"Utilitarianism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seen to be inadmissible in logic and contradicted by everyday experience; while the argument from the supposed freedom of the will and the existence of the moral sense was negatived both deductively by the theory of evolution, and inductively by the doctrine of utilitarianism.' The theory of the freedom of the will is indeed at this stage of thought utterly untenable[7]; the evidence is overwhelming that the moral sense is the result of a purely natural evolution[8], and this result, arrived at on general grounds, is confirmed with irresistible force by the account ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... wealth and of life, and whether a verbal manifesto against hostile aggression, or a single cannon shot on the frontier, would not have served the purpose of protest. But assuredly all men of good feeling will be with us in our rejection of these paltry counsels. Mere utilitarianism is no sufficient rule of ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... depraved immorality of the age: in truth, he still thought that its impure and unwholesome art was the lowest rung of art, because it is a disease, a fungus growing on a rotting trunk: but if art for pleasure's sake is the prostration of art, Christophe by no means opposed to it the short-sighted utilitarianism of art for morality's sake, that winged Pegasus harnessed to the plow. The highest art, the only art which is worthy of the name, is above all temporary laws: it is a comet sweeping through the infinite. It may be that its ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... what Utilitarianism consists in. Reply to objections against setting up Happiness as the Ethical end. Ultimate Sanction of the principle of Utility: the External and Internal sanctions; Conscience how made up. The sort of Proof that Utility is susceptible of:—the ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... from their intellectual and moral qualities to please him, if (as they expressed it) he were still upon earth, most likely to do honour to his College, most likely to promote the objects which they believed he had at heart. Such persons did not promise to be the disciples of a low Utilitarianism; and consequently, as their collegiate reform synchronized with that reform of the Academical body, in which they bore a principal part, it was not unnatural that, when the storm broke upon the University from the North, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... of their names expresses a certain racial difference. Paris is the concrete expression of the gaiety, regard for symmetry, love of art, and, I might well add, of the morality of the French people. London stands for the conservatism, the solidarity, the utilitarianism, and, I might well add, the hypocrisy of the Anglo-Saxon. It may sound odd to speak of the morality of the French, if not of the hypocrisy of the English; but this seeming paradox impresses me as a deep truth. I saw ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... altogether repudiated and vigorously denounced the 'Rights of Men' doctrines of Rousseau and his followers, and regarded the Declaration of Independence in which they were embodied as a mere hotchpotch of absurdity. He is determined to be thoroughly empirical—to take men as he found them. But his utilitarianism supposed that men's views of happiness and utility were uniform and clear, and that all that was wanted was to show them the means by which their ends could be reached. Then, he thought, rulers and subjects would be equally ready to apply his principles. ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... Happiness principle INDIRECTLY serves as a NEARLY safe standard of right and wrong.' It is perhaps not impertinent to suspect that the faltering adverbs which we have printed in italics indicate no more than the reluctance of a half-conscious convert to pure utilitarianism. In another place (i. 98) he admits that 'as all wish for happiness, the Greatest Happiness principle will have become a most important secondary guide and object, the social instincts, including sympathy, always serving as the ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... forward to knock the ashes from his pipe into the copper tray on Malcolm Sage's table. "We talked of it during dinner that evening. His contention was that science could not be constricted by utilitarianism, and that Nature would adjust her balances to ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... of Utilitarianism the flowers are but idle shows. God might indeed have made this world as plain as a Quaker's garment, without retrenching one actual necessary of physical existence; but He has chosen otherwise; and no earthly potentate was ever so richly clad as his mother earth. ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... the inductive method which is discussed in the Novum Organum are at the root of all theories which have constructed a moral code by an inductive examination of human consciousness and the results of actions. Among such theories utilitarianism especially is the natural result of the application to the phenomenon of conduct of the Baconian experimental method. In this connexion, however, it is important to notice that Hobbes, who had been Bacon's secretary, makes no mention of Baconian induction, nor ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... Shinto faith in reference to the Japanese people when he remarked, "The more immediate end which they propose to themselves is a state of happiness in this world." In other words, if this assertion be correct, Shintoism preaches utilitarianism. As to the origin of this religion there is very much the same uncertainty and quite as large an amount of theorising as is the case in reference to the Japanese race and language. The most generally received opinion is that Shintoism is closely ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... doorway are medallions of Palmer and Hill, and over the other the Royal arms, and the structure is devoid of any architectural attractiveness. The beauty which belonged to the older buildings has not been revived, but replaced by a hideous utilitarianism. Watney's Brewery occupies the ground opposite to the school. The schools of St. Andrew are in this street, and beyond is the Roman Catholic Church of St. Peter and St. Edward. Stafford Place is called ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... utilitarianism of the governmental policy in the Jewish question may also be illustrated by the official attitude towards the promotion of agriculture among the Jews. Under Alexander I. and Nicholas I. Jewish agricultural colonization in the South of Russia was encouraged by the grant of special privileges, ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... rights of prior possession. In the early days of the settlement of the city the banks of the Lesser river had been a favorite place of residence for well-to-do burghers and merchants. But foot by foot the muddy tide of trade and utilitarianism had risen about these green water-side Edens; one by one their quiet-loving owners had been forced ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... doomed, and they will be done for, one by one in its turn. They probably came in with Queen Mary, and they will go out under the blue-eyed Alexandra. They will be supplanted by the most improved architecture of modern taste and utilitarianism. Edinburgh will be Anglicised and put in the fashionable costume of a progressive age; in the same swallow-tailed coat, figured vest and stovepipe hat worn by London, Liverpool and Manchester. It will not be allowed to wear tweed pantaloons except for one circumstance;— that it is now building its ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... tribute that a man in public life has again had the courage to act, despite the machinations of editorial offices, pulpits, and the counting rooms of money agents; clearly as we see again his latest act, the old Bryan, who can sacrifice nothing to utilitarianism, everything to an idea, no matter how fantastic it may be, nevertheless it must not be left unmentioned that his exit out of the Wilson Cabinet was under all circumstances only a question of time. Bryan may ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... made in heaven is, he declares, true in a certain sense, so far as the Esthonians are concerned; for "the parties concerned usually play a passive role.... Love is not one of the requisites, it is an unknown phenomenon." Utilitarianism, he adds, is the basis of their marriages. The suitor tries to ascertain if the girl he wants is a good worker; to find this out he may even watch her secretly while she is spinning, thrashing, or ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... expound. It is these coincidences, which all religion and all poetry have taken for granted. And to three of these it is that I desire to call attention, persuaded as I am that the scientific progress of our day will make short work of all the spurious aestheticism and all the shortsighted utilitarianism which have cast doubts upon the intimate and vital connection between beauty and every other noble ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... perceive only the unpleasant consequences of evil-doing, and practically judge that "it is STUPID to do wrong"; while they accept "good" as identical with "useful and pleasant," without further thought. As regards every system of utilitarianism, one may at once assume that it has the same origin, and follow the scent: one will seldom err.—Plato did all he could to interpret something refined and noble into the tenets of his teacher, and above all to interpret himself into them—he, the most daring of ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... sight, possibly for ever. There was something in the thought which led him to linger. The chapel had neither beauty, quaintness, nor congeniality to recommend it: the dissimilitude between the new utilitarianism of the place and the scenes of venerable Gothic art which had occupied his daylight hours could not well be exceeded. But Somerset, as has been said, was an instrument of no narrow gamut: he had a key for other touches than the purely aesthetic, even on such an excursion as this. His mind ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... bewilderment; and a chief agent in the change has been Bradley himself, with his scornful and delicate intellect, his wit, his candour, his persistence, and the baffling futility of his conclusions. In this early book we see him coming forth like a young David against every clumsy champion of utilitarianism, hedonism, positivism, or empiricism. And how smooth and polished were the little stones in his sling! How fatally they would have lodged in the forehead of that composite monster, if only it had had a forehead! Some of them might even have done murderous execution in Bradley's own camp: for instance, ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana |
