10. Utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham, at least to me, was one of the greatest thinkers ever to have lived. His concept of utilitarianism gives a strong teleological argument how to evaluate and formulate normative statements, which is simply: maximize utility (i.e. as much good as possible for as many people as possible). This idea underlies all modern economics, and it is one way to answer the dilemma posed by Humeu2019s guillotine. One should however understand that increased utility doesnu2019t necessarily mean u201cmore money,u201d otherwise itu2019ll be quite difficult to understand a lot of how the world actually works. In some ways, the forerunner of utilitarianism was, yet again, Epicurus.

FP EDIT: I posted this late last night and discovered I completely forgot to add the source. The original writer @Alexagon contacted me and asked to add username only and no link the original article. If you’re wanting the article source please contact @Alexagon.
I’ll now perform rituals/sacrifices to the Internet Gods to ask forgiveness for forgetting the source!