Utilitarianism was initially a school of thought advanced by Jeremey Bentham in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. John Stuart Mill would later go on to shape it closer to the shape we know today. On the surface the utilitarian way of thinking seems simple: every action must be done for the common good. However, if you delve deeper into this concept, it is clear that this cannot be achieved by relying solely on a common sense approach to life. In the following paragraphs we will explore the history of utilitarianism and those who formed it, how it should guide life, and how it is relevant to life in the twenty-first century. Jeremy Bentham has spent much of his life focusing on what he sees as shortcomings in the justice system. He felt there were “irrational and chaotic foundations” in the leadership of his time (Lawhead, p465). Bentham did not believe that morality was ingrained in every person from birth, or that moral laws were the same for everyone – and since there was no scientific evidence of these things, things that the previous government had come to regard as facts, Bentham rejected them. . What Bentham believed was that pleasure and pain were experienced by every person, even if the sources were different. He also believed that achieving this pleasure was every person's ultimate goal. Even when a person does something that takes into account the pleasure of others, it is ultimately to indirectly promote their own pleasure. Therefore he devised a method to calculate the amount of pain and pleasure a situation created. Then, by adding these amounts and determining which course of action brought the most pleasure to everyone in the situation, he determined… mid-paper… It is unlikely that the company would be willing to do this. respond to every situation with rationalization and logical thinking – nor should they, because emotions have the power to give us a closer connection to the people around us. Even if a person chooses not to make decisions based on utilitarian logic, the principles are at least capable of opening a person to the idea that their actions and decisions affect people other than themselves. Works Cited Bykvist, Krister. Utilitarianism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum, 2010. eBook. Jamieson, Dale, et al. The singer and his critics. Malden: Blackwell, 1999. Print. Lawhead, William. The journey of discovery. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2007. Print.Mulgan, Tim. Understanding utilitarianism. Stocksfield: Acumen, 2007. eBook.Singer, Peter. Practical ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Print.