How Does John Stuart Mill Contribute To Happiness

John Staurt Mills, in chapter five of his autobiography , “ a Crisis in My Mental History: One Stage Onward, (1909-14) argues that people should be able to find their happiness. He supports his claim by first saying that happiness is something to survive by, then he states you need to ask yourself if your are happy or not and try to find your inner happiness. Mill's purpose is to reach out to people that happiness is an important in order to make people live a happy life. He creates a serious tone for people who are trying to find happiness.

When it comes to happiness, people acknowledges it as the feelings of pleasure and satisfaction one gets from doing something that makes them happy. The principles of happiness are researched by philosophers such as Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill’s autobiography, A Crisis in My Mental History: One Stage Onward, shows that he believes the happiness of oneself is not meant to be forced. However, the enjoyment of itself should allow itself to be discovered on its own, and “find happiness by the by”. I agree with John Mill’s statement of an individual’s happiness not to be constrained, but to appear naturally.

People travel through life with what seems like a single goal: to be happy. This may seem like a selfish way to live, however this lone objective is the motivation behind nearly all actions. Even seemingly selfless deeds make people feel better about themselves. That warm feeling experienced while doing charitable acts can be described as happiness. But what is authentic happiness? There is an endless possibility of answers to this question, and man seems to be always searching for the solution. Although one may reach his or her goals, there is always still something one strives for in order to be happy. In the book Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert takes the reader through

The utility test stems from the Utilitarian Principle where the consequences of one’s actions determine right or wrong; the ends justify the means. Utilitarian ideas primarily came to fruition in the eighteenth century as three of the most prominent utilitarian philosophers released their works within the same timeframe, all principally speaking to the greatest happiness principle. John Stuart Mill, a distinguished British philosopher of utilitarianism, once stated, “The creed which accepts as the foundations of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” Specifically meaning that the only relevant actions are those producing consequences that can be derived as either good or bad (West, 2010). The purpose of one’s actions is to create a better life through the influx of happiness with the decrease of unhappiness in their surrounding environment; the best course of action to pursue is the path that manufactures the best/greatest possible outcomes.

Everyone defines happiness differently, but everyone needs happiness. The book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse talks about how Siddhartha finds happiness through many ways. He leaves home and his friend, Govinda, to find enlightenment. He starves himself, he learns love, he even thinks of suicide… Fortunately, he meets a ferryman, who becomes his best friend, also his “teacher”, and helps him find the ultimate way to achieve enlightenment. Siddhartha abandons his relationships, money, and education which bring him happiness, and in the twenty first century, these still bring happiness as the essential steps to take.

To be depressed and joyless is just insupportable in today's society, happiness is becoming an argument in today's world. The article, “Happiness: Enough Already” by Sharon Begley, is to inform people that everyone undervalues the state of being happy; instead, they wanna push away the natural process of healing from melancholia. I believe this article can be directed to anybody who has suffered a maximum of happiness and sadness at least once, which almost every human being has or will experience once in their lifetime. The author makes valid statements throughout the article, an example would be everyone does not want to acknowledge that they are depressed, they either wanna “pop” a pill and forget about it or emotionally try to forget about it by just showing happy expressions. Even though everyone wants to have maximum happiness all the time, being depressed or heart

True happiness comes only from one’s self and not from the help of others. True happiness comes from one accomplishing their personal life goals. In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, “Self-Reliance”, he shows why not to conform to society and instead be individualized. He goes on to write “A political victory, a rise in rents, the recovery of your sick, or return of your absent friend, or some other quite external event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but

Essentially, seeking happiness is necessary in life. We often hope to find happiness from other people, other things around us and forget that we can create it by ourselves. The novel “The happiness project” by Gretchen Rubin is sufficient evidence. The author states, “I am happy – but I’m not as happy as I should be.”(13) Then she started a project within a year to change her life and seek for a happier life. By making a list of things she has to do in the next twelve months, the author have done many things which affects her “Vitality” (1), her “Marriage” (38), her “Leisure” (112), her “Friendship” (141),etc. positively so that she can achieve her goal, which is a life full filed of happiness as she dreamed before. We can also do that. We know that if everyone of us set a goal and live purposely, we are all happy. However, we can be happier if we know how to change ourselves on the right way. We can make ourselves happy by doing simple things in our everyday life.

Many people in my family have used drugs, alcohol, and other dangerous behavior in order to make themselves happy. By observation, I know that this may make people happy for a few minutes, but then they return to the miserable life they live in. The article, “In Pursuit of Unhappiness” states “Our own culture, steeped as it is in the relentless pursuit of personal pleasure and endless cheer.” According to Mills, we do unreasonable things because of the feelings we desire to experience. We want to feel “out of this world” and forget about our problems. People think that by achieving that feeling, they will eventually have a happier, more satisfying life. But this is the opposite of what happens. After

John Stuart Mill’s work provides a valuable insight to the issue of medicine that harm people in the classical utilitarian. Many people consider that prescription for medical marijuana as a moral sin or something that should be given to help the patients to improve his/her bad condition. As a majority of people and federal consider prescription for medical marijuana is immoral and it is restricted in many states including Texas.

In his article, John Stuart Mill defends the idea that people should pursue pleasure because it is the only thing that they will ever desire and, therefore, the only thing that will make them happy. Mill measures the value of pleasure by looking at the majority’s’ opinion who have experienced both types of pleasures in question. Mill believes that the higher level of pleasure would bring the most satisfaction. He makes the argument that “no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool”. Therefore, Mill assumes that no one would want to go down into a lower class, because humans possess a sense of pride and dignity. What makes a person happy can be measured by the satisfaction they feel brought by the thing they desire.

One of the most important ethical claims to me in the Mill reading was in Utilitarianism. The part about the greatest happiness principle is something that as I get older I have realized that this is the most important part of life. The greatest happiness principle is something that all humans should strive for otherwise what are they living for? I believe you only have one life so why would you not want it to be as pleasurable as possible. My own views about the greatest happiness principle are similar to Mill’s views. Why would anyone want to do something if in the end it does not make them happy? Having said that, I understand that it is not always possible to choose an action that makes everyone in the world happy and that sometimes you

John Stuart Mill differed from Jeremy Bentham in his version of utilitarianism in the concept of pleasures being a mental state caused by acts or pleasures being an act in itself that isn’t a means to anything but an end in itself. While Bentham believed pleasures were mental states caused by actions only, Mill believed that actions could cause pleasures but also that acts could be pleasurable and virtuous in themselves and did not always need to be a means to

I believe that Mill's idea of Greater Happiness can work, and is an easy way to think about morality (easy enough to explain to the general public). However, it only works conditionally. A lot of the questions we had to think about involved two choices. The happiness of one person, or the happiness of many others. There were multiple variations to this question, but the premise stays the same. Mill's idea can potentially work and also not work, and the reason is that it depends on the intent of the people we are deciding between. If we decide on making sure our fellow human beings are happy, we would have to make sure that the people we choose to make happy are following the same ideal. In other words, in the situation where you choose between

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher who was born on May 20, 1806 in London, England, to Harriet Burrow and James Mill, a noted economist, philosopher and historian. James Mill was an educated man who was heavily involved in an early 19th century movement called 'philosophic radicalism, ' a school of thought also known as Utilitarianism, which highlighted the demand for a scientific foundation for philosophy, as well as a humanist approach to economics politics. It was this foundation from which James Mill urged and advanced his eldest son 's education from a very early age. John Stuart studied Greek at age three and Latin at eight, and he was asked to recite everything he had learned to his father every day. John Stuart also studied mathematics and science for his personal enjoyment and would engage in long discussions with his father about histories and biographies that he had read. It is interesting to note that John Stuart was also empowered with the responsible for educating his eight younger siblings. His childhood comprised of a strict environment of learning, teachings and tutoring, however, John Stuart felt that he was emotionally compromised by his father’s educational plan. Although John Stuart never actually attended university, by the age of twenty, he essentially had a postgraduate self-education in logic, political economy and law. As an adult, John Stuart once stated that, out of all of his studies, teachings and education, the element that he