Mill's Utilitarianism Reprinted with a Study of the English Utilitarians

228 pp. This essay describes the Utilitarian moral and political philosophy, its beginnings in Hobbes, its maturity in Hume, Bentham and the elder Mill, and its final defence by John Stuart Mill. It attempts to trace the development of a number of ideas over a period of nearly two centuries, to show how they came to be reconciled with many different theories and how deeply they influenced all English thought about morals and politics. During the greater part of this period, England was the intellectual leader of Europe, in the moral sciences not less, but perhaps even more, than in the natural sciences. The Utilitarian Philosophy is the greatest and most varied contribution that the English have made to morals and politics.--jacket