John Gay and the Birth of Utilitarianism

Utilitas ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
GETTY L. LUSTILA
Keyword(s):  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
John Gay

This article concerns John Gay's 1731 essay ‘Preliminary Dissertation Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality’. Gay undertakes two tasks here, the first of which is to supply a criterion of virtue. I argue that he is the first modern philosopher to claim that universal happiness is the aim of moral action. In other words: Gay is the first utilitarian. His second task is to explain the source of moral motivation. He draws upon the principles of association to argue (a) that we develop benevolent motives by associating the idea of our happiness with that of others and (b) that we come to approve of benevolence by recognizing that our happiness is inextricably connected with the general happiness. While some scholars have taken an interest in Gay's essay, a sustained treatment of its contents does not exist, despite its acknowledged influence on Hume, Hartley, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill.

Kant, Garve, and the Motives of Moral Action

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernd Ludwig
Keyword(s):  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Physical Explanation ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Kantian Morality ◽  
De Officiis

AbstractKant's comments `against Garve' constitute his reaction to the latter's remarks on Cicero's De Officiis . Two related criticisms of Kant's against Garve are discussed in brief in this paper. A closer look is then taken at Garve's claim that `Kantian morality destroys all incentives that can move human beings to act at all'. I argue that Kant and Garve rely on two different models of human action for their analyses of moral motivation; these models differ in what each takes to be salient for the explanation of human action. I show that Samuel Clarke's analogy of physical explanation in the framework of Newtonianism (in his Discourse concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion ) usefully illuminates the difference between Kant and Garve in these respects.

Videogames and Moral Pedagogy

2010 ◽  
pp. 35-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Staines
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Mass Effect ◽  
Component Model ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Moral Competence ◽  
Moral Functioning ◽  
Moral Content ◽  
Four Component Model ◽  
Commercial Off The Shelf

The Four Component Model of Moral Functioning is a framework for understanding moral competence originally developed by James Rest and subsequently revised with Darcia Narvaez. It posits that moral competence can be broken up into four distinct components: moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral motivation, and moral action. The purpose of the present chapter is to demonstrate, via an examination of three commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) videogames (Ultima IV, Fallout 3, and Mass Effect), how this model can function as a blueprint for the design of moral content in games intended for pedagogy and entertainment.

scholarly journals Employing AI to Better Understand Our Morals

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Luís Moniz Pereira ◽  
The Anh Han ◽  
António Barata Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Statistical Models ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Counterfactual Reasoning ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Systems ◽  
Fair Distribution

We present a summary of research that we have conducted employing AI to better understand human morality. This summary adumbrates theoretical fundamentals and considers how to regulate development of powerful new AI technologies. The latter research aim is benevolent AI, with fair distribution of benefits associated with the development of these and related technologies, avoiding disparities of power and wealth due to unregulated competition. Our approach avoids statistical models employed in other approaches to solve moral dilemmas, because these are “blind” to natural constraints on moral agents, and risk perpetuating mistakes. Instead, our approach employs, for instance, psychologically realistic counterfactual reasoning in group dynamics. The present paper reviews studies involving factors fundamental to human moral motivation, including egoism vs. altruism, commitment vs. defaulting, guilt vs. non-guilt, apology plus forgiveness, counterfactual collaboration, among other factors fundamental in the motivation of moral action. These being basic elements in most moral systems, our studies deliver generalizable conclusions that inform efforts to achieve greater sustainability and global benefit, regardless of cultural specificities in constituents.

Resolution in the scanning tunneling microscope

1991 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 488-489
Author(s):  
R. J. Wilson ◽  
D. D. Chambliss ◽  
S. Chiang ◽  
V. M. Hallmark
Keyword(s):  
Scanning Tunneling Microscope ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Atomic Scale ◽  
Lateral Resolution ◽  
Scanning Tunneling ◽  
Electronic Noise ◽  
Vertical Resolution ◽  
Tunneling Microscopy ◽  
Spatial Profile ◽  
Theoretical Analyses

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has been used for many atomic scale observations of metal and semiconductor surfaces. The fundamental principle of the microscope involves the tunneling of evanescent electrons through a 10Å gap between a sharp tip and a reasonably conductive sample at energies in the eV range. Lateral and vertical resolution are used to define the minimum detectable width and height of observed features. Theoretical analyses first discussed lateral resolution in idealized cases, and recent work includes more general considerations. In all cases it is concluded that lateral resolution in STM depends upon the spatial profile of electronic states of both the sample and tip at energies near the Fermi level. Vertical resolution is typically limited by mechanical and electronic noise.

Moral Action on the Job

1995 ◽  
Vol 40 (12) ◽  
pp. 1167-1168
Author(s):  
Debora L. Liddell
Keyword(s):  
Moral Action

John Stuart Mill Translated by Siegmund Freud

1999 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Molnar
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Women’S Rights

Freud's translation of J.S. Mill involved an encounter with the traditions of British empirical philosophy and associationist psychology, both of which go back to Locke and Hume. The translation of Mill's essay on Plato also brought Freud into contact with the philosophical controversy between the advocates of intuition and faith and the advocates of perception and reason. A comparison of source and translated texts demonstrates Freud's faithfulness to his author. A few significant deviations may be connected with Freud's ambiguous attitude to women's rights, as advocated in the essay The Enfranchisement of Women. Stylistically Freud had nothing to learn from Mill. His model in English was Macaulay, whom he was also reading at this period.

Victorian Values

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dinah Birch
Keyword(s):  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
John Ruskin ◽  
Wide Audience ◽  
Political Economist ◽  
Sensation Novels ◽  
Difficult Times

The contested values associated with the term ‘Victorian’ call for fresh and informed consideration in the light of far-reaching changes brought about by the global economic downturn. Victorian writers engaged with public questions that were often associated with the issues we must now address, and their vigorously contentious responses reflect a drive to influence a wide audience with their ideas. Fiction of the period, including the sensation novels of the 1860s, provide telling examples of these developments in mid-Victorian writing; but non-fictional texts, including those of the philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill and the critic John Ruskin, also question the foundations of social thought. As they challenged traditional genre boundaries through the innovative forms that emerged across a range of diverse works, many Victorian authors argued for closer links between the discourses of emotion and those of logic. These are difficult times for researchers and critics, but the stringencies we find ourselves confronting can provide opportunities to create connections of the kind that the Victorians chose to make, bringing together different genres of writing and disciplines of thought, and arguing for a more generous understanding of our responsibilities towards each other.

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