BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Two sovereign masters: pain\, pleasure and utility from Bentham to
  Skinner - Cathy Gere (University of California\, San Diego)
DTSTART:20160505T143000Z
DTEND:20160505T160000Z
UID:TALK65786@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Marta Halina
DESCRIPTION:This talk surveys the history of the Anglo-American 'utilitari
 an self'\, the idea that human behaviour is governed by pain avoidance and
  pleasure seeking. This concept of human motivation and purpose brings psy
 chology\, physiology\, economics\, political science and ethics together i
 n one seamless whole\, united under the banner of utility. The origins of 
 the utilitarian self lie in the British reaction to the American and Frenc
 h revolutions\, but its life extended into twentieth-century behaviourist 
 psychology. This presentation will sketch a line of intellectual descent c
 onnecting Bentham and Malthus in the 1790s\, to Alexander Bain\, Charles D
 arwin and Herbert Spencer in the Victorian Age\, to Edward Thorndike and B
 .F. Skinner in twentieth-century America. It will pay particular attention
  to the period in the mid-nineteenth century when the political\, historic
 al and ethical assumptions underwriting the utilitarian self were absorbed
  into evolutionary theory.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR