Utilitarianism Mill

Utilitarianism’s believe in that only the outcomes matter when it comes to decisions and morality, however, those outcomes can also be questioned. Mill forms the framework of utilitarianism by discussing it in a way that makes assumptions; these objections can also be questioned against also.

“The greatest good for the greatest number”; that is how the British philosopher John Stuart Mill famously summarized utilitarianism (Shafer-Landau, 2012b, p. 120). He is not only one of the greatest utilitarians, he is also a hedonist. Hence, he believed that this greatest good can be achieved by focussing all action on attaining the greatest amount of happiness. Mill describes utility as holding ‘that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness’ ((Shafer-Landau, 2012a, p. 17). He defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain, and unhappiness as pain and the privation of pleasure. Hence, Mill argues that only pleasure is intrinsically desirable and only misery intrinsically bad (Shafer-Landau, 2012a, p. 120). All other desirable things are only desirable as means to promote pleasure or prevent pain (Shafer-Landau, 2012a, p. 18). Therefore, in order to refute Mill’s utilitarianism, one would have to show that there is something other than pleasure or the freedom from pain that is intrinsically desirable. First, Robert Nozick’s attempt to disprove utilitarianism and hedonism in the shape of his ‘experience machine’ will be explained. Next, Mill’s arguments in favour of utilitarianism and hedonism will be recapitulated in an attempt to answer the central research question: why does Nozick’s experience

Mill writes of utilitarianism in the eponymous work Utilitarianism. According to his work utilitarianism is a means of deciding the moral value of actions. Mill’s theory takes a consequentialist view of actions, saying that the moral worth of an action is decided by the outcome, or consequence. This decision of moral worth is determined by whether the outcome maximizes happiness and minimizes the reverse of happiness. Mill writes that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” Happiness is defined as pleasure and the absence of pain according to Mill, and the action must be considered for the outcome it brings to the most people. This happiness, or pleasure and lack of pain,

Sometimes in life you are faced with a decision that no matter what you do the desired outcome will not be what you would personally desire to happen. In the moral dilemma of the young man that has been conscripted by his government to fight a war, while at the same time leave his mother back at home with a terminal illness, there is no simple right answer. This delimit was proposed by Jean-Paul Sarte. On one level this dilemma could be addressed by Mill’s and a Utilitarian view, if the young man goes to serve his country he would be serving the greater good and happiness of all, possibly helping many more people than if he stayed and took care of his ailing mother. Under these teachings even though it would not make the soldier happy to leave his mother in a time of need, the idea of serving and making the most people happy as possible, would serve the greatest good.

There are three main objections against utilitarian view in which Mill responds to. The first being that, the utilitarian standard of right and wrong is “too high for humanity” (Utilitarianism, 418). In the reading it states that, “it is exacting too much to require that people shall always act from the inducement of promoting the general interests of society” (Utilitarianism, 418). This is implying that that it would too high of a person to have the ability to always make a decision based on how it will affect people in a society. According to Mill, this objection is misunderstanding the meaning of utilitarianism. The meaning of Utilitarian view does not say that people

How does one, for example, compare the admiration of a painting to the admiration of music? Mill goes on to state that utilitarianism is not concerned as much with the pleasure of the individual as it is with the pleasure of society in general. He observes the objection that this demands a motivation to promote the greatest happiness for all, but counters by removing motivation from the picture. Utilitarianism is not concerned with motivations, but with ends. Another objection concerns the inability to determine all possible outcomes of all possible choices in a given situation. Mill means to apply utilitarianism to rules, not to individual situations (unless a precedent has not been established). Mill also responds to a number of objections which are unanswerable by many philosophies, including utilitarianism's godlessness, the infirmities of human nature, and whether happiness is attainable or necessary. Mill only states that these objections apply equally well to other philosophies, and does not directly address them.

Utilitarianism defined, is the contention that a man should judge everything based on the ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. In other words Utilitarianism states that good is what brings the most happiness to the most people. John Stuart Mill based his utilitarian principle on the decisions that we make. He says the decisions should always benefit the most people as much as possible no matter what the consequences might be. Mill says that we should weigh the outcomes and make our decisions based on the outcome that benefits the majority of the people. This leads to him stating that pleasure is the only desirable consequence of our decision or actions. Mill believes that human

In his essay, Utilitarianism Mill elaborates on Utilitarianism as a moral theory and responds to misconceptions about it. Utilitarianism, in Mill’s words, is the view that »actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.«1 In that way, Utilitarianism offers an answer to the fundamental question Ethics is concerned about: ‘How should one live?’ or ‘What is the good or right way to live?’.

The definition of a happily fulfilled life is one that many individuals tend to disagree upon. I like to believe that the key to happiness is helping others be happy and that much like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill suggest, it is the happiness and wellbeing of a collectivity that will lead to the utmost pleasure in my life. Bentham and Mill’s views on Utilitarianism are ones to live by; their theory assures humanity will thrive as a whole, collective entity and not as a group of self-appraised individuals.

We might attribute the apparently unreasonable conclusion of Kantian ethics in this example to a variety of trivial reasons. The fundamental issue arises when we tweak the maxim. Instead, let the maxim be “I will eject anyone who sneezes at the concert in order to avoid widespread infection.” While also somewhat unrealistic, this maxim seems far closer to something fair, so while the previous version seems wrong, this version might be permissible. Evaluated by Mill’s Utilitarianism, the pain for the sneezer greatly decreases from death to ejection, so if in recalculating the summative aspect, this action is better than the previous, it would be preferable and perhaps even generally permissible. This shift matches our intuition’s shift that,

John Stuart Mill, in his Utilitarianism, turns morality into a practical problem. His moral theory is designed to help one evaluate his moral principles and senisibilites and be able to ajudicate conflictions in moral conflicts. Mill postulates that actions are right so far as they tend to promote happiness and minimize pain. This theory manifests itself as an impartial promotion of happiness. Morally "right" actions are ones which promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number number of people and reduce pain. Utilitarian moral theories need to be coupled with theories of well-being, so that we can point to what is being maximized through the moral theory's operation. Mill's moral theory is

Mill compares two types of people: people who prefer to be "humans" according to his definition, and those that prefer to be "pigs". As pigs would ‘eat up' anything that

Although the display may cause an uproar within certain groups of people, if I was the art director I would continue to allow Millet’s piece to be shown. With utilitarianism being based on the principle of utility, promoting the most happiness for the greatest amount of people. Displaying this piece in the museum makes society happier as a whole. Many Americans come to view the photo every day while expressing their struggles as an American and how unhappy they are in America. As long as this image continues to make members in society happy as a whole, it will remain on display.

While studying the theory of Utilitarianism, we have briefly discussed both Mill's and Bentham’s ideas of the perfect Utilitarian person would would be. They both have very common ground but both branch off into their own ideas. Bentham’s ideas include a scale of measuring how much happiness can be measured. He believes that this scale can be changed from person to person based on their interests and how much happiness can be incorporated from certain activities. Whereas, Mill believes that certain activities can not measure the amount of happiness such as the birth of a child, freedom, etc. I believe that both points are very valid and in general I feel that a true Unitarism would believe a little of both points. I feel that in most activities, an individual can “measure” how much happiness an individual would have and that scale fluctuates based on the individual. However, I feel that certain activities for some people cannot be measured. In general human beings need to have love, support and activities that they enjoy doing to be happy. So I

One of the first misconceptions of Utilitarianism that Mill addresses is that it is often interpreted as the opposition of pleasure. Mill corrects this falsehood by stating the following: “Those who know anything about the matter are aware that every writer, from Epicurus to Bentham, be contradistinguished from pleasure, but pleasure itself, together with exemption from pain; and instead of opposing the useful to the agreeable or the ornamental, have always declared that the useful means these, among other things” (Mill, 2007, p. 5). Utilitarianism is, in