John Stuart Mill

Utilitarianism Annotated John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill 's book Utilitarianism is a classical philosophical analysis and defense of utilitarianism. The essay first appeared as a series of three articles published in Fraser 's Magazine in 1861, the articles were collected and reprinted as a single book in 1863. Mill 's goal in the book is to explain what utilitarianism is, to show why it is the best theory of ethics, and to defend it against a wide range of criticisms and misunderstandings. Although heavily criticized both in Mill 's lifetime and in the years since, Utilitarianism has made a great contribution to popularizing utilitarian ethics and has been considered the "most influential philosophical articulation of a liberal humanist morality".