Published in 1998, Helvetius is a valuable contribution to the field of Sociology and Social Policy.

A new translation of Denis Diderot's 1758 Refutation of Helvétius (Réfutation d’Helvétius) where he comments on Helvetius' book On the Mind. This edition contains an afterword by the translator on Diderot's philosophy, a timeline of his life and works, and a glossary of the philosophic topics which recur in his works. Diderot's "Refutation of Helvétius" is a critique of the philosopher Claude Adrien Helvétius' work "On the Mind." Diderot challenges Helvétius' reductionist view of human nature, arguing that the mind is not solely determined by pleasure and pain but encompasses a wider range of faculties and motivations. Diderot's refutation highlights his own philosophical stance on the complexity and richness of human psychology. Although Helvétius' work had sparked significant controversy, Diderot's critique played a role in the ongoing debates surrounding determinism and free will during the Enlightenment.

People who put the public good before their own self interest have been admired throughout history. But what is the public good? Sages and prophets who think they know better what is good for us than we know ourselves held sway on this subject for more than two thousand years. The world had to wait for the Enlightenment that burst upon the world in the eighteenth century for an account of the public good free from the prejudices of the privileged classes. Utilitarianism is our name for this new way of thinking about morality. Francis Hutcheson encapsulated its aims by inventing its catchphrase “The greatest happiness for the greatest number’’ fifty years before Jeremy Bentham, to whom the slogan is usually attributed. But what is happiness? Why did Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill prefer to speak of utility? How did economists develop this notion? Does it really make sense to compare the utilities of different people? Bob may complain more than Alice in the dentist’s chair, but is he really suffering more? Why should I put the sum of everybody’s utility before my own utility? This short book asks how such questions arose from the social and political realities of the times in which the early utilitarians lived. Nobody need fear being crushed by heavy metaphysical reasoning or incomprehensible algebra when this story is told. This book argues that the answers to all the questions that the early utilitarians found so difficult are transparent when we stand upon their shoulders to look back upon their work. The problem for the early utilitarians was to free themselves from the prejudices of their time. The lesson for us is perhaps that we too need to free ourselves from the prejudices of our own time.