Meaning of felicific calculus | Babel Free

Definitions

A quasi-mathematical technique proposed by 19th-century utilitarian ethical theorists for determining the net amount of happiness, pleasure, or utility resulting from an action, sometimes regarded as a precursor of cost-benefit analysis.

historical

Examples

“Bentham's way of becoming the Newton of the moral world was to develop the "felicific calculus."”

“Peter Singer is a strict utilitarian who believes in the felicific calculus: that to behave ethically one’s actions must be calculated to bring about the maximum of pleasure and the minimum of pain.”

CEFR level