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Comparing John Stuart Mill And The Catholic Church

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John Stuart Mill and the Catholic Church have two completely different methods of analysis. They may result in the same conclusion at times, but for completely different reasons. John Stuart Mill is the founder of Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism says happiness is pleasure, and is hedonistic. The purpose of Utilitarianism is follow that the right choice is the one that leads to the greatest amount of pleasure (or least amount of pain) for the greatest amount of people. This works off an equation. If the amount of pleasure minus the amount of pain is greater than zero, the consequence is justified. Mill says there are two types of pleasure: bodily and intellectual, with intellectual pleasures such as art, music, reading, etc. being greater than bodily pleasures such as food, water, sex, etc. (CITE ETHICS BOOK, EDIT) The Catholic Church’s teaching is based off of the will of God. It describes morals as virtues that are based off of the four cardinal virtues: …show more content…

To respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays, to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This rule points us in a clear direction. Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated. Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves. In a word, if we want security, let us give security. If we want life, let us give life. If we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities. The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us.” (CITATION ROLLCALL.COM

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Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that focuses on outcomes and consequences. When one considers the theory of utilitarianism, it must be understood that the pleasure is a fundamental moral good and the aim is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. So, when a human is going through the decision making process it is of the utmost importance to look forward at the consequences of the decision and determine if the decision will maximize pleasure and minimize pain. John Stuart Mill, a nineteenth century philosopher focused on the theory of utilitarianism or the Greatest Happiness Principle and claimed that the maximization of happiness for the greatest quantity of people is the ultimate goal. One issue that we face in modern day America that

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Mill describes utilitarianism like a hypothesis depend on the basis that if people tend to behave like promoting happiness, it would be a true

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John Stuart Mill was a philosopher, political economist and civil servant in the 19th century . Mill is a Liberalist, which means that he believed that the government should not influence our personal choices as equal citizens of a society. John Mill was also a Utilitarian,

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Rule utilitarianism is a belief in which, an action is morally right, as long as it justified in accordance to a particular law. Utilitarianism is less complicated to understand (compared to other moral theories) because it consists of “doing whatever produces the best consequences” (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Virtue Ethics). Mill viewed the greatest happiness principle as the cornerstone of morals, he

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It was not until Mill’s late teens that he began to study Jeremy Bentham and his utilitarianism theory. “Reading Bentham satisfied Mill’s cravings for scientific precision and gave him a new way of looking at social intercourse” (Buchholz 97). Mill became so intrigued with Bentham that he decided to preach the Benthamite gospel in the Westminster Review, a publication started by his father and Jeremy Bentham. Mill’s views soon changed as he grew older. It is said that Mill had a mid-life crisis at the age of twenty because he took the Bentamite precision too far and actually forgot the ultimate goal of Utilitarianism in the first place, happiness.

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A man by the name of John Stuart Mill seems to be able to give us some answers to these questions. Mill starts our inquiring journey with defining what utilitarianism stands for. In short he states that it is the construction of utility, which claims that the actions that stimulate happiness in is morally fit and vice versa to be unfit. Happiness is something that we want for

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What Mill means by utilitarianism is giving the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. According to Sandel's lecture Mill's utilitarianism uses consequentialist reasoning. Categorical means absolute for example, if someone asks you if you are hungry a you say,"no",

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