Felicific calculus Felicific calculus The felicific calculus is an algorithm formulated by utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) for calculating the degree or amount of pleasure that a specific action is likely to cause. Bentham, an ethical hedonist, believed the moral rightness or wrongness of an action to be a function of the amount of pleasure or pain that it produced. The felicific calculus could, in principle at least, determine the moral status of any considered act. The algorithm is also known as the utility calculus, the hedonistic calculus and the hedonic calculus. To be included in this calculation are several variables (or
Jeremy Bentham devoted, describing their relationship as "son and father": he appointed Bowring political editor of the "Westminster Review" and eventually his literary executor. Another was Edwin Chadwick, who wrote on hygiene, sanitation and policing and was a major contributor to the Poor Law Amendment Act: Bentham employed Chadwick as a secretary and bequeathed him a large legacy. An insight into his character is given in Michael St. John Packe's "The Life of John Stuart Mill": A psychobiographical study by Philip Lucas and Anne Sheeran argues that he may have had Asperger's syndrome. Bentham was an atheist. writes, "In sum, with Hume's