III. Mill’s Utilitarianism
A. Acceptance of Bentham’s psychological hedonism and the principle of utility.
1. Psychological Hedonism: Psychological hedonists argue that human beings, as a fact of their psychological make up, do act so as to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. That is, human nature is so constituted that we are compelled to act in this way. Bentham states this position succinctly in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone 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 al 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.”
