John Stuart Mill And Immanuel Kant

In Utilitarianism, Mill noted, “utility includes not solely the pursuit of happiness, but the prevention or mitigation of unhappiness” (Mill 12).

John Stuart Mill and Aristotle both address the idea of happiness as the goal of human life. They explain that all human action is at the foundation of their moral theories. Mill addresses the Greatest Happiness Principle, which is the greatest amount of pleasure to the least amount of pain. Similarly, Aristotle addresses happiness through the idea of eudaimonia and human flourishing. According to Aristotle, eudaimonia is happiness, it is the state of contemplation that individuals are in when they have reached actualized happiness. Also referred to as happiness or human flourishing, it is the ultimate goal of human beings. Happiness is “living well and acting well.” He explains that once general happiness becomes recognized as the moral standard, natural sentiment will nurture feelings that promote utilitarianism. According to Aristotle, happiness is a state of being. Both Mill and Aristotle agree that in order to attain true happiness, human beings must engage in activities that are distinct to humans and that make them happy. Aristotle’s idea of eudaimonia and human flourishing is a more compelling argument than Mill’s for happiness and the final end because Aristotle explains that the virtues bring human beings to happiness.

anything else. Human nature is such that if a person achieved pure happiness, that person

For most of us, achieving some state of Happiness is a core objective. Indeed, in a great many of the philosophical musings on the very purpose of our lives here on Earth will tend to focus on the importance of achieving happiness, of sharing happiness and of bringing happiness to others. It is therefore reasonable to propose the knee-jerk response that happiness is the end in and of itself. However, as Kant asserts, this is an incomplete understanding of our supposed purpose here. As the 18th Century German philosopher asserts, happiness lived without the principle of good will, can have the capacity to be a rather unsavory force. According to Kant, in fact, this concept of good will is a core determinant as to whether the characteristics by which we can be defined may be considered virtues or vices. Kant argues that this truth "holds with gifts of fortune; power, riches, honor, even health, and that complete well-being and contentment with one's condition which is called happiness make for pride and often hereby even arrogance, unless there is a good will to correct their influence on the mind and herewith also to rectify the whole principle of action and make it universally comfortable to its end." (Kant, p. 7) This principle underlies the initial rejection of the assumption that Happiness, however formulated, is the

One might say, however, that some things are desired as a means to happiness. These, he says, are ‘ingredients’ to happiness. Happiness consists of these ‘ingredients’; they are a part of the happiness. Therefore, Mill claims that whatever is desired for its own sake is part of what happiness is, and each individual person desires different things to make them happy. They are means to the end of happiness. It is not possible, according to Mill, to desire something that will not provide some form of pleasure. Pleasure is happiness, and people only desire happiness, and happiness is therefore the only good.

Immanuel Kant refers to happiness as contentment (Kant, ) whereas John Stuart Mill refers to it as the pursuit of pleasure and the absence of pain (Mill, p.7). Kant does not base his ethics on happiness. Instead, he argues that morality is based on our duty as a human (Kant, ). To do what is right for Kant is to do what is instinctually moral without giving thought to the overall happiness. On the other hand, Mill does in fact use happiness as the bases for his ethics. He proposes that actions are right if they promote overall happiness and wrong if they promote the opposite of happiness (Mill, ). In this paper, it will be argued that Mill 's views on happiness are more reasonable than those of Kant 's because happiness should be the base for ethics.

John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics both agree that happiness is essential to a good life but differ on what an individuals happiness consists of. They both recognized the importance of happiness to man and aimed at defining it. Aristotle believed that happiness comes from virtue. He argued that in order to be happy, man must complete his function (Aristotle). On the other hand, John Stuart Mill, argues that pleasure and freedom from pain are what make up someone’s happiness. He felt that man’s purpose in life is to find pleasure, and that pleasure will bring him happiness (Brink). The two philosophers spent much of their time contemplating what it means to be happy, and although they came across different views, they agreed on the overall idea that in order to attain true happiness, men should be engaging in activities that are distinct to

Likewise, Kant says that there is no reliable concept of happiness (4:399) and that we can only infer the objects related to happiness through experience, which is inherently misleading as a source of truth (4:418). Lastly, both philosophers believe that happiness relies on reason. As previously discussed, Aristotle’s conception of the path to happiness depends entirely on our use of reason to conduct virtuous activity. And although Kant says that reason distances us from happiness (4:395), I argue that reason and science have raised our standard of living throughout history. Does he really believe that the cavemen huddling around fires were happier than the healthier, longer-living and more enlightened modern man? Furthermore, reason gives us the tools to pursue wealth and power, whose category he labels as happiness. Lastly, he specifically calls happiness “Power, riches, honor, even health, and the entire well-being and contentment with one’s condition” (4:393). Self-awareness is a faculty of cognizance, and thus to be “content with one’s condition” requires some level of reason. Thus, as I have shown, Kant’s and Aristotle’s definitions of happiness are equal: both require fortune, neither is universal, and both require reason.

Mill is arguing that the basis of morality is dependent upon the existence of pleasure and absence of pain, which is what people most desire. Therefore, an action that leads to an increase in happiness is seen as good and desirable while actions that decrease a state of happiness are seen as bad and should be avoided. Mill further elaborates on the meaning of utilitarianism when he explains, “for that standard is not the agent’s own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether” (Mill, 11). Utilitarianism is not concerned with actions that increase personal happiness, but those that increase happiness overall. It is important for one not to value his or her happiness over the happiness of others, because if we create happiness for others we will then create happiness for ourselves.

Mill defines happiness as the production of happiness and the absence of pain. Unlike Kant's focus on the individual, Mill believed in considering the happiness of everyone that might be affected by the action. People should seek the greatest amount of happiness possible for all involved.

The aim of this paper is to clearly depict how John Stuart Mill’s belief to do good for all is more appropriate for our society than Immanuel Kant’s principle that it is better to do what's morally just. I will explain why Mill’s theory served as a better guide to moral behavior and differentiate between the rights and responsibilities of human beings to themselves and society.

John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant in my opinion was two great scholars with two great but very different views, on morality. John Stuart strong beliefs was named Utilitarianism. Simply stated Utilitarianism is the belief in doing what is good specifically for the greater good of the masses/everyone not just someone.

Secondly, when we ask the question, what is freedom, we are not simply asking for a definition. We are seeking to find some truth in regards to liberty. We don’t ask this difficult question in order to get some sort of dictionary definition, we ask this question in order to gain insight. We ask this question to know how we should live our lives and how our government and other institutions should act in respect to liberty and our freedoms. Berlin’s two conceptions not only provide us with a definition, but also helps us determine how our society and laws should progress.

The works of German philosopher’s Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx have played significant roles in the development of different sects of philosophy and religion. Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Konigsberg, East Prussia, now presently Kaliningrad, to a devout, poverty-stricken family of eleven children. Through his works, it is evident that Kant was raised in the religious teachings and values of pietism as his theories show a heavy influence of his religious upbringing. Kant as a young boy was accustomed to a routine of working and studying, and despite never travelling far from his hometown, he grew to be sociable and witty. Karl Marx was born almost a century later in the town of Trier, present-day Germany, in the year 1818 into a middle-class family. Marx studied a variety of disciplines, including law, philosophy and history, and became a preeminent philosopher, a revolutionary economist and a great leader. The revolutions of his time and his profound disapproval of the capitalist economic state inspired his works, particularly his concepts on authority and exploitation and his theory of history.

Happiness is often thought to be something of relativity. What makes one person happy does not necessarily bring happiness to another. Nevertheless, how happiness is defined, by no doubt, has something to do with the characteristics of a culture and time. For example, the beginning of the sixth century was characterized by many controversies in the newly officialized religion of Christianity - Arianism, to name one. Religion, at the time, became a big factor in defining true happiness. As controversies got resolved, the use of religion as a means to defining happiness remained a constant through the sixteenth century, but the influence became more on the need for reformation in the Church. One author in the sixth century, Boethius, writes vividly on the idea of happiness in his The Consolation of Philosophy. Similar points that Boethius makes about happiness can be found between the lines of a sixteenth century writer, Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Due to the difference in the eras of which The Consolation of Philosophy and Doctor Faustus were written, the authors present happiness in a manner relative to their time, while ultimately both agreeing that true happiness is rooted in God.