Study paper from 2004 in the field of Philosophy - Philosophy of the 19th Century, grade: 2.5, Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg (Philosophical Seminar), course: Introduction to Philosophical Ethics, language: German. Abstract: The political-social reformer and legal philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) is considered the founder of classical utilitarianism. His philosophy as an ethical principle emerged from several arguments that had previously only been formulated in outline and was fundamentally important for liberalism in the Anglo-Saxon world as the principle of utility (lat. utilitas). The morality of actions is assessed based on the "principle of the greatest happiness or the greatest pleasure" in order to "increase the happiness of the community." In the second half of the 18th century, John Stuart Mill, an economist and also an English philosopher, took up the topic.