Sublime

Singer’s thought experiment, which he called “the Drowning Child,” became influential within the school of philosophy known as utilitarianism. Utilitarians argue that the proper action is the one that maximizes the world’s collective well-being.

The attempt to impose standards of would-be absolute Good and Evil is, in fact, one of the great moral pitfalls. But without moralizing, we can plainly state that whatever calibrates above 200 supports life and may therefore be functionally defined as “good;” whereas, whatever calibrates below 200 is destructive, non-supportive of life and can thus

As we will see, this distinction can be preserved—and with it, our most important moral and legal concerns—while banishing the idea of free will once and for all.

But for our commonsense notions of human agency and morality to hold, it seems that our actions cannot be merely lawful products of our biology, our conditioning, or anything else that might lead others to predict them.

On a naturalistic view moral values are just the by-product of biological evolution and social conditioning.

Bentham, an English moral philosopher and legal reformer, founded the doctrine of utilitarianism. Its main idea is simply stated and intuitively appealing: The highest principle of morality is to maximize happiness, the overall balance of pleasure over pain. According to Bentham, the right thing to do is whatever will maximize utility. By