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James Medbury MacKaye (April 8, 1872 - January 22, 1935) was an American engineer and philosopher. MacKaye was born in New York City, the son of actor Steele MacKaye and Mary (Medbery) MacKaye, and brother of poet Percy MacKaye and conservationist Benton MacKaye. He attended Grammar School No. 40 near Groton, Massachusetts〔Larry Anderson, ''Benton MacKaye: Conservationist, Planner, and Creator of the Appalachian Trail'', Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002, p. 16.〕 and Packard's Business College in New York, and in 1895 obtained an SB degree from Harvard University. In early 1890 MacKaye worked as a patent lawyer with the Census Bureau in Washington, and in April 1891 he became secretary to Nathaniel Southgate Shaler at the Harvard Geological Department, holding for a number of years various minor appointments in that institution.〔(The Papers of The Mackaye Family in the Dartmouth College Library ).〕 He joined the Boston firm Stone & Webster in 1899, where he worked as a research engineer. During the 28 years that he remained affiliated to that company he published several books on ethics, economics and politics, including ''Americanized Socialism'', ''The Logic of Conduct'' and, most notably, ''The Economy of Happiness''. ==The Economy of Happiness== In this highly original but now largely forgotten work, MacKaye attempted to rescue the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham from the changes that this doctrine had subsequently undergone as a result of John Stuart Mill's moderating influence. MacKaye conceived human beings—and sentient beings generally—as mechanisms of transforming resources into happiness, which he argued was the only intrinsic good. The goal of a society was therefore viewed by MacKaye as the problem of finding that arrangement which would produce the highest output of happiness attainable given the inputs available. As he wrote, ::That which society should seek to attain, the maximum surplus of happiness, may be referred to by different names according to the relation in which we think of it, e.g. the ''utilitarian end'', the ''end'' or ''object of utility'', of ''society'' or of ''justice'', and so forth. It is in the nature of a perfectly definite magnitude. Quantities of pain or pleasure may be regarded as magnitudes having the same definiteness as tons of pig iron, barrels of sugar, bushels of wheat, yards of cotton, or pounds of wool; and as political economy seeks to ascertain the conditions under which these commodities may be produced with the greatest efficiency--so the economy of happiness seeks to ascertain the conditions under which happiness, regarded as a commodity, may be produced with the greatest efficiency--how the maximum output of happiness may be achieved with the means available. In order to ascertain what these conditions are, we need to proceed as any manufacturer trained to his business would proceed, were he endeavoring to ascertain how he could most economically produce beer, or molasses, or oil, or tacks. He would satisfy himself by the inductive or common sense method what laws and resources of nature and of human nature were available under conditions as he found them, and the means thus available he would, to the best of his ability, adapt to his ends. Our problem is a similar one, and we shall adopt similar means to solve it.〔''The Economy of Happiness'', pp. 183-184.〕 MacKaye concluded that the form of social organization most conducive to that goal was a particular type of socialism which he dubbed "pantocracy". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「James MacKaye」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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