The Greatest Happiness Principle was developed by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) as a way to spread 'happiness' or moral good to the largest amount of people. Doing so he used calculus to determine whether something is moral (overall good) or immoral (overall bad). His methods were radical for the time period, but from what information we know he is the only one to completely adopt his methods of declaring something moral or not.
The principle presiding over that branch of the penal code, which is employed in the endeavour to arrest, or apply remedy to offences considered as being and being intended to be productive of suffering to one party, without producing enjoyment, otherwise than from the contemplation of such suffering, to the other, is the positive-pain-preventing principle.
A modification of the security-providing principle, applying to security in respect of all modifications of the matter of property is the disappointment-preventing principle.
Abundance-maximizing principle: the use of it is to convey intimation of the reasons for whatever arrangements may come to be made in contemplation of their conduciveness to the accomplishment of that end.
The evidence goes to show that the “greatesthappinessprinciple,” or principle of utility, was arrived at by Bentham, in the first instance, as a criterion for legislation and administration and not for individual conduct—as a political, rather than an ethical, principle.
Indeed, the analogical argument will now be open: since each is concerned with his own greatesthappiness, the end for the community may be taken to be the greatesthappiness of the greatest number.
And, when the “greatesthappiness of the greatest number” has been accepted in this way, it is easy—though it is not logical—to adopt it as not merely a political, but, also, in the strict sense, an ethical, principle.
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