Jeremy Bentham · Philosophy

The Felicific Calculus: Weighing Pleasure and Pain

Bentham&rsquo;s attempt to turn morality into a science: if the good is pleasure and the bad is pain, then in principle we can <em>measure</em> them - by intensity, duration, certainty, nearness, fecundity, purity, and extent - and calculate which action does the most good.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Bentham proposed to measure the value of any pleasure or pain by seven circumstances - intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity, and extent - and thereby turn moral and legislative questions into a kind of arithmetic. Explain the dimensions of the calculus and the radical claim t…

Leads to David Hume.

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