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Full Idea
It is easy to fall into Bentham's mindless assumption that happiness must be a specific state of feeling good about something, but it is mysterious why anyone would think morality a good strategy for achieving this.
Gist of Idea
Bentham thinks happiness is feeling good, but why use morality to achieve that?
Source
comment on Jeremy Bentham (Intro to Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness 2.7
Book Ref
Annas,Julia: 'The Morality of Happiness' [OUP 1995], p.129
5901 | Is 'productive of happiness' the definition of 'right', or the cause of it? [Ross on Bentham] |
5934 | Of Bentham's 'dimensions' of pleasure, only intensity and duration matter [Ross on Bentham] |
3554 | Bentham thinks happiness is feeling good, but why use morality to achieve that? [Annas on Bentham] |
3777 | Pleasure and pain control all human desires and duties [Bentham] |
3778 | The community's interest is a sum of individual interests [Bentham] |
3779 | Unnatural, when it means anything, means infrequent [Bentham] |
3780 | We must judge a thing morally to know if it conforms to God's will [Bentham] |
3781 | The value of pleasures and pains is their force [Bentham] |
20280 | Large mature animals are more rational than babies. But all that really matters is - can they suffer? [Bentham] |