Here are some links that are very loosely related to the stuff on Utilitarianism that we are studying. Most of these deal with psychology. There's a lot of psychological research on happiness popping up lately. The first link is an overview of the psychology of happiness:
The second is a slightly optimistic take on our ability to change our baseline level of happiness. This is important to know for an ethical theory that values maximizing happiness:
The next link deals with a famous moral thought experiment, the trolley problem. This gets brought up a lot when evaluating Utilitarianism:
The last link is an advanced overview of "consequentialist" ethical theories. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory:
Finally, here's a video of Steven Singer, a modern-day utilitarian, on The Colbert Report:
