Pain, Pleasure, and the Greater Good

"Nature has placed Man under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure" (Jeremy Bentham, 1789). How should we act, tossed about as we are by these two? Should we, as the utilitarian would have it, maximize pleasure for the greatest number? This elegant intellectual and cultural history traces the birth of utilitarian thinking in the seventeenth century to today's evolutionary theory, economics, and neuroscience, fields that have recently been drawn together, once again, under the banner of utility. The author is attentive not only to its subtle reach but also to the single moment when, with the dawn of informed consent in medical research, an anti-utilitarian attention to autonomy briefly surfaced. This is an important book about the rise, fall, resurrection--and dangers--of utilitarian reasoning in medicine.