The Project Gutenberg EBook of Utilitarianism, by John Stuart Mill

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Title: Utilitarianism

Author: John Stuart Mill

Release Date: February 22, 2004 [EBook #11224]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UTILITARIANISM ***

Produced by Julie Barkley, Garrett Alley and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.

UTILITARIANISM

BY

JOHN STUART MILL

REPRINTED FROM 'FRASER'S MAGAZINE'

SEVENTH EDITION

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

1879

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. GENERAL REMARKS

CHAPTER II. WHAT UTILITARIANISM IS

CHAPTER III. OF THE ULTIMATE SANCTION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY

CHAPTER IV. OF WHAT SORT OF PROOF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY IS
SUSCEPTIBLE

CHAPTER V. OF THE CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTICE AND UTILITY

UTILITARIANISM.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL REMARKS.

There are few circumstances among those which make up the present
condition of human knowledge, more unlike what might have been expected,
or more significant of the backward state in which speculation on the
most important subjects still lingers, than the little progress which
has been made in the decision of the controversy respecting the
criterion of right and wrong. From the dawn of philosophy, the question
concerning the _summum bonum_, or, what is the same thing, concerning
the foundation of morality, has been accounted the main problem in
speculative thought, has occupied the most gifted intellects, and
divided them into sects and schools, carrying on a vigorous warfare
against one another. And after more than two thousand years the same
discussions continue, philosophers are still ranged under the same
contending banners, and neither thinkers nor mankind at large seem
nearer to being unanimous on the subject, than when the youth Socrates
listened to the old Protagoras, and asserted (if Plato's dialogue be
grounded on a real conversation) the theory of utilitarianism against
the popular morality of the so-called sophist.

It is true that similar confusion and uncertainty, and in some cases
similar discordance, exist respecting the first principles of all the
sciences, not exce