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Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The recognises this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light. But enough of metaphor and declamation: it is not by such means that moral science is to be improved. | ||||||||
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| Principles of Morals and Legislation - Jeremy Bentham 1781 | ||||||||
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The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work: it will be proper therefore at the outset to give an explicit and determinate account of what if; meant by it. By the principle[3]of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever; and therefore not, only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government. | ||||||||
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| Principles of Morals and Legislation - Jeremy Bentham 1781 | ||||||||
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