🏛 Western Thought

Utilitarianism — Greatest Good

"The greatest good for the greatest number"

제레미 벤담 (Jeremy Bentham, 1748~1832) · 존 스튜어트 밀 (John Stuart Mill, 1806~1873) · 18세기 후반

📜 Origin

In the heart of Britain's Industrial Revolution, Bentham wanted law and morality to be calculable. He proposed the "felicific calculus" — measuring happiness by intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity. His successor John Stuart Mill went further: not just quantity but quality. "Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied."

💡 Meaning

Utilitarianism's core: a policy is right if its consequences are. However pure the intent, if outcomes increase suffering, the policy is wrong. This thought drove abolition (1833), women's suffrage, Poor Law reform — the basis of modern reform. The fastest translation of philosophy into policy.

🌏 Eastern Classic Cross-link

Mencius: "Rejoice with the people." 2,300 years ago Mencius made public happiness the standard of politics. If the ruler's joy is not the people's joy, it is not rule. East and West climbed toward the same standard by different paths — Mencius through virtue, Bentham through calculation.

益

Compressed into One Hanja

"益" depicts a vessel (皿) overflowing — "what overflows is added." 益 is not mere "profit" but the insight that what is shared multiplies. Utilitarianism teaches the same — one person's happiness is small when sealed, large when flowing to all.