Episode 9: Utilitarian Ethics: What Should We Do?
Summary: Discussing Jeremy Bentham’s An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation chapters 1-5, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and modern utilitarian Peter Singer's "Famine, Affluence, and Morality.")<br> Going full tilt on the Greatest Happiness principle, with talk of gladiators, consensual cannibalism, and illegal downloads. How many Pleetons were in your last orgasm? Should animals count in the utilitarian calculus? What is Bentham's skull up to nowadays? This extra long episode (patched together from two recording sessions, as Seth's audio track got toasted for most of the first one) is disgustingly thorough and only occasionally internally redundant.<br> <a href="http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/bentham01.htm" target="_blank">Read the Bentham online</a>. <a href="http://www.utilitarianism.com/mill1.htm" target="_blank">Here's the Mill online</a>, or you could <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1453857524/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theparexalif-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=1453857524" target="_blank">buy it.</a>Here's <a href="http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1972----.htm" target="_blank">the Singer essay</a> (Also, for some more information on Singer's view of animal liberation, look <a href="http://www.utilitarian.org/texts/alm.html" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br> End song: "So Whaddaya Think?" by <a href="http://marklint.com" target="_blank">Mark Lint and the Fake</a> (2000). <a href="http://marklint.com/MLFalbum.html" target="_blank">Listen to the whole album online</a>.<br>
