Utilitarianism
In Our Time11 Jun 2015

Utilitarianism

A moral theory that emphasises ends over means, Utilitarianism holds that a good act is one that increases pleasure in the world and decreases pain. The tradition flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and has antecedents in ancient philosophy. According to Bentham, happiness is the means for assessing the utility of an act, declaring "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong." Mill and others went on to refine and challenge Bentham's views and to defend them from critics such as Thomas Carlyle, who termed Utilitarianism a "doctrine worthy only of swine."

With

Melissa Lane The Class of 1943 Professor of Politics at Princeton University

Janet Radcliffe Richards Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Oxford

and

Brad Hooker A Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Episoder(1078)

Demosthenes' Philippics

Demosthenes' Philippics

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speeches that became a byword for fierce attacks on political opponents. It was in the 4th century BC, in Athens, that Demosthenes delivered these speeches against ...

15 Des 202256min

Bauhaus

Bauhaus

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Bauhaus which began in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, as a school for arts and crafts combined, and went on to be famous around the world. Under its first director, Walte...

8 Des 202256min

The Morant Bay Rebellion

The Morant Bay Rebellion

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rebellion that broke out in Jamaica on 11th October 1865 when Paul Bogle (1822-65) led a protest march from Stony Gut to the courthouse in nearby Morant Bay. There...

1 Des 202253min

Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the celebrated British poet of World War One. Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) had published only a handful of poems when he was killed a week before the end of the war, but in...

24 Nov 202256min

The Fish-Tetrapod Transition

The Fish-Tetrapod Transition

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest changes in the history of life on Earth. Around 400 million years ago some of our ancestors, the fish, started to become a little more like humans. ...

17 Nov 202255min

Berthe Morisot

Berthe Morisot

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the influential painters at the heart of the French Impressionist movement: Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). The men in her circle could freely paint in busy bars an...

10 Nov 20221h

The Knights Templar

The Knights Templar

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the military order founded around 1119, twenty years after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem. For almost 200 years the Knights Templar were a notable fighting force and ...

3 Nov 202249min

The Electron

The Electron

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an atomic particle that's become inseparable from modernity. JJ Thomson discovered the electron 125 years ago, so revealing that atoms, supposedly the smallest things, ...

27 Okt 202249min

Populært innen Historie

rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
henrettelsespodden
rss-katastrofe
rss-historiske-romanser
historier-som-endret-norge
historier-som-endret-verden
rss-nadelose-nordmenn-gestapo
aftenposten-historie
rss-benadet
sektledere
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
rss-frontkjemperne
med-egne-oyne
historiepodden
rss-gamle-greier
taakeprat
vare-historier
sannhet-eller-konspirasjon
nordnorsk-historie
historiepodden-ww2