John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a concept that came from philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1781. Original utilitarianism dictates that people should make decisions by weighing the outcomes of different choices, and then choose the one that provides the greatest amount of “happiness” for all. John Stuart Mill, a philosopher with his own version of utilitarianism, explains that happiness can be defined as pleasure, but unlike traditional utilitarianism there is a system of hierarchy, insisting, “Some pleasures are higher than others”. For example, the pleasure of knowledge is higher than pure sensual pleasures. (Munson 864) But in order to fulfill a perfect utilitarian life, Mill stated that not only would the happiness of the many be more important than the happiness

Even if someone is Christ-like enough to put aside their own desires, they couldn’t calculate all the possible outcomes of all the possible actions one can take before acting. In order to do this, a person would have to be able to see all the infinite futures, determine the results from actions in each future and choose the one that provides the least amount of unhappiness and/or the most happiness. The human mind could never compute even a fraction of the infinite number of possibilities enough to even be marginally right. Millennia would pass before that person was done computing possible futures and their degrees of happiness. The functionality of utilitarian ideals wouldn’t be possible to enact because of this

Ideally, everyone would like to provide happiness for others. People are naturally altruistic to an extent. For example, in obstetrics, it’s common practice to save the mother in a high-risk pregnancy over the child, because the woman can have more children and immediately provide happiness for a community. Utilitarianism justifies this action because there is the potential to create more happiness by saving the mother and her ability to have more children, than the child who has a long time before they can contribute to the happiness of society. Utilitarianism also justifies the sadness a physician will feel from not saving both. Because he saved the individual with the highest potential over the self-interest and futility of trying to save both, he was truly altruistic and thus truly utilitarian. Though this does support utilitarianism, it’s only a special circumstance that can’t carry to every aspect of how someone lives their