The Principle of Utility

B bentham introduces in the book what he calls the principle of utility. An action is right if it promotes or produces benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness. And wrong if it does the opposite and creates pain, unhappiness, mischief, evil. He's not exactly saying this should be the way that you, as an individual act. But it turns into kind of a full fledged ethical principle after his time. The argument against it is like the arguments against popular culture to day. It's the reduction of human beings to the lowest common denominator.