Utilitarianism Audiobook By John Stuart Mill cover art

Utilitarianism

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Utilitarianism

By: John Stuart Mill
Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
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This expanded edition of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism includes the text of his 1868 speech to the British House of Commons defending the use of capital punishment in cases of aggravated murder. The speech is significant both because its topic remains timely and because its arguments illustrate the applicability of the principle of utility to questions of large-scale social policy.

Public Domain (P)2012 Audible, Inc. Classics

Editorial reviews

Listening to Fleet Cooper perform John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism is like attending the lecture of a favorite philosophy professor. Though the ideas contained in this audiobook can be dense and complex, Cooper always sounds as though he's speaking conversationally. His meter has a tone evocative of thinking aloud, which cordially draws the listener to the subject matter. In this famous treatise, Mill follows up on Jeremy Bentham's efforts to redefine morality. He objects to Bentham's hedonic calculus and argues that the "Greater Happiness Doctrine" is flawed, for one must take into account the inherent quality of one's pleasure when determining its ethical value.
Clarity Simplicity Arguments • Central Ideas Resonating • Impassioned Narration • Great Starting Point • Dramatic Reading
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Decent content, but not exactly spectate. The narrator should have done a second take of a few lines where he choked a bit. And someone should have told him the author's name is Mill, not Mills 😂

Narration had some flaws

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This audio book is a perfect example of how good book can be ruined by a bad narrator. The narrators voice was did not fit the narrative and came across as unsettling and uncomfortable.

Good book bad narrator.

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The book is great but the speaker too often makes high and low pitches making it hard to hear him while driving

Speaker was bad

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Since I hadn't read Mill since college, I figured it was high time to revisit his famous ethical essay on, and defense of, social utility, justice and the greatest-happiness principle. I remember loving the clarity and simplicity of Mill's arguments when I was first exposed to this essay in college, and the central ideas of utilitarianism still resonate with me 15 years later.

Fleet Cooper's narration was good, but there were times when he managed to make JSM seem snarky. It was almost a dramatic reading of Utilitarianism. Not what I expected, but since it didn't cause me actual harm or pain, I'm not sure his reading violated an actual "standard of narration morality".

A dramatic reading of JSM's 'Utilitarianism'

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Narrator mispronounces author's name. It's Mill not "Mills." Mispronounces "Protagoras." Mispronounces "a priori." Narrator snorts. What the hell? Inexcusable.

Disgusting Narration

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All around insightful. Not a sentence in this book did I find to be inessential. Written by a master craftsman of words with an intellect of precision and mind for making connections.

Excellent!!!

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I wished the author had more carefully defined happiness. It seems to me that he took it for granted that can all agree on happiness. Seems like silly point, but given the centrality to his overall argument that it would be important to clearly define what happiness is, and isn't. I also didn't follow why you could equate utility and happiness which seems central in some passages. I am left with a big, "why?" nagging at me. I'm not even sure all that my "why" implies, but it's a great place to start with this book.

Why?

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Great narration. Great topic to discuss with friends and family.
Definitely will be listening to it again.

Deeeep

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John Stuart Mill was ahead of his time regarding the clamoring for equality and justice for the little guy. He understood the helpless position under which the poverty-stricken are shackled.

Impassioned narration of an interesting subject.

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I had not read Utilitarianism since college (50+ years ago) and it has not improved. Mill's treatment of moral utility is fine except it is amateurish compared to what Immanuel Kant explained 80 years earlier in his Critique of Pure Reason. But then Mill was no Kant.

The narration of Utilitarianism is disgraceful. The narrator mispronounced many words including a few common ones. The Audible voice that introduced the novel pronounced the authors surname as Mills rather than the correct Mill. Then at the end he did the same thing again. I've listened to many audiobooks published by Audible Studios. The is the first one that should be withdrawn because the narration is embarrassing for the Audible brand.

Disappointing

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