John Stuart Mill on Morality

John Stuart Mill begins his discussion of moral theory with a definition of utilitarianism, stating that this is the creed that accepts utility as the foundation of morals, meaning the greatest happiness principle. This holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, and wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. Happiness means the intended pleasure and the absence of pain, while unhappiness means pain and the privation of pleasure.

For Mill, the acts we choose are themselves happiness for us. It is not that they are merely the means to an end but that they are also an end in themselves. Happiness for Mill is a unified way of life rather than an abstraction toward which we tend as we make our choices and behave as our analyses dictate. "Living right" is a moral proposition that is more than an abstraction based on concepts of pleasure and pain and the development of a sum total of happiness. For Mill,

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al beings see objective principles as something to constrain or to necessitate the will, meaning "they seem to be imposed upon the will from without instead of being its necessary manifestation" (Kant 26). In the case of a wholly rational agent, objective principles would be a necessary manifestation of the will. The formula of a command such as this is called an imperative, and all imperatives are distinguished by the phrase "I ought." Kant makes a distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives. There are actually three kinds of imperatives which correspond to three kinds of action. Those actions that are prescribed to attain a certain end are not prescribed as actions which should be performed for their own sake, and therefore they are hypothetical imperatives. If the end in sight is not one that everyone would wish, it is a problematic hypothetical imperative. Kant seeks a moral imperative, and he rejects all hypothetical imperatives as qualifying to be moral imperatives. He says that all imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically. Those former represent the practical necessity of a possible action. Those that command hypothetically are the means for attaining something else that one w
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Approximate Word count = 2778
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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