Talk:Utilitarianism

referencing Jeremy Bentham's INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND LEGISLATION

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND LEGISLATION, Jeremy Bentham, 1789.

from Preface:

"Note.—The First Edition of this work was printed in the year 1780; and first published in 1789. The present Edition is a careful reprint of 'A New Edition, corrected by the Author,' which was published in 1823."

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also

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Introduction_to_the_Principles_of_Morals_and_Legislation

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Peter Singer on giving benefit of the doubt to shrimp and oysters.

“ . . . and in the first edition of this book I suggested that somewhere between shrimp and an oyster seems as good a place to draw the line as any. Accordingly, I continued occasionally to eat oysters, scallops, and mussels for some time after I became in every other respect, a vegetarian. But while one cannot with any confidence say that these creatures do feel pain, so one can equally have little confidence in saying that they do not feel pain. Moreover, if they do feel pain, a meal of oysters or mussels would inflict pain on a considerable number of creatures. Since it is so easy to avoid eating them, I now think it better to do so.” -Peter Singer, Animal Liberation. 1990, (171-174) http://www.wesleyan.edu/wsa/warn/singer_fish.htm

Removal of Quasi-utilitarianism section

This paragraph has some major problems. Some of the references are simply incorrect, e.g. the first doesn't even mention Mill, let alone describe him as a quasi utilitarian. The 'position' isn't a position within utilitarianism and many of the references point to people who are not describing a position within utilitarianism but a position that may may be similar to utilitarianism in some way. As such, this paragraph could be very misleading to people using this as an encyclopedia article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.81.66.173 (talk) 16:38, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Although I agree that the paragraph on Quasi-Utilitarianism can be improved, I believe it should remain in this article. Quasi-Utilitarianism - Utilitarianism mixed with other considerations - is the most common form of utilitarianism in public policy today. Mill is mentioned clearly, contrary to what 213.81.66.173 wrote. The term 'Quasi-Utilitarian' has been used many times, including by Smart, describing Mill, in 1956 (I checked this reference, and others, and they are correct: there is at least a mention of quasi-utilitarianism in all, and some have made quasi-utilitarianism into a substantial and coherant view). Perhaps this paragraph should go somewhere else in the article, or be a separate wiki-page (what do people think?). But it needs to be in Wikipedia. Improve it, move it, or make it a separate piece - but it should not be deleted in my opinion.Felixthehamster (talk) 22:15, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

There do not seem to be any authoritative, verifiable sources to support the definition of 'Quasis-Utilitarianism' given in this paragraph and none to support the claim that Iain King gives 'the most detailed exposition of quasi-utilitarianism'. This is really a basic requirement for an entry in Wikipedia. A few disparate and varying uses of the phrase some of which are just in blogs and similar articles are not enough to establish usage. A claim may be interesting and thought provoking but without authoritative, verifiable sources it would count as original research and, as such, specifically not meant to be included in an article.

Philosophyclass HSOG (talk) 20:44, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The reference given in the article is to http://www.ne-plus-ultra.org/smart.htm and that page does NOT mention Mill. If the reference were to page 13 of Smart's contribution to 'Utilitarianism For and Against" then Smart does say "I propose to call Mill a quasi-ideal utilitarian" and does so because he believes he holds an intermediate position between the hedonistic act-utilitarian position of Bentham and the Ideal Utilitarian position of Moore. However, that does not in any way help to establish that there is a some kind of version of utilitarianism called quasi-utilitarianism. Similarly, if you go to the second reference ( http://www.lawandbioethics.com/demo/Main/EthicsResources/ruleutilitarianism.htm ) then the only time the word 'quasi' is used is when it says, "Rule-utilitarianism is a quasi-rule-oriented system". The third reference is to a blog post which isn't appropriate in wikipedia and says "Just a cold, selfish, exploitative, quasi-utilitarian calculation" which is clearly using the word "quasi" to mean nothing more than "sort of". Likewise with the Hardin reference. The fifth is to another blog post which has the sentence "Yet seeing this enormous 'Self help' industry, much of which is concerned with how to gain happiness, and I wonder whether we are all in fact not quasi-Utilitarian" which again is not a reference to a position within utilitarianism. The Clifford Christians reference merely says, "Utilitarianism is prevalent in the media professions, and in quasi-form is the mind-set of most students preparing for careers, such as journalism, that serve democratic societies." This essentially sums up the problem. Quasi-utilitarianism isn't a position as the paragraph suggests but is simply a way of referring to a variety of positions which might be held by people who wouldn't necessarily call themselves utilitarians but have been influenced by it in some way...because it has been so influential. Much is made of Iain King's book but the book doesn't mention quasi-utilitarianism, or, at least, if it does I cannot find such a reference and no reference is given in the article and, other than in wikipedia and its derivatives, I can find nobody describing it as such. Even Crocker's book which is said to criticise King's position doesn't use the term quasi-utilitarianism. As it stands this paragraph is not well referenced and is misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.0.28.161 (talk) 22:03, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Utilitarianism is not necessarily naturalistic.

As this article later points out, there are utilitarians who do not hold that happiness is a natural fact (i.e., "ideal utilitarians"), so it would seem incorrect to state that utilitarianism is a form of naturalism in the introduction.74.232.71.143 (talk) 16:36, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Efficiency is the keyword of Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism = Balance and Efficiency, Rather than using Perceptional terms such as happiness and other ethical conundrums i think the main page should be more structured towards observable pro survival developments that counteract time and pressure and the incorporation of these attributes into our behaviour as the definition of what the term Utilitarian implies--Prestigiouzman (talk) 14:20, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Why is there a link to greedy reductionism on this page?

The implications are vague and need clarification, if not, it should be deleted.