John Stuart Mill: utilitarianism

 

Name of the Book: Contemporary Moral Problems

Library Reference: N/A

Amazon Link: 

 

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=

contemporary+moral+problems&x=0&y=0

 

Quote:

"Happiness is not an abstarct idea but a concrete whole"

Learning Expectations:

 

1. To learn and understand more about "utilitarianism".
2. To learn the "Principle of Utility"
3. To know the difference between higher and lower pleasures.
4. To know what is "Epicureanism"
5. To know and understand more issues and arguments relate to utilitarianism.

 

Review:

 

The principle of utility is but on instrument in maximizing pleasures. It tends to increase or maximize pleasures or happiness or to prevent pain and unhappiness. The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beast is felt a degrading, precisely because a beast pleasures do not satisfy a human beings conceptions of happiness.

   According to the author If he was asked what he mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than the other, merely as pleasure, except it’s being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Virtue according to the utilitarian concept is good of this description. " The principle of utility states that actions or behaviors are right in so far as they promote happiness or pleasure, wrong as they tend to produce unhappiness or pain. Hence, utility is a teleological principle. Recall that a hedonist believes that the good life consists solely in the pursuit and experience of pleasure or happiness. The feelings of pleasure and pain are biological events involving our central nervous system, which are controlled by our cerebral cortex. We obviously experience pleasure when we perform certain acts that fulfill biological functions such as eating, drinking, and having sex. We also experience pleasure when we perform certain intellectual activities, such as reading a philosophy textbook, playing guitar, or drawing a picture. We sometimes, but not always, experience pleasure when we do the right thing. Conversely, we experience pain when these functions are left unfulfilled."

 

 Learning’s/Insights:

 

• "Happiness is not an abstract idea but a concrete whole"
• "Life would be a poor thing, very ill provided with sources of happiness, if there were not this provision of nature by which things are originally indifferent but conductive to..."
• "What was once desired as an instrument for the attainment of happiness, has come to be desired for its own sake."

 

Integrative Questions:

 

1. What is the "Principle of Utility" is all about?
2. What is Utilitarianism?
3. What is the Higher and lower pleasure?
4. What are the similarities of the two pleasures?
5. How happiness was relates to these issues? 

 

 

Review Questions

 

1. State and explain the Principle of Utility. Show how it could be used to justify actions that are conventionally viewed as wrong, such a as lying and stealing.

The principle of utility is but on instrument in maximizing pleasures. It tends to increase or maximize pleasures or happiness or to prevent pain and unhappiness. Proposes that all punishment involves pain and is therefore evil; it ought only to be used so far as it promises to exclude some greatest evil. 

 

2. How does Mill reply to the objection that Epicureanism is a doctrine worthy only of swine?

The charged could not be gainsaid, but would then no longer imputation; for if the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the rule of life which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other. The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beast is felt a degrading, precisely because a beast pleasures do not satisfy a human beings conceptions of happiness. 

 

3. How does Mill distinguish between higher and lower pleasures?

According to the author If he was asked what he mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than the other, merely as pleasure, except it’s being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the mere desirable pleasure. 

 

4. According to Mill, whose happiness must be considered?

Happiness is not an obstacle idea, but a concrete whole; and these are some of its parts. And the utilitarian standard sanctions and approves their being so. Life would be poor thing, very ill provided with source of happiness, if there were not this provision of nature, by which things are originally indifferent, but conductive to, or otherwise associated with the satisfaction of our primitive desire, becomes in themselves sources of pleasures both in a permanency in the space of human existence that they are capable of covering and even in intensity. Virtue according to the utilitarian concept is good of this description. And consequently the utilitarian standard while it tolerates and approve those other acquired desires, up to the point beyond which they would be more injurious to the general happiness than primitive of it , enjoins and requires the cultivation of love of virtue up to the greatest strength possible, as being above all things important to the general happiness.

 

5.       Carefully reconstruct Mill’s proof of the Principle of Utility.

" The principle of utility states that actions or behaviors are right in so far as they promote happiness or pleasure, wrong as they tend to produce unhappiness or pain. Hence, utility is a teleological principle. This once again raises some of the same basic issues of associated with hedonism, as discussed in the earlier section on Teleological Theories. Recall that a hedonist believes that the good life consists solely in the pursuit and experience of pleasure or happiness. The feelings of pleasure and pain are biological events involving our central nervous system, which are controlled by our cerebral cortex. We obviously experience pleasure when we perform certain acts that fulfill biological functions such as eating, drinking, and having sex. We also experience pleasure when we perform certain intellectual activities, such as reading a philosophy textbook, playing guitar, or drawing a picture. We sometimes, but not always, experience pleasure when we do the right thing. Conversely, we experience pain when these functions are left unfulfilled." 

Reference: http://inside.msj.edu/academics/faculty/whiter/UTILITY.htm

 

 

Discussion Questions:

 

1. Is happiness nothing more than pleasure and absence of pain?

 

Yes. Sometimes, because we individual when we feel pleasures in our lives we sometimes tend to be more happy and feel contented because that thing or that person give us happiness that we tend to foget to feel the pains.

 

2. Does Mill convince you that the higher pleasures are better than the lower ones? What about the person of experience who prefers the lower?

 

It is really depends on the person if the higher pleasure gives him/her more happiness or the lower ones. Because we individual do not have the same measurement when it comes to happiness.

 

3. Mill says "In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of ethics of utility." True or not?

 

Maybe it’s not.

 

4. Many commentators have thought that Mill's proof of the principle of utility is defective. Agree?

 

I don’t agree to this because what I know and believes is not in line with these beliefs or these views