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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 ...
Additionally, hedonic psychology explores the circumstances that evoke these experiences, on both the biological and social levels. [108] It includes questions about psychological obstacles to pleasure, such as anhedonia , which is a reduced ability to experience pleasure, and hedonophobia , which is a fear or aversion to pleasure. [ 109 ]
Bentham also suggested a procedure for estimating the moral status of any action, which he called the hedonistic or felicific calculus. Principle of utility. The principle of utility, or "greatest happiness principle", forms the cornerstone of all Bentham's thought. By "happiness", he understood a predominance of "pleasure" over "pain".
His seminal work is concerned with the principles of legislation and the hedonic calculus is introduced with the words "Pleasures then, and the avoidance of pains, are the ends that the legislator has in view." In Chapter VII, Bentham says: "The business of government is to promote the happiness of the society, by punishing and rewarding....
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 ...
It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as determine what we shall do." Bentham's utilitarianism is a hedonistic theory and starts with the premise that people are in their very nature hedonistic. This means that he believed people would actively seek out pleasure and avoid pain, if given the opportunity.
Negative hedonistic utilitarianism thinks of utility in terms of hedonic mental states such as suffering and unpleasantness. [6] Negative Average Preference Utilitarianism [ 15 ] makes the same assumptions on what is good as negative preference utilitarianism, but states that the average number (per individual) of preferences frustrated should ...
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 ...