation to a penal colony overseas.
Mathematical sociology textbooks cover a variety of models, usually explaining the required mathematical background before discussing important work in the literature (Fararo 1973, Leik and Meeker 1975, Bonacich and Lu 2012). An earlier text by Otomar Bartos (1967) is still of relevance. Of wider scope and mathematical sophistication is the ...
In criminology, the Neo-Classical School continues the traditions of the Classical School [further explanation needed] the framework of Right Realism.Hence, the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria remains a relevant social philosophy in policy term for using punishment as a deterrent through law enforcement, the courts, and imprisonment.