greatest happiness principle

British  

noun

1. the ethical principle that an action is right in so far as it promotes the greatest happiness of the greatest number of those affected See utilitarianism

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Example Sentences

The moral sense doctrine, so rudely treated by Bentham, is no longer incapable of reconciliation with the greatest happiness principle, only it now becomes a moving and developable moral sense.

From Project Gutenberg

Thus again, certain political economists have contended that to give money in charity is worse than useless, that it is positively noxious to society, but they have added that the gratification of our benevolent affections is pleasing to ourselves, and that the pleasure we derive from this source may be so much greater than the evil resulting from our gift, that we may justly, according to the “greatest happiness principle,” purchase this large amount of gratification to ourselves by a slight injury to our neighbours.

From Project Gutenberg

The vagueness that on such questions confessedly hangs over the intuitive theory, has always been insisted upon by members of the opposite school, who 'in the greatest happiness principle' claim to possess a definite formulary, enabling them to draw boldly the frontier line between the lawful and the illicit, and to remove moral disputes from the domain of feeling to that of demonstration.

From Project Gutenberg

If we ask for the ground of the greatest happiness principle, we come to an a priori belief also; for whence is the postulate?

From Project Gutenberg

Of course, dearest, I am rejecting here all belief in the "greatest happiness principle" as a stupid fallacy, that only imposes upon elderly gentlemen when they marry their housekeeper.

From Project Gutenberg