The Greatest Happiness Principle
“[...] that Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers; and that, worst, which, in like manner, occasions Misery.”
Francis Hutcheson (1725): An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, edited with an Introduction by Wolfgang Leidhold, Indianapolis 2004, S. 125 (Treatise II, section III, § VIII)
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=858&Itemid=28
Francis Hutcheson: Philosophical Writings, hrsg. von R. S. Downie, London 1994, S. 90
“[...], it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong, [...].”
Jeremy Bentham (1776): A Fragment on Government, hrsg. von Ross Harrison, Cambridge 1988 (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), S. 3 (Preface)
Jeremy Bentham (1776): A Fragment on Government, Preface
http://www.ecn.bris.ac.uk/het/bentham/government.htm