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John Stuart Mill On Happiness Essay

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As a child, most learn that sharing is caring. Giving something that is abundant to the individual to those who could benefit from it is a concept as old as civilization. Naturally, as humans, we seek to be happy and more often than not, make others happy. Thus the utilitarian view was created, but what does that mean? What exactly is happiness and how does one go about spreading happiness it to others? 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 …show more content…

Easy enough, but then pleasure is then divided into two levels: higher and lower. Lower levels of pleasure are those that we as humans share with animals. They include things such as food, sex, and music. All of these are relatively easy to attain. Higher levels of pleasures are intellectual, such as art or chess. Things that are mentally stimulating and take a bit to learn and attain. It is said that higher levels are more resistant to tolerance. Meaning that you bore from it way less easier than a lower level pleasure. Consequently, the way we achieve such happiness seems to fizzle when put into action with rule and act utilitarianism. Louis P. Pojman clarifies the difference between the two. The variation between the two is that act utilitarianism states that an action is correct only when it brings good to the situation verses any other choice you could have made. Rule utilitarianism states that an action is correct if we followed the given rules that were made in order to have the greatest chance of achieving the most amount of

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In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, he describes his feeling and thoughts on pleasure; he discusses that pleasure is good and that the feeling of eudaimonia is connected to pleasure. Eudaimonia, also know as the term for happiness in Greek, means “a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous” (dictionary.com). Aristotle describes happiness as the main purpose of all human lives and that it is absolutely the essential goal for all humans. I disagree with Aristotle’s statement that a life of pleasure cannot be the best life because just because a person finds pleasure in different ventures other than being virtuous doesn’t make them an animalistic person.

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John Stuart Mill’s explains that we do not have to look for happiness because we can find it without searching for it, we do not have to focus entirely on our own happiness, but make other people happy in order to find happiness of your own. He explains that we do not have to search for happiness because it will come all we need to focus on is on subjects other than thinking of being happy. I agree with some of the idea’s John S.M. has when he argues that we should not search for happiness. I agree with John Stuart Mill’s when he states that happiness will come to you when you are not looking for it.

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First, I will summarize utilitarianism. According to James Rachels, “Utilitarianism can be summed up in three propositions: (a) The morality of an action depends on the consequences of the action. (b) An action’s consequences matter only insofar as they involve the greater or lesser happiness of individuals. (c) in the assessment of consequences, each individual’s happiness gets equal consideration.”

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John Stuart Mill wrote What Utilitarianism Is to shift the focus from the quantity of happiness to the quality of happiness by introducing the lower and higher pleasures. Mill refers to lower pleasures as physical and higher pleasures as mental. Those who fall under the lower category are the type of people whose standards are low meaning that they are most likely to be satisfied. On the other hand, those who fall under the higher category are more like to have high standards making it hard to be satisfied easily. A higher pleasure can be something that had to be done with effort and meaning, while a lower pleasure could be something you need.

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According to Mill, the sole proof that the general happiness is desirable is that people actually desire happiness, in which I find this point a strong one. The fact that humans desire happiness is the only proof that utilitarianism can provide because proof belongs in the domains of science. However, humans desire happiness and the happiness of others, and this is the only and strong proof that can be shown. “The only proof that a sound is audible is that people hear it…

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The difficulty with utilitarianism is that no one knows all future consequences of your actions. The theory makes people do the right things for the wrong reasons. For example, “Mean” Mark has one goal and that goal is to intentionally hurt someone. While he’s trying to hurt certain people his plan messes up and maximizing goodness thus making him moral. The most important part about this ethical theory is the mathematics that has to be done.

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