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Reminds me of how the "veil of ignorance" attributed to John Rawls while the original was developed by John Harsanyi. In the end, it doesn't much matter who di
by yboris 5y ago
Reminds me of how the "veil of ignorance" attributed to John Rawls while the original was developed by John Harsanyi.
In the end, it doesn't much matter who did what, as long as good ideas got popularized. Bentham made an enormous contribution to developing and spreading utilitarian thought, and should be praised as such.
Thank you for sharing about Hutcheson - I've not heard of him before.
One of the best resources for philosophy reading is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Here it seems Hutcheson is credited with "proto-utilitarian" views / "anticipation of some strains of utilitarian thought".
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hutcheson/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hutcheson/
- dr_dshiv 5y agoFor being the guy to cultivate Adam Smith, you'd think he'd get more attention. But the issue is the f-s printing of the time. Hard to read! His work on the inner sense of harmony and beauty is great psychology. Big influence on smith, whose first book was on Sympathy. Oh, he also coined the term "inalienable rights" and wrote the text on moral philosophy that was used to educate over 60 percent of the signers of the declaration of independence. Also had a big connection to secret societies and the whole western esoteric deal. Part of why Adam Smith burned all his papers (one may presume).