Analysis Of The Philosophies Of Jeremey Bentham

In this essay I will discuss the philosophies of Jeremey Bentham and how they apply to a decision I made which effected myself and my family at a pivotal point in all of our lives. The main work which I will pulling information from is “The Principle of Utility.” Jeremey Bentham was a philosopher who lived in England and wrote during the time of the eighteenth century. His main focus was utilitarianism which lead to writing his most widely known and therefore, major work “The Principle of Utility.” Bentham’s works revolved around the principles of ethics and why we as people are so compelled to follow certain ethics over others. Ethics, according to definition, would be how an individual should act and live. Although, a problem arises between …show more content…
What this formula means is all humans follow ethics in order to add pleasure to their lives, while decreasing the risk of pain leading to the overall happiness of a human being. In turn, this leads into the definition of utility, which is the tendency of an action or a thing to increase happiness. In other words, human kind chases happiness by participating in certain actions or acquiring certain things in their lives. For Bentham’s Principle of Utility, in trying to explain why humans follow certain ethics , it states that an action is right to the extent that it tends to increase happiness and wrong to the extent that it tends to decrease happiness. This applies to all actions in the world either referring to the individual or governmental. When applying the principle of utility one must consider all those who might be affected by the action, both directly or indirectly. It is a self-sacrificing principle in which one must do whatever allows the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of …show more content…
If I chose to stay with one parent over the other, my mother would be very pleased while my father would be in a lot of pain and vice versa. If I chose to live on my own, I would cause pain for both of my parents for the pleasure of living on my own. Then making an entirely new schedule to follow for only for four months and then coming up with yet another a new one after I arrived at college would cause pain for all parties involved. The only situation where all parties would experience more pleasure than pain would be if even after I turned eighteen I would continue to follow the court schedule until I went to college. At that point I would begin to slowly make changes regarding who I saw, when I was home, and for how