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John Stuart Mill Research Paper

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John Stuart Mill is a utilitarian. He believes that all sentient creators are psychologically hedonistic; that we naturally seek out pleasures and avoid pains (Pg. 88). As a utilitarian, he focuses on ethical hedonism, the idea that we ought to maximize our happiness. To Mill, the right actions to take are those that promote happiness, the wrong actions to take are those that promote pain (Pg. 90). Mill defines happiness as feeling many kinds of pleasures and only few temporary pains in our lifetime (Pg. 89). Like Bentham and Epicurean, Mill thinks that the Greatest Happiness Principle ought to be the foundation of our societies. The Greatest Happiness Principle is having most people in a society feeling the greatest amount of happiness (Pg. 88). However, unlike Bentham and Epicurean, Mill believes that the Greatest Happiness Principle should include quality with quantity (Pg. 91). …show more content…

He says that there are those who seek pleasures for their own individual happiness and those who seek to promote pleasures for most of the people in their society (Pg. 90). Mill distinguishes the pleasure of animals and of humans. He states that humans can reach pleasures of the mind while animals can only reach pleasures of the appetite (Pg. 89). He considers pleasures of the mind, which are pleasures of intellect, feelings, and imagination, to be superior than pleasures of mere sensation (Pg. 91). He argues that hedonism is not animalistic. Since humans feel pain in a different and more severe way than animals do, we should not expect that our pleasures are exclusively of sensation and appetite like animals (Pg. 91). Mental pleasures outdo bodily pleasures (Pg.

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The same goes for an individual. Whatever option would bring that person the greatest pleasure would be the right choice and all other options would be wrong because they would be bringing them pain. Bentham states that when you consider an individual or a group then you can determine the value of the pleasure or pain felt in a situation through evaluating its intensity, duration, certainty/ uncertainty, propinquity/ remoteness, fecundity, and purity (41). This means that you can determine the amount of pleasure or pain a person will feel depending on how greatly it scores on these

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While a pig can eat exorbitant amounts of food for pleasure they cannot experience the pleasures that demand a higher level of intellect and consciousness (music, literature, art). Mill attempted to prove the invalidity

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Whether it is at the dinner table or in my family’s group text message, the conversation about my brother’s custody battle with my mother’s side of the family seems to remain a bitter topic, especially when discussing my role in it. When my father physically harmed my brother to the extent to which he had to go to the emergency room, the custody trial over my brother and me began. After several sources provided the judge with accusations against my father, I was the final source that needed to assert or deny my father’s abuse; with heavy consideration, I decided to lie to the judge by denying my father’s abuse. Under the principle of utilitarianism, philosophers would infer that lying is permissible if the consequences of doing so are good.

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The object of this essay is to show a simple evaluation of john Stuart mill principle “an action is right that it does not cause harm to another person” I will be exercising both evaluations and explaining why the positive side outweighs the negative side of the principle, in a society that it’s people are emancipated to control their own opinions. Mill Stuart in his autobiography of 1873 he narrates liberty as a philosophic chronicle of indivisible accuracy. (Mill (1989.edn).p.189) rather than speaking of rights, many claim a ‘right’ not to be harmed ,mill says that only a harm or risk to harm is enough vindication for using power above someone else. John Stuart moreover he adequate his principle by reckoning that it is not good to use power

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I think I will divert the train to the right killing one person because one person is less important than five. Sometimes it is important to do what is right than what is morally good to do. The utilitarianism is a moral theory that gives happiness to the number of people in the society and it has been considered greatness, an action is morally appropriate if its outcomes lead to happiness and wrong if it results in sadness. I will begin by describing what Mill might do in the Trolley situation. Next, I will contrast what Kant might do in this situation and lastly, I will be also going to give my opinion on this Trolley situation.

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Mill and Kant have opposite idea and they support different moral philosophies. Mill exactly suppose the idea of social thinking, namely he claims that everyone attach an importance to other human beings. However, Kant considers that selfishness reflect people’s characteristics, in other words, each person should pay attention to themselves not others, because the most important thing for them is themselves. Kant also highlight that people can only behave in a good manner, if they have good will. In other words, Kant attach an importance to people’s instinct or characteristics, Mill gives weight to promoting happiness and dissolution of the pain.

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By including the dictionaries definitions, the author shows contradictory explanations for happiness. In addition, using common daily facts he demonstrates how people’s decisions are based on the happiness desire, which we can see by the following words: “… it is nonetheless implicit in our decisions and undertakings, the ordering principle or end of our human projects” (413). Also, Kingwell includes words from other writers, such as John Stuart Mill, Eric Hoffer, Nathaniel Hawthorne and John Ralston Saul, to emphasize the point that the excessive pursuit of happiness causes unhappiness, which makes its definition even more confusing and

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In Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents, Freud states that the definition of happiness is dependent on the individual and is influenced by choices the individual makes (Freud 54). On the other hand, in Kafka’s ¬Metamorphosis, Kafka does not explicitly state what happiness is but shows it through the life of Gregor, which allows for a single interpretation of happiness. Using Freud’s outline of happiness, one can study and understand Kafka’s interpretation of happiness from Metamorphosis and realize that both interpret happiness in the same way. Both Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents and Kafka’s ¬Metamorphosis shows that happiness can be found through love, but can be interfered by how one’s body is and from relations to other

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M. Hare’s argument, it can be seen that there exists some issues with utilitarianism. Or, simply apply utilitarianism to this world, and use utilitarianism code to make every decision is wrong since the code of utilitarianism loss consistency in real world. According to utilitarianism, the best moral action is the one that maximizes utility, or happiness. However, happiness is complex. It is generally acknowledged that people who have their physical and emotional needs satisfied and their human rights guaranteed are happy.

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Introduction: John Stuart Mill essay on Consideration On representative Government, is an argument for representative government. The ideal form of government in Mill's opinion. One of the more notable ideas Mill is that the business of government representatives is not to make legislation. Instead Mill suggests that representative bodies such as parliaments and senates are best suited to be places of public debate on the various opinions held by the population and to act as watchdogs of the professionals who create and administer laws and policy.

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I chose to review the fifth chapter of “New Ideas From Dead Economists” titled The Stormy Mind of John Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill was born in 1806 in London to two strict parents who began to educate their son at a very young age. Mill’s father was James Mill, a famous historian and economist, who began to teach his son Greek at the age of three. The book reports that “by eight, the boy had read Plato, Xenophon, and Diogenes” and by twelve “Mill exhausted well-stocked libraries, reading Aristotle and Aristophanes and mastering calculus and geometry” (Buchholz 93). The vast amount of knowledge that Mill gained at a young age no doubt assisted him in becoming such a well-recognized philosopher and economist.

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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.

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In a critique of both the works, the paper adopts the Aristotelian thought citing that actions of human aims to fulfill goodness, which arguably is the happiness, one that arises from virtues practiced out of habit. Both the philosophers weigh in heavily on the role of happiness in the day to day lifestyles of humans. Adopting a sharp critic to the conventional principles of utility, Mill recognizes that happiness, as opposed to pleasure has a wider space in human attainments. He goes in deeper to explore the levels of pleasure

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John Stuart Mill, at the very beginning of chapter 2 entitled “what is utilitarianism”. starts off by explaining to the readers what utility is, Utility is defined as pleasure itself, and the absence of pain. This leads us to another name for utility which is the greatest happiness principle. Mill claims that “actions are right in proportions as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” “By Happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain, by happiness, pain and the privation of pleasure”.

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The two moral reasonings are consequentialist and categorical. Consequentialist means the consequences that will result after whatever you do, whether it is the right or wrong thing to do. Categorical moral reasoning locates morality in certain duties and rights. Somethings are just morally wrong even if it brings good outcomes. According to Mill the principle of utility means realizing a consequence of something before you do it,whether your intentions are good or bad.

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