"Utilitarianism" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mill John Stuart)

word pleasure precedes the word utility." Those who know anything
about the matter are aware that every writer, from Epicurus to
Bentham, who maintained the theory of utility, meant by it, not
something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but pleasure
itself, together with exemption from pain; and instead of opposing the
useful to the agreeable or the ornamental, have always declared that
the useful means these, among other things. Yet the common herd,
including the herd of writers, not only in newspapers and periodicals,
but in books of weight and pretension, are perpetually falling into
this shallow mistake. Having caught up the word utilitarian, while
knowing nothing whatever about it but its sound, they habitually
express by it the rejection, or the neglect, of pleasure in some of
its forms; of beauty, of ornament, or of amusement. Nor is the term
thus ignorantly misapplied solely in disparagement, but occasionally
in compliment; as though it implied superiority to frivolity and the
mere pleasures of the moment. And this perverted use is the only one
in which the word is popularly known, and the one from which the new
generation are acquiring their sole notion of its meaning. Those who
introduced the word, but who had for many years discontinued it as a
distinctive appellation, may well feel themselves called upon to
resume it, if by doing so they can hope to contribute anything towards
rescuing it from this utter degradation.*

* The author of this essay has reason for believing himself to be
the first person who brought the word utilitarian into use. He did not
invent it, but adopted it from a passing expression in Mr. Galt's
Annals of the Parish. After using it as a designation for several
years, he and others abandoned it from a growing dislike to anything
resembling a badge or watchword of sectarian distinction. But as a
name for one single opinion, not a set of opinions- to denote the
recognition of utility as a standard, not any particular way of
applying it- the term supplies a want in the language, and offers, in
many cases, a convenient mode of avoiding tiresome circumlocution.

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the
Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in
proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to
produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure,
and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of
pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the
theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it
includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is
left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do not
affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is
grounded- namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only
things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are
as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable
either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the
promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.