"The theme of this issue, as you may have guessed by now, is happiness. Now, you may say this is foolhardy, given Chesterton's warning that happiness should never be rationalized - should never be picked over and pulled apart and stared at from all angles under a bright light, presumably because such disrespectful treatment might make it go away. Fear not - we won't rationalise your happiness or mine - we'll simply examine the concept of happiness, which is a different matter."
"What exactly is happiness? Is its pursuit really an 'unalienable right', as the Founding Fathers of the United States put it? Is it, as many assume, one of life's most fundamental goals? Utilitarians certainly think so. The founder of Utilitarian ethics, the philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), argued that in all our moral decisions we should act so as to ensure the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. He even thought that the amounts of happiness involved in such decisions could be worked out algorithmically using what he called the Felicific Calculus."
The theme centers on happiness, juxtaposing the Declaration of Independence's claim of the pursuit of happiness with Chesterton's view that happiness should not be rationalized. The piece distinguishes examining the concept from reducing or disrespecting it. Central questions include the definition of happiness, whether its pursuit counts as an unalienable right, and whether happiness is a fundamental life goal. Utilitarianism places happiness at the core of moral decision-making, with Jeremy Bentham proposing a Felicific Calculus to quantify happiness. Contemporary utilitarian perspectives are represented, while some ethicists argue that meaning, not happiness, should occupy the central role in moral philosophy.
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