Utilitarianism and On Liberty

Mary Warnock (1924 – 2019) was an English moral philosopher and Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge from 1984 until 1991. She was made a life peer in 1985 and given the title Baroness Warnock of Weeke in the City of Winchester. She was the author of numerous books, including Ethics Since 1900 (1960), The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre (1963), Existentialist Ethics (1966), Existentialism (1970), An Intelligent Person's Guide to Ethics (2000), Dishonest to God: On Keeping Religion Out of Politics (2010), and Critical Reflections on Ownership (2015). She is widely regarded as a trailblazer for establishing ethical frameworks around deeply controversial issues such as special needs education and human fertility treatments, and is credited with laying the blueprint for regulatory policymaking in these areas.

"Anyone interested in the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill will be pleased to have the essential readings in one volume and grateful to Mary Warnock for her informative and insightful introduction." William H. Shaw, San Jose State University "The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism "The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection." John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

• Introduction by Mary Warnock 1BENTHAMAn Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (chapters I–V) 17MILLBentham (from Dissertations and Discussions, volume I) 52On Liberty 88Utilitarianism 181AppendixAUSTINThe Province of Jurisprudence Determined. Lecture II 236Bibliography 252Chronological table 255Index 257