Francis Hutcheson Quotes

The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.

To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected.

It is the greatest good to the greatest number which is the measure of right and wrong.

Utilitarianism is a philosophy from the olden days exploring the idea that whatever is best for the majority is the fairest.

Priestly was the first (unless it was Becarria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth--that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness.

Voting has not been tough for me, for the most part, because there's guideposts about what will bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people.

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

The true object of moral and political disquisition is pleasure or happiness.

I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.

I seek the utmost pleasure and the least pain.

Do you, like a skilful weigher, put into the balance the pleasures and the pains, near and distant, and weigh them, and then say which outweighs the other? If you weigh pleasures against pleasures, you of course take the more and greater; or if you weigh pains against pains, then you choose that course of action in which the painful is exceeded by the pleasant, whether the distant by the near or the near by the distant; and you avoid that course of action in which the pleasant is exceeded by the painful.

The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality.

our country in general assumes that "the pursuit of happiness" really means "the pursuit of pleasure" and that therefore pleasure is the greatest good.

The goal of maximizing the welfare of all may be better achieved by an ethic that accepts our inclinations and harnesses them so that, taken as a whole, the system works to everyone's advantage.

Pleasure and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.

In deciding among theological views, one should be something of a consequentialist: the choice of one theological position over another should be, if not actually determined, at least heavily conditioned by the fact that it implies a better ethical outcome than the alternatives.

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

Mankind have, not only in their individual character, but in their collective capacity as nations, recognized and avowed in their opinions and actions, a system of laws calculated to produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

If the ends don't justify the means, what does?

Self-interest is hostile to the common good, but enlightened self-interest is not. And this is the best key to the meaning of enlightenment.