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Research Paper On John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism

660 Words3 Pages

According to John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism is a standard for morality based on the greatest happiness principle. The greatest happiness principle involves making moral decisions based on what will produce the most happiness for the greatest number of people. For this purpose, happiness is not only defined by what we understand happiness to be as a feeling of joy, but also as the absence of pain. For that reason, happiness of the aggregate is the standard of morality in utilitarianism. Any actions or decisions promoting unhappiness or inducing of pain or harm to the aggregate would be regarded as wrong by utilitarianism. One objection to Mill’s Theory would be the swine objection. In this objection, utilitarianism is criticized on the basis that happiness cannot possibly be the only rational purpose or highest purpose of life because it is not always attainable and there are other worthy purposes to be achieved. Mill responds by saying that though he acknowledges this point of view, if more pleasure is produced and more pain is prevented, the outcome would benefit the aggregate …show more content…

Not everyone is a competent judge and able to accurately make the decision to satisfy GHP. Mill responds that the motive for the behavior and the actual behavior are being confused. He claims that we do not always have the intention to benefit the greater interest of society but that our actions still do and that it is all that matters. For example, if a man was drowning in a lake and someone rescued him in hopes of getting a reward, this person nonetheless still rescued a drowning man regardless of his motives for doing it and so acted in accordance with utilitarianism. As long as our chosen action meets GHP versus any other choice of action we could have taken, we have acted in compliance to

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