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
The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life is the measure of the various goods and ills which men recognize, so that the philosopher may settle the true order of human obligations." As James sees it, the psychological question is whether human ideas of good and evil arise from "the association of [certain ideals] with act of simple bodily pleasures and reliefs from pain." He believes that some elements of our moral sentiment do have such a source, and that Jeremy Bentham and his followers have done the world a lasting service by pointing that out. But he doesn't believe that association and pleasure/pain calculus are adequate to