Happiness, democracy, and the cooperative movement : the radical utilitarianism of William Thompson / Mark J. Kaswan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kaswan, Mark J., 1962- author.

Series:

SUNY series in new political science.

SUNY Series in New Political Science

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Thompson, William, 1775-1833.

Thompson, William.

Bentham, Jeremy, 1748-1832.

Bentham, Jeremy.

Happiness.

Democracy.

Cooperation.

Utilitarianism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (322 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany, New York : State University of New York Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Happiness is political. The way we think about happiness affects what we do, how we relate to other people and the world around us, our moral principles, and even our ideas about how society should be organized. Utilitarianism, a political theory based on hedonistic and individualistic ideas of happiness, has been dominated for more than two-hundred years by its founder, Jeremy Bentham. In Happiness, Democracy, and the Cooperative Movement, Mark J. Kaswan examines the work of William Thompson, a friend of Bentham's who nonetheless offers a very different utilitarian philosophy and political theory based on a different conception of happiness, but whose work has been largely overlooked. Kaswan reveals the importance of our ideas about happiness for our understanding of the basic principles and nature of democracy, its role in society and its character as a social institution. In what is the closest examination of Thompson's political theory to date, Kaswan moves from philosophy to theory to practice, starting with conceptions of happiness before moving to theories of utility, then to democratic theory, and finally to practice in the first detailed account of how Thompson's ideas laid the foundations for the cooperative movement, which is now the world's largest democratic social movement.

Contents:

""Contents""; ""Preface""; ""Introduction""; ""William Thompson""; ""Thompson�s Life and Works""; ""Thompson�s Legacy""; ""Conceptual Contrasts between Bentham and Thompson""; ""Central Concepts: Politics, Society, and Democracy""; ""Political Economics""; ""Plan of the Book""; ""Part I: What Is Happiness?""; ""1: The Two Faces of Happiness: A Brief History""; ""Hedonic versus Eudaemonic Happiness""; ""Desire, Pleasure, and Happiness""; ""Whose Happiness?""; ""The Temporal Frame""; ""2: Between Pleasure and Well-being: Bentham""; ""Calculating Happiness""; ""Interest and Interests""

""Happiness as the Object of Pleasure""""Bentham and Well-being""; ""Security""; ""Money, Wealth, and Property""; ""Security, Subsistence, and Basic Needs""; ""Individuals, Community, and Happiness""; ""The Cloak of Individualism""; ""Individualism and Liberalism""; ""Bentham and Neoclassical Economics""; ""3: William Thompson�s Social Happiness""; ""Happiness and the Formation of Character""; ""Tabula Rasa and Social Environmentalism""; ""Philosophical Necessitarianism and Happiness""; ""“True� Happiness""; ""Thompson and the Hegemonic Construction of Happiness""

""Happiness as Well-being""""Thompson�s Hedonism""; ""Wealth and Happiness""; ""Natural and Factitious Motives""; ""Security""; ""Individual Happiness and Social Happiness""; ""Capacity for Happiness as the Basis for Fundamental Equality""; ""The Inherently Social Character of Eudaemonism""; ""The Social Character of Interests and the Voluntary Society""; ""Pleasure, Happiness, and Well-being: Thompson and the Contemporary Literature on Happiness""; ""Objective Well-being""; ""Of Subjective and Objective Happiness""; ""Thompson: The Objective Happiness of the Individual""

""Part II: The Politics of Happiness""""4: Happiness and Utility""; ""Bentham: The Pursuit of Pleasure and the Greatest Happiness""; ""Utility and the Principle of Utility""; ""Principles Subsidiary to Utility: The Opposition of Security and Equality""; ""Utility and Private Property""; ""Self-Interest and Social Interest""; ""William Thompson: Security, Equality, and the Political Economy of Happiness""; ""Surplus Value and the Premises of Political Economy""; ""Private Property and the Disutility of the System of Individual Competition""; ""Selfishness and Self-Interest""

""The Evils of Subordination""""Conditions for a Real Identity of Interests""; ""The Natural Laws for the Distribution of Wealth""; ""The System of Mutual Cooperation""; ""Thompson�s Utilitarianism""; ""5: The Politics of Happiness and Democratic Principles""; ""Bentham and Representative Democracy""; ""Sinister Interest and the Sovereign""; ""Bentham�s Instrumental Theory of Democracy: Elite Rule and Official Aptitude""; ""The Role of the Public: The Public Opinion Tribunal""; ""Thompson: Democracy as a Social Practice""

""Democratic Participation in Government as an Instrument for the Greatest Happiness""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781438452050

1438452055