A building is burning and you can save only one person: the Archbishop of Cambrai, whose survival will bring peace and happiness to thousands, or his chambermaid, who happens to be your mother. Nearly everyone saves their mother. Utilitarianism says the math requires you to leave her behind. This episode traces how the idea of the greatest good for the greatest number evolved from ancient philosophy into a fiercely debated ethical algorithm that now shapes economics, animal rights, and how people decide to give.

We start with Mozi's state consequentialism and Epicurus, move through the theological versions of John Gay and William Paley, and arrive at Jeremy Bentham's hedonic calculus and the pig philosophy attacks from Thomas Carlyle and Karl Marx. We then follow John Stuart Mill's higher pleasures and competent judges, Henry Sidgwick's col ...