Felicific Calculus
The felicific calculus is an algorithm formulated by utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham for calculating the degree or amount of pleasure that a specific action is likely to cause. Bentham, an ethical hedonist, believed the moral rightness or wrongness of an action to be a function of the amount of pleasure or pain that it produced. The felicific calculus could, in principle at least, determine the moral status of any considered act. The algorithm is also known as the utility calculus, the hedonistic calculus and the hedonic calculus.
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Some articles on felicific calculus:
... Pain · Suffering · Pleasure Utility · Happiness · Eudaimonia Consequentialism · Felicific calculus Problems Mere addition paradox Paradox of hedonism Utility monster Related topics Rational choice ... a procedure for estimating the moral status of any action, which he called the Hedonistic or felicific calculus ... In his exposition of the felicific calculus, Bentham proposed a classification of 12 pains and 14 pleasures, by which we might test the 'happiness factor' of any action ...
... The units of measurements used in the felicific calculus may be termed hedons and dolors ... They may be regarded as similar to the utilitarian posends and negends ...
Famous quotes containing the word calculus:
“I try to make a rough music, a dance of the mind, a calculus of the emotions, a driving beat of praise out of the pain and mystery that surround me and become me. My poems are meant to make your mind get up and shout.”
—Judith Johnson Sherwin (b. 1936)