much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it
includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this
is left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do
not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality
is grounded--namely, that pleasure and freedom from pain are the
only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which
are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other scheme) are desirable
either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to
the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mill: _Utilitarianism_ (London, 1907), pp. 9-10.]

Simply stated, Utilitarianism says: "Add together all the
pleasures promised by a contemplated course of action, then
the pains, and note the difference; the nature of the difference
will determine whether the course is right or wrong." Pleasures
and pains are thus conceived as being open to quantitative
determination. Action is determined by mathematical
calculation in advance of the pleasure and pain produced by
any action. Bentham's name is particularly associated with
the dictum, "the greatest happiness for the greatest number."
But two implications of this doctrine must be taken into
account, at least as Bentham interpreted it. The greatest
happiness meant the maximum amount of pleasure. And
each individual could desire the greatest happiness, only in
so far as it contributed to his own happiness or pleasure.
And, for Bentham, as for all strict Utilitarians, there was no
qualitative distinction in the amounts of pleasure. "The
quantity being the same," said Bentham, "pushpin is as good
as poetry."

Utilitarianism is here considered as an instance of a type
of ethical theory that set human happiness as the end, and
made its judgments of actions depend on their consequences
in human welfare. It must be pointed out, however, that its
conception of happiness was dependent on a psychology now
almost unanimously recognized as false: Bentham's assumption
that the _reason_ human beings performed certain actions
was _because_ they desired certain pleasures, completely
reverses the actual situation. It puts, as it were, the cart
before the horse. Pleasure is psychologically the accompaniment,
what psychologists call the "feeling tone" of the satisfaction
of any instinctive or habitual impulse. Human beings
have certain native or habitual tendencies to action, and
pleasure attends t