| | 1 | Author: | Mill, John Stuart, 1806-1873 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Utilitarianism / by John Stuart Mill  | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THERE are few circumstances among those which make up the present
condition of human knowledge, more unlike what might have been
expected, or more significant of the backward state in which
speculation on the most important subjects still lingers, than the
little progress which has been made in the decision of the controversy
respecting the criterion of right and wrong. From the dawn of
philosophy, the question concerning the summum
bonum, or, what is the same thing, concerning the foundation of morality, has been
accounted the main problem in speculative thought, has occupied the
most gifted intellects, and divided them into sects and schools,
carrying on a vigorous warfare against one another. And after more
than two thousand years the same discussions continue, philosophers
are still ranged under the same contending banners, and neither
thinkers nor mankind at large seem nearer to being unanimous on the
subject, than when the youth Socrates listened to the old
Protagoras, and asserted (if Plato's dialogue be grounded on a real
conversation) the theory of utilitarianism against the popular
morality of the so-called sophist. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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