The Happiness Philosophers: The Lives and Works of the Great Utilitarians

Description

A colorful history of utilitarianism told through the lives and ideas of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and its other founders In The Happiness Philosophers, Bart Schultz tells the colorful story of the lives and legacies of the founders of utilitarianism--one of the most influential yet misunderstood and maligned philosophies of the past two c

Bart Schultz is senior lecturer in the humanities and director of the Civic Knowledge Project at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the Universe, An Intellectual Biography.

"Schultz's ... overview of William Godwin, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Henry Sidgwick is a combination of biographies of the four Utilitarian philosophers and an overview of their philosophies. In each chapter, these two parts mesh well because, as Schultz points out, 'one needs the work and the lives' to understand a philosopher's writings fully. It also works well because of the diversity of writings on the topic of ethics, freedom, belief, and epistemology... Schultz does a wonderful job of combining each thinker's biography with their philosophical development."--Library Journal