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Utilitarianism And Its Practice In Our Country

Posted on:2006-12-09Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:X Y ZhongFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360152495077Subject:Ethics
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Utilitarianism is an influential moral school in the west even in the world, which is called the doctrine of the most happiness, too. Its germinate may trace back to Demokritos' and Epicurean hedonism of ancient Greek. It has passed through several stages. To 17 century's Hobbes and Bacon and 18 century's Locke, Claude Arien Helvetius, Holbach, Hume and Smith etc., utilitarianism is formed initially. As is well known, its mature statesmen are Bentham and Mill. Utilitarianism in the period is called the classical one. In 20 century, utilitarianism meets with strong charge and is on the decline. Entering the mid-term and later period of the last century, in such English-speaking countries as England, America and Australia, there is one trend of thought of new normative-ethics which can match with meta-ethics, whose high tide is new utilitarianism or modern utilitarianism. The typical representative of act-utilitarianism is J.J.C.Smart, a famous philosopher in Australia and the typical representative of rule-utilitarianism is Richard B. Brandt, a famous moral philosopher in America.Generally speaking, pursuing the happiness and avoiding the unhappiness is a man's real character and gaining the utility or interest is the aim of human action, which not only means the interests of the individual, but also the social interest. The morality is only "the means to gaining the most happiness". All the actions that can promote the utility or benefit are proper and good, and the actions that can not promote the utility or benefit are improper and evil. These are typical characters of western utilitarianism.There are plenty of utilitarian ideas in the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. According to the rationality and limitations of the utilitarianism, they not only inherit but also criticize it.Now, our country is devoting to building and perfecting the socialist market economy. As is well known, on condition of building the market economy, it has become most people's creed that pursuing economic benefit, calculating carefully...
Keywords/Search Tags:the utilitarianism, the socialist market economy, the socialist utilitarianism, the most happiness of the most people, interest
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