Contemporary Utilitarianism

by Michael D. Bayles

Philosophy, Ethical Studies, Sociology

Hardcover

First published March 1, 1980

Reviews

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

With Contemporary Utilitarianism by Michael D. Bayles, we find a collection of ten papers that discuss utilitarianism. The copy I have was printed in 1968, with the book only featuring an introduction by Dr. Bayles. The main section of the book is taken up by the aforementioned papers. In those, we find that John Stuart Mill was misconstrued, misunderstood, and worse. The essays are interesting and use words that I had to look up like ‘eristic.’ Don't get me wrong, the book also contains references to David Hume, G.E. Moore, Jeremy Bentham, and so on.

Now, Utilitarianism is a doctrine that the greatest good is to be given to the greatest number. It is a section of Philosophy that deals with Ethics and so on. This book is no slouch in that sense, covering the ideas and ideals of justice and why it is permissible to exact justice on some people but not others. Another note to make is that Utilitarianism itself is split into two main focuses, act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism. It is pretty interesting.

Since the book is a collection of essays or papers from other sources, only the introduction and one other paper were not from that source. The version I have predates the ISBN system so it is difficult to tell if this is the same version. However, I suppose that since the title and author match that it should be fine.