What Is John Stuart Mill's Idea Of Happiness

According to Mill’s arguments and views on happiness, it is convincing that happiness is good: that each individual’s happiness is a beneficial thing to them. As well as, the proof of happiness is when people actually desire it and feel like they have never desired anything else (44). Mill defines happiness as intended pleasure and freedom from pain. Utilitarianism and happiness are linked to each other because the morality of a human action should do the right thing that is useful or beneficial to the society, which happiness is involved. For example, a person sees an elderly struggling carrying the grocery bags, and then the person comes over and helps. The outcome makes both of the people feel happy and it constitutes the society a better place. When people want to break away from unhappy people will take other people’s happiness away to make them happy.

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.

Along with other noted philosophers, John Stuart Mill developed the nineteenth century philosophy known as Utilitarianism - the contention that man should judge everything in life based upon its ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. While Bentham, in particular, is acknowledged as the philosophy’s founder, it was Mill who justified the axiom through reason. He maintained that because human beings are endowed with the ability for conscious thought, they are not merely satisfied with physical pleasures; humans strive to achieve pleasures of the mind as well. Once man has ascended to this high intellectual level, he desires to stay there, never descending to the lower level of

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.

John Stuart Mills, in chapter five of his autobiography “A Crisis in My Mental History: One Stage Onward”, (1909-14), suggest that mankind can never find happiness when it is their goal, they can only find it when their minds are fixed on something unrelated to the topic. He supports his claim by first stating, that happiness is only found when we have our minds fixed on something else than our happiness, then he says that when we are conscious of our feelings and when we feel happiness that is when we feel the most misery and sorrow, and finally he suggests that happiness will come naturally as long as we don’t dwell on the feeling. Mill’s purpose is to express that we are not supposed to be focused on happiness, it will come just as naturally as the air we breathe, but if we do we will just find ourselves in a state of misery. He establishes a very informative serious tone for anybody anywhere.

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.

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

Simply put, John Stuart Mill believed that the end of all action is happiness and, in turn, objectivism about intrinsic value as justifiable by argument. “The creed which accepts as the foundation 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” (Ch. II, paragraph 2). Mill describes utility as the foundation of morals based on the promotion of happiness. He argues that some kinds of pleasures are deemed more desirable and more valuable than other pleasures. It is implausible, he maintains, to hold that “the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone” (Ch. II, Paragraph 4). According to Mill, he describes the intellectual pleasures, as opposed to sensory pleasures

The article, ¨The Crisis in My Mental History: One Stage Onward¨ by John Stuart Mill shows Mill's argument that happiness cannot be something you achieve by force when we want to be happy. John Stuart Mill is a great philosopher who claims his statement about happiness that it not searched for and that it comes by itself when it has to. I agree with John Stuart Mill because happiness is not achieved by looking for it.

John Stuart Mill, in his autobiography, “A Crisis in my Mental History: One Stage Onward” (1909-04), argues that people are chasing happiness, which is making them unhappy. He supports his claim that gives examples of things that used to be enjoyable and fun, but are now being taken away. He says that people find happiness when not looking for it. Mill also says that you will find happiness through the happiness of other and if you make others happy. John’s purpose is for people to realize that they need to stop going around and always thinking that they have to be happy and just let themselves be happy naturally. Mill’s tone is serious towards all readers so that they really think about what he has to say.

Sentiments are described as having all justification of moral beliefs “grounded” in emotions. Mill says, “But there is this basis of powerful natural sentiment; and this it is which, when once the general happiness is recognized as the ethical standard, will constitute the strength of the utilitarian morality,”. By saying this, he is stating that natural sentiment is better, instead of forcing happiness and the actions taken to attain that action, it’s better if it happens on its own. Mill also says that sentiments has two sanctions: External and Internal. External sanctions are instrumental considerations (reward/punishments, favor/disfavor). Internal sanctions are duty; conscience; that we feel good or bad having performed an action. Thus, if internal sanctions provide the strongest influence over people's actions, utilitarianism must appeal to people's inner sentiments in order to exercise a binding force on them.

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.

How Not To Find Happiness In his autobiography, A Crisis In My Mental Health, John Stuart Mill describes his views on how to achieve happiness. In essence, Mill says that in order to be happy, one must focus on achieving a goal other than happiness itself. He also argued that once you ask yourself if you are happy or not, you will stop being happy. I agree with some of the assertions he made, but not all. John Stuart Mill's idea that happiness cannot be achieved if it is your life's goal is false, but his assertion that if you ask yourself if you are happy or not has some validity to it.

Mill also argues that there are several reasons why we should try to follow the greatest happiness principle. These reasons involve external motivations and internal motivations. One of the reasons why we are often motivated to do something in our society is because we do not want to anger people around us. Even though this is an important consideration when dealing with moral issues, there is another internal motivation that is more important according to Mill. This internal motivation is our own conscience. Our conscience is the little voice that we hear inside of our head that tells us what we should and should not do. Following your conscience will lead to causing happiness for both yourself and everyone else around you according to Mill.

John Stuart Mill’s autobiography, “A Crisis in My Mental History. One Stage Onward”, discusses his own philosophy on life and happiness. He was never undecided on the old philosophy of happiness until his philosophy’s creation. His philosophy is that happiness is obtained during the journey and not at the end of it. He believes that focusing on something other than happiness; things like “the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit.” He states that if one questions there happiness, then they’ll break their immersion. To solve this, they must get rid of their “self-interrogation”, “scrutiny”, “self-consciousness”. In doing so, one can truly embrace their own happiness without a doubt in mind. He ends it