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Just read Copleston on Paley's utilitarianism

It seems that Paley was a utilitarian (sez Copleston) much like J S Mill, except that the former was a theist. Pleasure/pain are the measures of happiness. Non-sequitur move from my feeling like pursuing my happiness to my obligation to seek the greater happiness of all. Obligation as coercian (Austin?).

A worthy project: to compare the klunkiness of this very instrumentalist ethics with the inner teleology of Aristotle, and then to draw an analogy between this comparison and Paley's use of teleology in the service of natural theology and Aquinas's 5th way.

My point: Aquinas's way as superior to Paley's design argument as is Aristotle's ethics of human flourishing is to Paley's klunky utilitariansim.
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