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John Stuart Mill Research Paper

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John Stuart Mill is a utilitarian. He believes that all sentient creators are psychologically hedonistic; that we naturally seek out pleasures and avoid pains (Pg. 88). As a utilitarian, he focuses on ethical hedonism, the idea that we ought to maximize our happiness. To Mill, the right actions to take are those that promote happiness, the wrong actions to take are those that promote pain (Pg. 90). Mill defines happiness as feeling many kinds of pleasures and only few temporary pains in our lifetime (Pg. 89). Like Bentham and Epicurean, Mill thinks that the Greatest Happiness Principle ought to be the foundation of our societies. The Greatest Happiness Principle is having most people in a society feeling the greatest amount of happiness (Pg. 88). However, unlike Bentham and Epicurean, Mill believes that the Greatest Happiness Principle should include quality with quantity (Pg. 91). …show more content…

He says that there are those who seek pleasures for their own individual happiness and those who seek to promote pleasures for most of the people in their society (Pg. 90). Mill distinguishes the pleasure of animals and of humans. He states that humans can reach pleasures of the mind while animals can only reach pleasures of the appetite (Pg. 89). He considers pleasures of the mind, which are pleasures of intellect, feelings, and imagination, to be superior than pleasures of mere sensation (Pg. 91). He argues that hedonism is not animalistic. Since humans feel pain in a different and more severe way than animals do, we should not expect that our pleasures are exclusively of sensation and appetite like animals (Pg. 91). Mental pleasures outdo bodily pleasures (Pg.

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