Felicific calculus private be thy end:<br> If it be public, wide let them extend<br> Such pains avoid, whichever be thy view:<br> If pains must come, let them extend to few. The units of measurements used in the felicific calculus may be termed "hedons" and "dolors". They may be regarded as similar to the utilitarian posends and negends. 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
Jeremy Bentham their first appearance in English in the 1820s as a result of back-translation from Dumont's 1802 collection (and redaction) of Bentham's writing on civil and penal legislation. On his death, Bentham left manuscripts amounting to an estimated 30 million words, which are now largely held by UCL's Special Collections (c. 60,000 manuscript folios), and the British Library (c.15,000 folios). John Bowring, the young radical writer who had been Bentham's intimate friend and disciple, was appointed his literary executor and charged with the task of preparing a collected edition of his works. This appeared in 11 volumes in 1838–1843. Bowring based