Utilitarianism and John Stuart Mill

Mill's basic argument about utilitarianism starts with the fact that it is based on a social idea about human beings. The social principle is that he wants to create the greatest happiness or pleasure for the greatest number of people. The way he talks about this is to say that there is a different social value for every different kind of pleasure. In other words, there are categories of pleasure. The "difference of quality in pleasures" is his idea about the choice that is made between two potential pleasures. The utilitarian choice is made "by those who are completely acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of" (Mill, 1871).

But why would anybody make a choice that would lead to discontent? The more pleasure, the better, seems to be the obvious choice in all cases. Mill has an answer for that: reason. Any living being can feel sen

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that is true, then the real question becomes how to make the aggregate happiness come true. To do that, Mill brings in two ideas. The first idea is rather simple. He says that people have to get into the habit of "self-consciousness and self-observation" (Mill, 1871). In other words, people have to be on the lookout for chances to create general happiness in everyday life, even if it is just in the people immediately around them. The next concept Mill uses to support the utilitarian way of thinking is that of virtue. He starts by saying that some people think happiness and virtue are in conflict because more people want to be happy than want to be virtuous. That would be bad news for utilitarianism, since it would mean that utilitarianism is not virtuous. Thus, if virtue is a good thing, then a moral person who has virtue would not want to accept utilitarianism. However, Mill says that is the wrong way to think about virtue in utilitarianism. Virtue is part of utilitarianism, and the way to tell that is because it brings in the idea of being "impartial and disinterested," noted above. [U]tilitarian doctrine . . . maintains not only that virtue is to be desired, but that it is to be desired disinterestedly, for itself. . . . Virt
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Approximate Word count = 1518
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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