'It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness: poverty and wealth have both failed,' says Kin Hubbard's creation Abe Martin. Since the pursuit of 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number' has proved so perplexingly difficult in practice, discussion of the philosophical foundations of utilitarianism can easily appear to be otiose. Sometimes it seems obvious that the pursuit of general welfare is what morality and public policy must be all about now that the theological underpinnings of traditional morality have crumbled, and a waste of time to argue over that when the technical obstacles are so pressing. At other times the very elusiveness of welfare, happiness and related notions can make it seem equally obvious that the whole enterprise is shot through with hubris.

LRB 18 August 1983 | PDF Download