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John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism

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John Stuart Mill was an English philosopher during the during the 1800s. His main contribution was the idea of utilitarianism. In short utilitarianism is a theory in normative ethics holding that the best moral action is the one that maximizes utility. Utility is defined in various ways, but is usually related to the well-being of sentient existence. One of the main essential parts of utilitarianism is the principle of utility. The principle of utility states that actions or behaviors are right in so far as they promote happiness or pleasure, wrong as they tend to produce unhappiness or pain. Utilitarianism provoked a lot of questions and it also answered a lot of questions. Utilitarianism also has a very distinct definition of happiness …show more content…

One of these things is happiness. And within happiness there is pleasure. In utilitarianism everything useful to happiness is good. Everything that has to do with happiness is within the principle of utility. which states, the ethical principle that an action is right in so far as it promotes the greatest happiness of the greatest number of those affected. Happiness is defined as pleasure in the absence of pain (Mill 191). The value of a pleasure depends only on its intensity and duration, and can be quantified precisely. So anytime you feel pain you cannot be happy. If pain is absent in your life you can be happy, but that doesn't mean you are happy. This has to do with pleasure, a pleasure is of higher quality if people would choose it over a different pleasure even if it is accompanied by discomfort, and if they would not trade it for a greater amount of the other pleasure. A person will not choose to become an animal, an educated person will not choose to become ignorant, and so on. This goes back to what happiness and pleasure is. We would not chose an animal or a 4 year beach we have all this knowledge and are aware of our surroundings. The only reason we would consider this is because we remember, as a four year old how fun it was. We remember not having a care in the world, ignorance is bliss. If we are unaware of the dangers in the world then we are happy. That is why we might chose to the a year old, because we are mainly happy all the time as a four year

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