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Mill Utilitarianism Essay

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Mill’s theory of Utilitarianism states that “An action is right if and only if it produces the greatest balance of pleasure over pain after taking everyone affected into consideration.” Therefore, an action is morality right in proportion as it tends to promote happiness and morality and wrong if it produces the reverse. For Mill is order to reach happiness, pleasure has to me maximize and pain has to be minimize. His view is very similar to the Epicureans, however, Mills goes on with this idea further. Mill claims that molality means the promotion of the greatest happiness to a greatest number of people in society. For Mill, my happiness is not the happiness of others, but the happiness to the society as a whole. Utilitarianism for Mill does …show more content…

Consequently, his theory promotes happiness not for our individual self, but for the benefit of the entire society. For Mill, happiness influences our moral concerns. We act to maximize overall happiness; such as love your neighbor as your own. We should not care f the happiness is yours or mine but that there is a happiness overall. Epicureans theory as mention above is similar to Mill’s theory; however, this focus more on the individual rather than the society as a whole. For epicureans, in order to achieve happiness, pleasure should be something is added or maximize contrast to the subtraction of pain. Therefore, pleasure is equal to be free from pain, the greatest pleasure will produce less pain. Pleasure reaches its limits in the removal of all pain, when pleasure is present there is no pain of body or mind. Illness of a long duration such as a chronic pain, does not last long, they even permit an access of pleasure over pain in the body. The ultimate good in life is pleasure for Epicureans. For Epicureans the avoidance of pain was essential rather than the indulgence of pleasures. In order to avoid pain, we must cultive discipline and often declining engaging in bodily

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John Stuart Mill, one of the most influential philosopher of the nineteenth century, created a principle that states “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness”. This is known as the Greatest Happiness Principle which focuses on what a man ought to do to promote happiness and prevention of unhappiness. When it comes to consequences in utilitarianism, this is what categorizes an action under “right” or “wrong”. Mill’s definition of happiness is based on the amount of pain and pleasure present in the consequence of the action. Happiness is the intended pleasure and absence of pain whereas unhappiness is pain and the deprivation of

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= = = == This is something to be considered in the following, alongside the basic concept of happiness itself, as viewed by Mill and Ahmed.

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