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Utilitarianism: The Philosophies Of John Stuart Mill

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John Stuart Mill was a very important philosopher in the nineteenth century, as he advocated for reform liberalism and formed the utility theory (Shabani and Deveaux 2014). In the quote provided, it is apparent that Mill sees limiting another person’s freedom as the last resort, only once the individual or others are threatened. Mill supports this statement as he advocates for human freedom and bettering the condition of the individual. Ultimately, John Stuart Mill is a utilitarian. Utilitarian’s want the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Creating the greatest amount of happiness means making sure the rights, freedom and security of everyone in a state are protected. I believe this principle will not assist in …show more content…

Acts can be hurtful weather they violate rights or not, and within these violations people may be committing them within the boundaries of the constitution (Shabani and Deveaux 2014). I believe this statement could not be any closer to the truth, although there are rules in the constitution that people are morally obligated to abide to and are justified by punishment does not mean everyone will abide to them. If everyone abided by every law in our constitution and charter of rights and freedom our society would be very close to a utopian society. Therefore, I believe laws should be enforced harder than they are now. Often the idea of jail as a punishment will not stop people from doing bad things, and I believe as a society we should end this. Furthermore, Mill sees the coercion of another’s freedom as simply self-protection (Shabani and Deveaux 2014). He further supports this argument by stating that one the individual has the capacity to be guided by their own decision, and use it coercion they are no longer affecting their own mean but they are affecting the security of others (Shabani and Deveaux 2014). I think this is very important to note as Mill recognizes the rights and liberties of everyone however, he more importantly recognizes the

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The government has responsibilities to protect the natural rights of its people. In the document, Otis states that the "absolute slavery" is opposing natural rights since it takes away one's freedom and liberty without one's consent. The natural rights each individual carries since birth should protected by the British government; if the government failed to protect its people, war and conflicts will be unpreventable. Otis believed that there is no way to justify forced slavery; freedom and liberty is essential to human being and no government should be able to take away people's natural rights without

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Mill argues that each individual can exert his freedom so long as it does not harm anyone else (Mill 1863). What a person does in his life is his business, and I can express disdain or aversion to his actions. If neither of us infringe on one another’s liberty, we cannot act in a way that would limit or remove each other’s liberty (Mill 1863). Contrarily, for self-defense, society and/or the victimized individual can impede on the perpetrator’s liberty if the perpetrator has impinged on someone else’s right to liberty (Mill 1863). Harm to someone’s liberty, whether done actively or inactively, therefore should be legally condemnable (Mill 1863).

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This courage of the few, such as characters like Guy Montag or Clarrise McClellan, fights to protect the future of the many in a revolt against the authoritative power. In the text one of the outcasts of society says to Montag “You did what you had to do” (154.) This just further echoes the point that the few with risk everything just so that the many will survive. Another place where the revolutionary ideal is used by the few who wish to protect the many and what they believe is right and it says “But that’s the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up”(155).

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As such, each person has the “right” to follow their own agendas to fruition, regardless of the cost to others. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, authored by Mark Twain, the main character, Huck is caught in a crisis of deciphering between right and wrong, surrendering a runaway slave to the authorities, or hiding him until he can reach freedom. Ultimately, Huck states, “What’s the use of learning to do what ’s right, when it’s troublesome to do right, and it ain’t no trouble to do wrong?”(Twain & Reichardt, 2009, p. 106). Huck displays the difficulty between what is viewed as “right” and “wrong.”

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In Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant explains how humans should act if they want to live morally. Kant is worried about moral means to ends without the ends themselves. On Liberty by J.S. Mill is different in that Mill regards individuals, either minority or majority, in a society and the requirements for one person to limit the liberty of another. Mill is worried about social outcomes instead of just the intention behind actions. While these two philosophers differ in their approach on how we can live a good life, they would tend to agree on their understanding of the moral right choice and wrong.

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John Winthrop, a wealthy English puritan lawyer and governor who was leading founder of the Massachusetts Bay colony, had a completely different perspective when it came to liberty. In “Little Speech on Liberty” He says that liberty is one of the great questions that trouble the country and says he sees a “great mistake” in the country concerning its meaning. Winthrop defines two completely different liberties that he believes are prevalent in society, natural liberty and civil or federal liberty. Natural liberty he describes as being a liberty we share with creatures and beasts. In this, man has the ability to do whatever he desires— in essence this liberty gives you the will to do either good or evil, it is your own decision.

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In the Harm Principle Mill suggests that the actions of individuals should be limited to prevent the harm of others . An individual may do whatever he or she wants, as long as these actions do not harm others. Mill believes in an individual’s autonomy; being self governed. We can live as we wish, and therefor also die as and when we wish. As Mill says: “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

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People tend to look for happiness because everybody wants to be happy, so they believe that by looking for it they are going to find it. What they do not realize is that we do not necessarily have to look for it because if we keep living happiness will find it’s way to us without us even noticing. I also agree with the fact that by making others happy there is a higher possibility that you can achieve happiness. When you make someone else happy they will appreciate and acknowledge the fact that you have just made their day better and everybody likes to feel appreciated and acknowledged in some way and it gives

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Liberty here is actually defined by the majority, as it is not practical to expect total consensus (Locke 161). In Locke’s commonwealth, if consent is given for the majority to legislate, so long as the legislature has “the consent of the majority” (Locke 163), nothing the legislature does could be considered as an unjust limitation of liberty. When examining his concept of liberty in general, it is perhaps more accurate to divide the concept as humans having different liberties, for which the

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Madsen describes negative liberty as “[the ability to] negate what others (and particularly the government) can do to [you].” (Madsen 117) Most colonists believed that the right course of action was to maximize the amount of individual rights, as shown by the Articles of Confederation, a failed attempt at a governing system. They wanted to break free of everything that England was, and the implementing the idea of negative liberty was best way to oppose England. Within the concept of the harm principle, the Bill of Rights still protected those that chose to hurt others, as seen in Amendments 6, 7, and 8 (Pope & Fox 365-366), with no excessive bail, no cruel and unusual punishment, etc.

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The principle promotes that everyone’s happiness counts the same. An action is right as long as it is good for everyone and brings happiness and each person's happiness counts as much as anyone else’s.

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Public Health Ethics defines public health in relation to population rights as what we, as a society, do collectively to assure the conditions for people to be healthy. The book continues say that public health ethics are for the benefit of the whole, and that it tries to avoid the worst outcome at the group level. This focus on population rather than individual might mean that informed consent and individual decision-making are less of a priority than. According to Utilitarianism when we consider the tremendous impact the HeLa cells have made in modern medicine it makes the malpractice against Henrietta Lacks seem justified. Utilitarianism an ethical theory developed by John Stuart Mill, the rightness or wrongness of actions is determined

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1. No, that’s not necessarily true. Utilitarianism requires one to do what produces the largest utility regardless of his motive. (Mill, 1990, p. 175) In this case according to Mill one should focus on the happiness of the few people that he’s dealing with (Mill, p. 175) as he cannot measure the effects of his action on the entire population.

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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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Mill states, “It is proper to state that I forego any advantage which could be derived to my argument from the idea of abstract right as a thing independent of utility. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being” (Mill 20). In order to determine if something is ethical or not, it must follow his Utilitarianism foundation. In addition, individual liberties are related to this foundation because they were asked if these liberties were right and ethnical moral.

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