... masters, pleasure and pain. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.' It is evident therefore, that Bentham believed human beings pursued pleasure and sought to avoid pain, which he described as being a 'moral fact.' As a hedonist, Bentham believed that pleasure was the sole good and pain the sole evil. Having identified the two possibly outcomes of any action being pleasure or pain, Bentham sought to identify the rightness or wrongness of any action by through its 'utility' or the amount of happiness caused by the action. This is other wise known as the 'Greatest Happiness Principle': 'a principle which approves or disapproves of every action according to the tendency to which it appears to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question.' In essence, the theory states that ...

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