This post was inspired in a general way by the post by Man of Roma, “Italians are Cynical, Amoral, Religiously Superficial”. See also at the bottom of that post further relevant Man of Roma posts.
The particular quote that inspired this post is from another Man of Roma post, Sex and the city (of Rome). A conclusion.:
I will finish this draft conclusion of Sex and the City (of Rome) with this interesting passage written by a British historian, C. P. Rodocanachi (probably of Greek descent), and dedicated to what he considers a potent factor of the Greek miracle (Athens and the Greek Miracle, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London 1948). This text sheds light in our view on the Greek mind and, to a certain extent, on the Roman mind, plus on some aspects of Italian Renaissance men as well:
Life with no Pang of Conscience
Absence of conflicts of conscience: the Greeks were quit “of this inhibiting and agonizing struggle. Their morals were civic and not religious. Their sense of duty was directed exclusively to the city … They knew nothing of the Christian idea of good faith, of intentions conditioning acts in such a manner that the most law-abiding citizen may feel himself a great criminal at heart… [They] may be considered as being intrinsically amoral and this very amorality was a powerful constituent of balance of mind which they could never have attained if their conscience had been torn, as ours is, between the conflicting forces of good and evil, virtue and vice, pleasure and sin. They could enjoy beauty, taste the delights of life without a pang of conscience. So long as they were faithful to the laws and interests of the city they had no damnation to fear, either in this world or the next.”
What follows is a brief summary of the influence of Epicurean thought in the Western tradition, with an emphasis on the word ‘brief’. The part that deals with Renaissance Italy is highlighted in blue. Perhaps of most use are the references to be found in the notes and at the very bottom of the page. One of these of particular note is: Howard Jones, The Epicurean Tradition, Routledge, London, 1989
Another, not used in the text below, is:
McMahon, The Pursuit of Happiness, A History from the Greeks to the Present, Allen Lane, London, 2006.
For a taste see:
Darrin M. McMahon, ‘From the happiness of virtue to the virtue of happiness: 400 B.C.-A.D. 1780′, Daedalus 133.2 (Spring 2004): p5(13)
The text below was written as small part of my thesis, although it will be more detailed in the thesis. It is not directly related to Man of Roma’s ideas, except insofar as it traces an ever-growing (in my view) throwing off of the shackles of a debilitating morality-based polity, and its replacement with a more human-centred ‘happiness’ approach. We are all, perhaps, becoming more Italian!
Constitutional Happiness
Happiness is considered to have first appeared as a coherently expressed problem in moral and political philosophy with the Greeks, in Plato.[1] The Epicureans later adopted happiness as a foundation for a personal moral philosophy.[2] That happiness might be considered a fundamental element of formation of states is underlined with a look at Plato’s Republic. In Greek the title is Politeia, [sorry, Greek characters wouldn’t display in Wordpress] which has a broad meaning including constitution of a state, a prominent subsidiary meaning of which is republican government.[3] ‘Constitution’ indicates a sense of the broad political matrix of the society, such as might be meant by the English ‘constitution’ (though excluding reference to the actual type of state) and does not refer to a written constitution. ‘Constitution’ is, in fact, the most pertinent translation for Plato’s Politeia. The aim of a constitution for Plato (or Socrates) may be summed up in the following:
…our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a state which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice: and having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier.[4]
But Plato cautions:
We were enquiring into the nature of absolute justice and into the character of the perfectly just, and into injustice and the perfectly unjust, that we might have an ideal. We were to look at these in order that we might judge of our own happiness and unhappiness according to the standard which they exhibited and the degree in which we resembled them, but not with any view of showing that they could exist in fact.[5]
and thus:
I said: ‘until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils, – nor the human race, as I believe, – and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.’ Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed so extravagant; for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing.’[6]
Plato is stating an ideal which equates with a work of art. In proposing this he states:
Would a painter be any the worse because, after having delineated with consummate art an ideal of a perfectly beautiful man, he was unable to show that any such man could ever have existed? He would be none the worse.[7]
Thus, for Plato, the aim of the state is the greatest happiness for all.[8] However the best system to obtain that objective is not necessarily achievable. Plato’s philosopher king is only possible in the abstract. It is only possible as an ideal form. Plato’s ideal aim is not dependent upon his ideal means to accomplish it – the rule of the philosopher king. Thus Jowett asks:
Was [Plato] loyal to Athenian institutions? — he can hardly be said to be the friend of democracy: but neither is he the friend of any other existing form of government; all of them he regarded as ’states of faction’ (Laws); none attained to his ideal of a voluntary rule over voluntary subjects, which seems indeed more nearly to describe democracy than any other; and the worst of them is tyranny.[9]
Plato, however, saw democracy as unstable, leading to tyranny.[10]
Aristotle, too, elevated happiness, seeing it as the ‘most excellent, most noble, and most pleasant thing in the world.’[11] It is ’something final and self-sufficient, being the end of all things which are and may be done.’[12]
In Nicomachean Ethics (Ta Ethika) Aristotle equates happiness with the chief good of society.[13] In Politics Aristotle has it that ‘the end then for which a city is established is, that the inhabitants of it may live happy.’[14] Again, the best practical solution is democracy. Russell summarizes Aristotle:
Monarchy is better than aristocracy, aristocracy is better than polity. But the corruption of the best is worst; therefore tyranny is worse than oligarchy, and oligarchy than democracy. In this way Aristotle arrives at a qualified defence of democracy; for most actual governments are bad, and therefore, among actual governments, democracies tend to be best.[15]
For Aristotle and Plato virtue was the means to happiness, and happiness was the highest good. However, Russell notes that Christianity and Stoicism place virtue above happiness, and virtue is as possible for the slave as for the master.[16] This tussle between virtue and happiness as the cornerstone of human social organisation has been one of the enduring themes of western ethical and political philosophy.
For Epicurus virtue was simply instrumental, and only instrumental.[17] The end was pleasure.[18] Epicureanism had a significant place in Greek and Roman thought. While Russell observes that ‘The only eminent disciple of Epicurus is the poet Lucretius (99-55B.C.)’ and that his ideas were influential during the free-thinking last days of the Roman Republic, this may mislead a little, leaving Epicureanism seem a relatively minor doctrine, whose influence was confined to a short period. In his television program De Botton guides us through an ancient village agora at Oenoanda in Turkey, dominated by a wall built with the sponsorship of the Epicurean, Diogenes, declaiming against the use of superfluous market goods, and exhorting the community to the Epicurean way.[19] Clay, discussing the same site, refers to the long life and considerable spread of Epicureanism,[20] though he questions Diogenes Laertius’s claim that Epicureans ‘took Italy by storm’.[21] Clay also refers to Epicurean ‘communities of friends’ in Asia, Egypt and on the Hellespont which Epicurus visited in the manner ‘that invites comparison with the voyages of St. Paul.’[22] Cicero, meanwhile, gives a picture of a Rome well familiar with Epicureanism in his Tusculan Disputations. Jones has it that the Epicurean philosophy flourished into the Christian era,[23] and while steadily declining, it maintained a strong presence up to and beyond Augustine’s time.[24] However, during the entire period it was more an ethical philosophy than a political philosophy, though it cast its influence to the highest levels of the state.[25]
However, for around 1,000 years, under Christian domination, Epicureanism was to become all but invisible, along with much pagan thought.[26] Epicureanism was swept into the coffin of history by Dante,[27] but was resurrected only 100 years later by, among others, the collector of Greek and Latin manuscripts, Poggio Bracciolini, who discovered the Epicurean manuscript De rerum natura in 1417.[28] At this time Epicureanism was primarily associated merely with gratification of sensual desires, and thus broadly frowned upon, with some exceptions. Be this as it may the Italians were allegedly not slow to put into effect their somewhat earthy understanding of Epicureanism, and ‘For more than one Englishman of the following century [16th] ‘Italian’ and ‘Epicurean’ were identical terms’,[29] this being associated with licentiousness of every kind, and atheism.[30] However, by the seventeenth century the centre of balance for Epicureanism had shifted to England, where Epicurean materialism, including the denial of the soul’s immortality, and refusal to grant God an active role in human affairs,[31] helped create a foundation for non-Aristotelian science.[32] Jones makes this point, and has in mind the works and ideas of those including Charleton,[33] Evelyn,[34] Bacon,[35] and Stanley.[36] Albee looks to the Cambridge Platonists, including Bishop Richard Cumberland’s treatise De legibus naturae (1672),[37] as the first reasonably complete English evocation of the principle of utilitarian ethical philosophy. However it is Locke that Albee suggests is ‘popularly regarded not only as a Utilitarian, but as the founder of English Utilitarianism’ although Albee rejects this view.[38] Hutcheson, again not utilitarian, according to Albee, because he suggested ‘the dignity or moral importance of persons may compensate numbers’,[39] is credited, however, with being the English philosopher who coined the phrase that became the utilitarian formula: “That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.”[40]
In relation to Bentham’s contact with the idea, the Westminster Review (established and owned by Bentham) picks up the story:
The first time the phrase of ‘the principle of utility’ was brought decidedly into notice, was in the Essays, by David Hume,’ published about the year 1742. In that work it is mentioned as the name of a principle which might be made the foundation of a system of morals, in opposition to a system then in vogue, which was founded on what was called the ‘moral sense.’ The ideas, however, there attached to it, are vague, and defective in practical application.
Nearly at the same time appeared in French the celebrated work of Helvetius ‘Sur l’Espirit.’ In this a commencement was made, of the application of the principle to practical use. A connection was established between the ideas attached to the word ‘ happiness,’ and those attached to the words ‘pleasure’ and ‘pain;’ by which a great advance was made in the development of the meaning of the terms ‘utility’ and ‘principle of utility’.
In 1749 appeared the work of David Hartley known by the title of ‘Hartley on Man.’ … In this a greater number of species were ranked under the two heads of pleasure and pain, than in the work of Helvetius; but the collection was still exceedingly defective.
In the year 1768 appeared a pamphlet of Dr. Priestley’s, written, as was his custom, in a hasty manner, and with little precise method; but containing in one of its pages the express phrase ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number.’ And this was represented as a principle containing the only rational foundation of rules for human conduct.[41]
In the same year this pamphlet fell into the hands of Mr. Bentham at Oxford; he being at the time not quite twenty-one years of age. Like Archimedes on the discovery of the principle of hydrostatics, he exclaimed Eureka, and from that page of that pamphlet, was drawn the phrase, the import of which it has been the object of his subsequent writings to diffuse.’[42]
From this spark followed A Fragment on Government (1776), Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1781, but ‘brought into the state in which it now appears’[43] in 1789) and Springs of Action (1817), all of which develop with the principle.[44]
Thus, Bentham, argued that ‘the object of good government might possibly be the carrying the diminution of evil, or the increase of happiness, to its maximum.’[45]
In this system ‘The paradox of the Stoics was dissolved by simple transposition; and instead of virtue making happiness, what makes the general happiness was virtue.’[46]
While this statement remains controversial in moral philosophy,[47] it might be less so in political philosophy. The Westminster Review states:
And here was to be encountered in the outset the perplexing question, of why the production of the maximum of happiness ought to be the object of government. One possible response was, that it is the production of good. But why ought a government to follow after the production of good? – for to say that it cannot be a good government without it, is at best only an identical proposition. Cicero would have answered that it was because it was virtuous, becoming, or perhaps god-like; and philosopher Square would have said, it was because it was according to the fitness of things. But these are all reasons á l’antique; and would not in this day content a Mechanics Institute. Something might perhaps be done towards an answer, by Euclid’s mode improperly included under the title of reductio ad absurdum, or defying any body.[48]
More recently Braybook has observed that utilitarianism is best suited (and well suited) to a public policy setting, and is well adapted to the requirements of democracy.[49] In this he refers to and echoes Goodin in Utilitarianism as a Public Philosophy:
The thesis of this book is that at least one normative theory, utilitarianism, can be a good normative guide to public affairs without its necessarily being the best practical guide to personal conduct.[50]
Thus happiness, as a basis for the organisation of government, has successfully spanned some 2,500 years, and remains a vital force.
Notes to Constitutional Happiness
[1] Plato, c. 428/427 BC-c. 348/347 BC. See, for example, #P161, p6. ‘As so often, Plato made the first move. In his Gorgias and Republic he took his start from the recognition that we have plural and conflicting desires, aims, impulses, etc., and that somehow we have to deal with that fact. He can hardly have been the first to notice the fact of plurality and conflict, but he was the first to react to it systematically.’ [For #P references see bottom of page]
[2] Epicurus, 341 BC – 270 BC.
[3] Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, HS Jones, A Greek – English Lexicon (ninth edition, with a supplement) Clarendon Press, Oxford 9th edition, 1968. )
[4] #P113 p262
[5] #P113 p321
[6] #P113 p321
[7] #P113 p321
[8] Note that Jowett incorrectly analyses the quote at #P113 p262 stating that ‘… Adeimantus … urges … that Socrates fails in making his citizens happy and is answered that happiness is not the first but the second thing, not the direct aim but the indirect consequence of the good government of a State’ . But Jowett seems to be confusing the citizens with the guardians. Plato (or Socrates) has it that the state is not made for the particular happiness of the guardians, but the happiness of the whole. This is strongly associated with the state being organised for the ‘good of the whole’. Thus ‘our aim in founding the State was … the greatest happiness of the whole’ This is achieved in a state organised ‘with a view to the good of the whole’ where ‘we should be most likely to find justice’. Thus the state being organised for the good of the whole, where one is most likely to find justice is a means to the aim, greatest happiness of the whole.
[9] Jowett, Introduction, in #P113.
[10] Plato outlines the stages of political progression, with the worst being tyranny, at #P113 p391. Compare this also with Carlyle’s assessment of the true and proper outcome of the French Revolution, which was not democracy, but Napoleon’s rule. #P093 p[ref]
[11] #P138, Book I, Ch VIII.
[12] #P138, Book I, Ch VII
[13] #P138, Book I, Ch I: ‘Since then of all things which may be done there is some one End which we desire for its own sake, and with a view to which we desire everything else; and since we do not choose in all instances with a further End in view (for then men would go on without limit, and so the desire would be unsatisfied and fruitless), this plainly must be the Chief Good, i.e. the best thing of all….
And now, resuming the statement with which we commenced, since all knowledge and moral choice grasps at good of some kind or another, what good is that which we say politikai aims at? or, in other words, what is the highest of all the goods which are the objects of action?
So far as name goes, there is a pretty general agreement: for HAPPINESS both the multitude and the refined few call it, and “living well” and “doing well” they conceive to be the same with “being happy;” but about the Nature of this Happiness, men dispute, and the multitude do not in their account of it agree with the wise.’ (Emphasis (capitalisation) in the translation)
[14] Politics, Book III, Ch IX. Note in Russell ‘The end of the State is the good life … by which we mean a happy and honourable life.’ #P036, p197, quoting Politics 1280. Also see in #P036 p190.
Also see Politics Book III, Ch XIII:
It seems, then, requisite for the establishment of a state, that all, or at least many of these particulars should be well canvassed and inquired into; and that virtue and education may most justly claim the right of being considered as the necessary means of making the citizens happy.
Throughout Aristotle virtue is one means of attaining the ultimate goal, happiness.
God, too, is not excused from the equation, in Book VII, Ch I:
Let us therefore be well assured, that every one enjoys as much happiness as he possesses virtue and wisdom, and acts according to their dictates; since for this we have the example of GOD Himself, WHO IS COMPLETELY HAPPY, NOT FROM ANY EXTERNAL GOOD; BUT IN HIMSELF, AND BECAUSE SUCH IS HIS NATURE. (Emphasis in translation)
In Politics Book VII, Ch IX Aristotle emphasises the virtue is a means, and happiness the end to which that means is directed.
Since we are inquiring what is the best government possible, and it is admitted to be that in which the citizens are happy; and that, as we have already said, it is impossible to obtain happiness without virtue; it follows, that in the best-governed states, where the citizens are really men of intrinsic and not relative goodness, none of them should be permitted to exercise any mechanic employment or follow merchandise, as being ignoble and destructive to virtue; neither should they be husband-[1329a] men, that they may be at leisure to improve in virtue and perform the duty they owe to the state.
…for no mechanic ought to be admitted to the rights of a citizen, nor any other sort of people whose employment is not entirely noble, honourable, and virtuous; this is evident from the principle we at first set out with; for to be happy it is necessary to be virtuous; and no one should say that a city is happy while he considers only one part of its citizens, but for that purpose he ought to examine into all of them. It is evident, therefore, that the landed property should belong to these, though it may be necessary for them to have husbandmen, either slaves, barbarians, or servants.’ (My emphasis (italics))
[15] #P036, p201
[16] #P036, p189
[17] #P175, p221
[18] #P175, p162ff. According to Preuss, the pleasure which Epicurus referred to was katastematic pleasure – a long term feeling of calm, and pleasure without any particular object. This feeling could survive while under torture. #P175 p172.
[19]. #P017 De Botton, video, Philosophy: a guide to happiness, 2002, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
[20] #P208 p232-4
[21] #P208, p233. Nevertheless Cicero states:
So that of that true and elegant philosophy (which was derived from Socrates, and is still preserved by the Peripatetics and by the Stoics, though they express themselves differently in their disputes with the Academics) there are few or no Latin records; whether this proceeds from the importance of the thing itself, or from men’s being otherwise employed, or from their concluding that the capacity of the people was not equal to the apprehension of them. But, during this silence, C. Amafinius [an Epicurean] arose and took upon himself to speak; on the publishing of whose writings the people were moved, and enlisted themselves chiefly under this sect, either because the doctrine was more easily understood, or because they were invited thereto by the pleasing thoughts of amusement, or that, because there was nothing better, they laid hold of what was offered them. (From #P209 – Cicero, Tusculan Disputations (trans. C. D. Yonge), Harper & Brothers, New York, 1877, Book 4, Chapter 3)
In Cicero’s treatment, Epicureanism emerges as something of a fad, however.
[22] #P208 p192
[23] #P185, p76
[24] #P185, p95-6
[25] #P 185, p65, 76. Generally Epicurianism discouraged political activity, however Gaius Cassius gained from the philosophy the foundation from which to conclude that the tyrant Julius Caesar should be assassinated. Following this assassination Epicureans further opposed the elevation of a new tyrant, Marcus Antonius. (p76, referring to Momigliano, Review of Farrington, Science and Politics in the Ancient World, Journal of Roman Studies, XXXI (1941) 149-57.) As an example of the social reach of Epicureanism, a notable figure with Epicurean sympathies is L Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, father-in-law of Julius Caesar, who housed at his villa in Herculaneum the Epicurean Philodemus of Gadara, who attracted a wide circle of students.
See also #P208 pvii ‘Epicurus … advocated an ethical philosophy that centered not on the polis but on the individual and his or her community of friends.
[26] #P185, p117
[27] Suo cimitero da questa parte hanno,
Con Epicuro tutti i suoi segauci,
Che l’anima col corpo morte fanno.
From La divina Commedia, Inferno, Canto X, 13-15
Quoted in #P185, p142
[28] #P185, p142
[29] #P185, p153
[30] #P185, pp142-156 generally.
[31] #P185 referring by example to Charleton, Apologie for Epicurus, prefix to Epicurus’s Morals in the form of ‘A Letter to a Person of Honour’.
[32] #P185, p197-200, 206
[33] #P185, p199, 202, referring to Walter Charleton, Epicurus’s Morals, 1656
[34] John Evelyn Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus, De Rerum Natura, 1656.
[35] Francis Bacon De principiis aque originibus, c1612, who adopted the atomism of Epicurus, Democritus and Leucippus. #P185, pp197-8.
[36] Thomas Stanley, The History of Philosophy, containing the Lives, Opinions, Actions and Discourses of the Philosophers of every Sect, 1660, ‘which allotted to Epicurus by far the largest section of the whole work’. #P185, p205.
[37] #P186, p1
[38] Albee’s rejection stems from Locke’s appeal to the laws of nature, and revelation. ‘Often, indeed, Locke is concerned to show that the practice of virtue is conducive to happiness; but this in itself, proves nothing. Nearly all his contemporaries, of whatever ethical school, did the same. It is wholly characteristic, when he speaks of Divine law as “the eternal, immutable, standard of right”. In fact, apart from certain more of less doubtful corollaries from his philosophical system … his ethical speculations were mainly on the theological plane.’ #P186, p53.
Russell sees Locke as anticipating Bentham, but notes that ‘Bentham, who was a free-thinker, substituted the human lawgiver in place of God’ #P036 pp592-3
[39] #P186, p60 quoting from Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue in Two Treatises, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, 2004 (first published 1726) Section III, PartVIII, (p 125)
The full quote is:
…that in equal Degrees of Happiness, expected to proceed from the Action, the Virtue is in proportion to the Number of Persons to whom the Happiness shall extend; (and here the Dignity, or moral Importance of Persons, may compensate Numbers) and in equal Numbers, the Virtue is as the Quality of the Happiness, or natural Good; or that the Virtue is in compound Ration of the Quantity of Good, and Number of Enjoyers. (MVG, III.VIII)
[40] The formula was first used by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in a critical remark on Samuel Cocceji’s thesis De Principio Juris Naturalis Unico, Vero, et Adaequato (Frankfurt: Schrey/Hartmann, 1699). See Wolfgang Leidhold Introduction, in #P187, p x, referring to Hruschka, Joachim. “The Greatest Happiness Principle and Other Early German Anticipations of Utilitarian Theory.” Utilitas 3 (1991): 165-77, pp. 166-69
[41] Note that:
…in this, [Bentham’s] memory must have deceived him, for the phrase does not seem to have been used by Priestley.
So far as Bentham was concerned, its origin (as he in one place suggests) must be traced to Beccaria, the Italian jurist whose work on the penal law proceeded on the same principles as Bentham’s and had a notable effect upon the latter.
Beccaria’s book on Crimes and Punishments was translated into English in 1767, and, in this translation, the principle of utility is expressed in the exact words in which, through Bentham’s influence, it soon became both an ethical formula and a party watchword.
From The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907-21), Volume XI. The Period of the French Revolution.
[42] Westminster Review, July 1829, ‘Art. XVI. – Edinburgh Review, No. XCVII: Article on Mill’s Essay on Government, &c.’ 254 at 258-9. (Titled at each page head as ‘ “Greatest Happiness” Principle’.), p258-9.
One of the difficulties with using the Westminster Review as a source is that the articles are not attributed, however it is not in dispute that the Review was a mouthpiece for the views of the inner core of the utilitarian movement. The Review was set up in 1824 by Jeremy Bentham, and James Mill was a regular contributor. Where some knowledge is assumed of Bentham, or another of the inner core of utilitarians, it is not unreasonable to assume that these broadly reflect the views of the subject themselves
[43] Westminster Review, July 1829, ‘Art. XVI. – Edinburgh Review, No. XCVII: Article on Mill’s Essay on Government, &c.’ 254 at 258-9. (Titled at each page head as ‘ “Greatest Happiness” Principle’.), p259.
[44] Westminster Review, July 1829, ‘Art. XVI. – Edinburgh Review, No. XCVII: Article on Mill’s Essay on Government, &c.’ 254 at 258-9. (Titled at each page head as ‘ “Greatest Happiness” Principle’.), p259.
[45] Westminster Review, July 1829, ‘Art. XVI. – Edinburgh Review, No. XCVII: Article on Mill’s Essay on Government, &c.’ 254 at 258-9. (Titled at each page head as ‘ “Greatest Happiness” Principle’.), p260 (Emphasis in original)
[46] Westminster Review, July 1829, ‘Art. XVI. – Edinburgh Review, No. XCVII: Article on Mill’s Essay on Government, &c.’ 254 at 258-9. (Titled at each page head as ‘ “Greatest Happiness” Principle’.), p263.
[47] See for example #P025 generally.
[48] Westminster Review, July 1829, ‘Art. XVI. – Edinburgh Review, No. XCVII: Article on Mill’s Essay on Government, &c.’ 254 at 258-9. (Titled at each page head as ‘ “Greatest Happiness” Principle’.) p260
[49] #P045 generally.
[50] #P085 p4.
#P references in Notes to Constitutional Happiness
#P017 De Botton, video, Philosophy: a guide to happiness, 2002, Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (from the book)
#P025 Macintyre After virtue – a study in moral theory
#P036 Bertrand Russell History of Western Philosophy – and its connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day.Routledge London 1991, first published 1946.
#P045 Braybrooke, David, Utilitarianism
#P085 Goodin, Robert E., Utilitarianism as a public philosophy, New York : Cambridge University Press, 1995.
#P093 Carlyle, French Revolution
#P113 Plato’s Republic, trans and with intro by Benjamin Jowett, from Project Gutenberg, at www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/repub11.txt
#P138 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
#P161 Nicholas White, A Brief History of Happiness, Blackwell Publishing, Carlton, 2006
#P175 Preuss, Epicurean Ethics – Katastematic Hedonism, Studies in the History of Philosophy, Vol 35, the Edward Mellen Press, Lewiston, 1994
#P185 Howard Jones, The Epicurean Tradition, Routledge, London, 1989 [this book got my personal ‘good book award’]
#P186 Ernest Albee, A History of English Utilitarianism, Thoemmes, Bristol, 1902
#P208 Diskin Clay Paradosis and Survival – Three Chapters in the History of Epicurean Philosophy, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1998.
See also:
McMahon, The Pursuit of Happiness, A History from the Greeks to the Present, Allen Lane, London, 2006.
C. P. Rodocanachi , Athens and the Greek Miracle, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London 1948.
