Theological utilitarianism: is morality the will of God collected from expediency, and does the appeal to everlasting happiness make virtue merely prudent?

William Paley, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

Virtue is the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness. Where scripture is silent the will of God is collected from the tendency of actions to promote general happiness. Actions are judged by the general consequences of the rule, not the particular consequences of the act.123

Sources

  1. Fourth, Happiness consists in health;) By health I understand, as well freedom from bodi / hf distempers, as that tranquillity, fineness and alac ' rity of mind, which we call good spirits; and which ihay properly enough be included in our notion of health, as depending commonly upon the same causes, and yielding to the same management, as our bodily constitution Health, in this sedse, is the one thing heedfuL…
    The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy
  2. Second i That vice has no advantage over virtue, even with respect to this world's happiness. G zed"by ^®ogk •m Ftrtue, CHAFFER VH. VIRTUE.
    The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy
  3. And the foundation of my opinion is this, that the qualities of actions depend entirely upon their effects, which effects must all along have been the subject of human experience. When it is once settled, no matter upon what principle, that to do good is virtue, the rest is calculation.
    A View of the Evidences of Christianity

Where the argument is made

  • The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), Book I chs. 5-7 (the moral sense denied, happiness, virtue defined), Book II chs. 1-9 (obligation, the will of God, expediency, general consequences)

How the argument was received

Read for fifty years as the standard English moral philosophy, then displaced by a secular utilitarianism that kept the method and discarded the sanction.