11 quotes
Plato’s reason for claiming that the life of the Philosopher has more pleasure than that of the Sensualist is palpably inadequate.
The Methods of Ethics (1874)
In short, if a certain quality of human Life is that which is ultimately desirable, it must belong to human Life regarded on its psychical side, or, briefly, Consciousness.
The Methods of Ethics (1874)
Reason shows me that if my happiness is desirable and a good, the equal happiness of any other person must be equally desirable.
The Methods of Ethics (1874)
The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view...of the Universe, than the good of any other; unless, that is, there are special grounds for believing that more good is likely to be realized in the one case than in the other.
The Methods of Ethics (1874)
For philosophy and history alike have taught...to seek not what is "safe," but what is true.
A universal refusal to propagate the human species would be the greatest of conceivable crimes from a Utilitarian point of view
The Methods of Ethics (1874)
Each person is morally obliged to regard the good of anyone else as much as his own good, except when he judges it to be less, when impartially viewed, or less certainly knowable or attainable by him.
The Methods of Ethics (1874)
We have next to consider who the “all” are, whose happiness is to be taken into account. Are we to extend our concern to all the beings capable of pleasure and pain whose feelings are affected by our conduct?
The Methods of Ethics (1874)
How far we are to consider the interests of posterity when they seem to conflict with those of now-existing human beings? The answer to this, though, seems clear: the time at which a man exists can’t affect the value of his happiness from a universal point of view; so the interests of posterity must concern a utilitarian as much as those of his contemporaries—except in that the effect of his actions on the lives and even the existence of posterity must be more uncertain.
The Methods of Ethics (1874)
We think so because all other people think so;
Or because—or because—after all, we do think so;
Or because we were told so, and think we must think so;
Or because we once thought so, and think we still think so;
Or because, having thought so, we think we will think so.
I may begin by laying down as a principle that ‘all pain of human or rational beings is to be avoided’; and then afterwards may be led to enunciate the wider rule that ‘all pain is to be avoided’; it being made evident to me that the difference of rationality between two species of sentient beings is no ground for establishing a fundamental ethical distinction between their respective pains.
The Establishment of Ethical First Principles (1879)