Timeline of utilitarianism
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Big picture
| Time period | Development summary | More details |
|---|---|---|
| 18th century | Utilitarianism emerges as a distinct ethical position. |
Full timeline
| Year | Month and date | Event type | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1725 | Francis Hutcheson first introduces a key utilitarian phrase in An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue: "when choosing the most moral action, the amount of virtue in a particular action is proportionate to the number of people such brings happiness to".[1] | |||
| 1731 | John Gay publishes In Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality. Some would claim that he developed the first systematic theory of utilitarian ethics.[2] | |||
| 1751 | David Hume publishes An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. | |||
| 1785 | William Paley publishes The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. Schneewind (1977) would write that "utilitarianism first became widely known in England through the work of William Paley."[3] | |||
| 1789 | Jeremy Bentham publishes An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. | |||
| 1861 | Main article: John Stuart Mill 's book Utilitarianism first appears as a series of three articles published in Fraser's Magazine. It would be reprinted as a single book in 1863.[4][5] Stuart Mill acknowledges in a footnote that, though Jeremy Bentham believed "himself to be the first person who brought the word 'utilitarian' into use, he did not invent it. Rather, he adopted it from a passing expression" in John Galt's 1821 novel Annals of the Parish.[6] |
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| 1907 | Hastings Rashdall publishes The Theory of Good and Evil. The description of ideal utilitarianism is first used in this book. | |||
| 1912 | G. E. Moore publishes Ethics. | |||
| 1994 | Necip Fikri Alican publishes Mill's Principle of Utility: A Defense of John Stuart Mill's Notorious Proof. | |||
| 2003 | Frederick Rosen warns that descriptions of utilitarianism can bear "little resemblance historically to utilitarians like Bentham and J. S. Mill" and can be more "a crude version of act utilitarianism conceived in the twentieth century as a straw man to be attacked and rejected."[7] |
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References
- ↑ Hutcheson, Francis (2002) [1725]. "The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue". In Schneewind, J. B. Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant. Cambridge University Press. p. 515. ISBN 978-0-521-00304-9.
- ↑ Ashcraft, Richard (1991) John Locke: Critical Assessments (Critical assessments of leading political philosophers), Routledge, p. 691
- ↑ Schneewind, J. B. (1977). Sidgwick's Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy. Oxford University Press. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-19-824552-0.
- ↑ Hinman, Lawrence (2012). Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory. Wadsworth. ISBN 978-1-133-05001-8.
- ↑ Mill, John Stuart (2010) [1863]. Utilitarianism - Ed. Heydt (Broadview Editions). Broadview Press. p. 33. ISBN 978-1-55111-501-6. Retrieved 2019-07-28.
- ↑ Mill, John Stuart. 1861. Utilitarianism. n1.
- ↑ Rosen, Frederick. 2003. Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill. Routledge. p. 32.
