God and the English Utilitarians

Ron Roizen

[Victorian Web Home —> Religion —> Philosophy —>Utilitarianism]

Dedication

This essay was originally written for Prof. Kenneth E. Bock's graduate class in the history of social theory (Sociology 201) at the University of California, Berkeley in the Fall of 1983. I have since revised it based largely on editorial suggestions Bock penciled in the margins. Now, as then, I thank Ken Bock for this help and for the privilege of having been his student. To him, as well, is this paper dedicated.

Contents

• Introduction
• Common Ground: Commitment to a Radically Benevolent God
• Origins of Utilitarianism's Radically Benevolent God
• Utilitarianism as Part of the English Moral Philosophical Tradition
• What Divided Secular and Theological Utilitarians?
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

Bibliography

Albee, Ernest, A History of English Utilitarianism, London, Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1902.

Baumgardt, David, Bentham and the Ethics of Today; With Bentham Manuscripts Hitherto Unpublished, Princeton,, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1952.

'Beauchamp, Philip' [George Grote and Jeremy Bentham], Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind, London, R. Carlile, 1822.

Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, (J.H. Burns and H.L.A. Hart, eds.) University of London, The Athlone Press, 1970 [1789, 1823].

Gay, John, "Dissertation Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality," In: Edwin A. Burtt (ed.), The English Philosophers From Bacon to Mill, New York, Modern Library, 1939, pp. 769-785.

Gould, Stephen Jay, Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, New York, W.W. Norton, 1983.

Halevy, Elie, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, London, Faber and Faber, 1972 [1928].

Heimann, P.M., "Voluntarism and Immanence: Conceptions of Nature in Eighteenth Century Thought," Journal of the History of Ideas 39(2):271-283 (1978).

LeMahieu, D.L., The Mind of William Paley; A Philosopher and His Age, Lincoln and London, University of Nebraska Press, 1976.

Mill, John Stuart, "Utilitarianism," in Edwin A. Burtt (ed.), The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill, New York, The Modern Library, 1939, pp. 895-948.

Paley, William, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, fifth edition, Dublin, Brett Smith, 1793.

Sheriff, John K., The Good-Natured Man; The Evolution of a Moral Ideal, 16,60-1800, University, Alabama, University of Alabama Press, 1982.

Stephen, Leslie, The English Utilitarians, in three volumes, New York, Peter Smith, 1950 [1900].

Stephen, Leslie, The History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1902.

Walker, D.P., The Decline of Hell; Seventeenth Century Discussions of Eternal Torment, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1964.

Whewell, William, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England, London, John W. Parker and Son, 1852.

Willey, Basil, The Eighteenth Century Background; Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thought of the Period, New York, Columbia University Press, 1961 [1940].

---

Victorian
Web

Philosophy

Utilitarian

Religion

Last modified 14 June 2007