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Utilitarianism: John Stuart Mill's Greatest Happiness

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When looking at the murderer at the door situation, utilitarianism offers a suitable guide for whether or not you should lie. Utilitarianism offers a way to think of the situation regarding the “Greatest Happiness Principle”, namely regarding the increase in happiness and reduction of pain (John Stuart Mill, 461). Utilitarianism also mentions nobleness in its guideline. There are concerns about the usefulness of utilitarianism in the situation. This most prominently includes which person you should increase the happiness of. Lastly, the concerns are resolved and the usefulness of utilitarianism in this situation is again demonstrated. Utilitarianism shows which individual to benefit in the situation by referring back to the earlier happiness …show more content…

As John Stuart Mill speaks about the “Greatest Happiness Principle”, the goal when making a utilitarian based decision is, “an existence exempt as far as possible from pain” (464). An individual getting murdered is clearly quite close to pain, and the murderer is getting no closer to any form of pain. If you tell the truth to the murderer, they may gain happiness, but the individual who dies will experience great pain. Family and friends of the victim will also suffer deeply as a result of the murder. If, however, you lie to the murderer, they may experience some pain in not accomplishing their goal, but it will not be nearly as large as the pain that will come from the victim being murdered. So while both cases may cause pain, it is clear which situation will cause the greatest pain and least amount of happiness. Looking at both parties can confuse the utilitarian interpreter, as happiness will be achieved for both parties in contradictory ways. Even so, utilitarianism than guides you to look at what will achieve the greatest happiness, and as earlier discussed, the greatest happiness comes from lying to the murderer. Even if the murderer was a personal friend and someone who’s happiness was of interest to you, the “Greatest Happiness Principle” would guide you to lie in order to increase overall happiness and decrease pain (John Stuart Mill,

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Murder can be defined as “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another”. How then, are others able to make us sympathize with not only murderers, but people who have committed horrendous crimes? For example, the media is constantly attempting to humanize rapists and even terrorists with phrases like “lone wolf” or “alienated and adrift.” Such phrases make some of us want to pity the criminal. This can be seen when we compare Perry Smith and Dick Hickock from Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.

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The context of the paper is discussion of why utilitarianism is consistently appealing. As Foot

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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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Additionally, by lying one is taking away choice from the murderer. Despite his bad intentions, the murderer is still considered part of the moral universe, thus his autonomy must be considered equally as important to everyone else's. Telling the murderer the location of the victim also does not explicitly infringe on the autonomy of the victim as well. His autonomy is not impacted by choosing to disclose whether or not he is in the basement - he is just as able to hide, run, or make another decision regardless of whether or not one lies to the murderer. Therefore, it can be concluded that telling the murderer the location of the victim is actually the most moral choice because it does not erode the autonomy of anyone involved and follows the guidelines of

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