Epicureanism and Utilitarianism: A Reply to Professor Lyons

Extract

I am grateful to Professor Lyons for his comments on several aspects of Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill and to the Review Editor of Utilitas for inviting me to reply. I hope that Professor Lyons will not object to my first pointing out to the reader that the book consists mainly of a series of substantial chapters on philosophers who have not always been regarded as utilitarian thinkers, such as Hume, Smith (three chapters) and Helvétius, or have been interpreted as utilitarians in different, if not opposing, ways, such as Paley, Bentham and J. S. Mill. A main feature of the book (besides its interdisciplinary character) is to show that what links their approaches to utility is the presence of Epicureanism in their writings, and I attempt to uncover a more coherent tradition employing the idea of utility than scholars have hitherto believed existed.