How nature can infleunce your ethics

Ethics based on utility according to the Greeks is called telos for ‘end result’. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think; every effort we make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire; but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sound instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light………….

By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question; or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or oppose happiness. I say of every action whatsoever, and therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government…………..the mirror reflects reality, but it is also the perfect tool for deception; When you mirror your enemies, doing exactly as they do, they cannot figure out your strategy. The mirror effect mocks and humiliates them, making them overreact. By holding up a mirror to their psyches, you seduce them with the illusion that you share their values; by holding up a mirror to their actions, you teach them a lesson. Few can resist the power of the mirror effect.

Of an action that is conformable to the principle of utility one may always say either that it is one that ought to be done, or at least that it is not one that ought not to be done. One may say also, that it is right it should be done; at least that it is not wrong it should be done: that it is right action, at least that it is not wrong action. When thus interpreted , the words ought and the right and the wrong, and others of that stamp, have a meaning; when otherwise they have none.