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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 ...
Generally, ethical calculus refers to any method of determining a course of action in a circumstance that is not explicitly evaluated in one's ethical code.. A formal philosophy of ethical calculus is a development in the study of ethics, combining elements of natural selection, self-organizing systems, emergence, and algorithm theory.
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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 ...
A priori and a posteriori; A series and B series; Abductive reasoning; Ability; Absolute; Absolute time and space; Abstract and concrete; Adiaphora; Aesthetic emotions
List of ethicists including religious or political figures recognized by those outside their tradition as having made major contributions to ideas about ethics, or raised major controversies by taking strong positions on previously unexplored problems.
In his exposition of the felicific calculus, Bentham proposed a classification of 12 pains and 14 pleasures, by which we might test the "happiness factor" of any action. [88] For Bentham, according to P. J. Kelly, the law "provides the basic framework of social interaction by delimiting spheres of personal inviolability within which individuals ...
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 ...