These two videos below as kind of just for fun :) enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfdfWvnFDcA

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was an English philosopher and economist. He wrote one of his most famous essays, Utilitarianism, in 1861. Utilitarianism is a moral and legal theory, with origins in classical philosophy, that was famously propagated in the 18th and 19th centuries by Jeremy Bentham. Its general argument is that morality consists in bringing about the best state of affairs, and that the best state of affairs is the state with the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Utilitarianism continues to be an important theory in modern philosophy.

Knowledge of Mill's own personal biography is integral to understanding the context for his essay. Mill was raised by his father, James Mill, to be a strict utilitarian. Jeremy Bentham also aided in Mill's upbringing, and Mill was deeply influenced by Bentham's writings. Mill's childhood was rigid and intellectual, and when, at twenty-one he began to question some of his beliefs, he suffered a nervous breakdown. Mill later struggled with his sense that utilitarianism was too unemotional and that it failed to capture or understand the "higher" pleasures. Thus, Mill's writings should be understood as the product of a struggle to reconcile Utilitarianism with complexities that Bentham's theory failed to acknowledge. However, Mill never rejected utilitarianism as a moral theory, and he continued to use Bentham's framework of pleasure fulfillment throughout his own writings. Mill wrote Utilitarianism later in life, and it upholds a more complex version of utilitarianism, yet one that still embraces the most basic premises of Bentham and Mill's father.

The classic utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill influenced many other philosophers and the development of the broader concept of consequentialism. As a result, there now exist many different accounts of the good, and therefore many different types of consequentialism besides utilitarianism. For example, some philosophers reject the sole importance of well-being and argue that there are intrinsic values other than happiness or pleasure, e.g. knowledge and autonomy.
The influence of Utilitarianism has been widespread, permeating the intellectual life of the last two centuries. Its significance in law, politics, and economics is especially notable.

The Utilitarian theory of the justification of punishment stands in opposition to the “retributive” theory, according to which punishment is intended to make the criminal “pay” for his crime. According to the Utilitarian, the rationale of punishment is entirely to prevent further crime by either reforming the criminal or protecting society from him and to deter others from crime through fear of punishment.

In its political philosophy Utilitarianism bases the authority of government and the sanctity of individual rights upon their utility, thus providing an alternative to theories of natural law, natural rights, or social contract. What kind of government is best thus becomes a question of what kind of government has the best consequences—an assessment that requires factual premises regarding human nature and behaviour.

Generally, Utilitarians have supported democracy as a way of making the interest of government coincide with the general interest; they have argued for the greatest individual liberty compatible with an equal liberty for others on the ground that each individual is generally the best judge of his own welfare; and they have believed in the possibility and the desirability of progressive social change through peaceful political processes.

With different factual assumptions, however, Utilitarian arguments can lead to different conclusions. If the inquirer assumes that a strong government is required to check man's basically selfish interests and that any change may threaten the stability of the political order, he may be led by Utilitarian arguments to an authoritarian or conservative position. On the other hand, William Godwin, an early 19th-century political philosopher, assumed the basic goodness of human nature and argued that the greatest happiness would follow from a radical alteration of society in the direction of anarchistic communism.

Classical economics received some of its most important statements from Utilitarian writers, especially Ricardo and John Stuart Mill. Ironically, its theory of economic value was framed primarily in terms of the cost of labour in production rather than in terms of the use value, or utility, of commodities. Later developments more clearly reflected the Utilitarian philosophy. William Jevons, one of the founders of the marginal utility school of analysis, derived many of his ideas from Bentham; and “welfare economics,” while substituting comparative preferences for comparative utilities, reflected the basic spirit of the Utilitarian philosophy. In economic policy, the early Utilitarians had tended to oppose governmental interference in trade and industry on the assumption that the economy would regulate itself for the greatest welfare if left alone; later Utilitarians, however, lost confidence in the social efficiency of private enterprise and were willing to see governmental power and administration used to correct its abuses.

As a movement for the reform of social institutions, 19th-century Utilitarianism was remarkably successful in the long run. Most of their recommendations have since been implemented unless abandoned by the reformers themselves; and, equally important, Utilitarian arguments are now commonly employed to advocate institutional or policy changes.


Here's a good link to multiple sources about Utilitarianism, as well as the sources I used to create this page:
http://www.utilitarianism.com/