Who Is John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism

Meanwhile, if we look in to our modern society, the ethical views from the past have changed because people these days have their own ability to define happiness through their own experiences of pleasure and pain. Consequently, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill erect the system of utilitarianism.

Better known as a political activist and English philosopher, Jeremy Bentham is mainly remembered for his contribution on moral philosophy and most particularly his views on the utilitarianism principle. In this text, I develop Jeremy Bentham's biography while detailing some of his main contributions to the study of ethics.

This work has probably received more analysis than any other work on utilitarianism available. However, I seek to do here what many others have been unable to accomplish so far. I hope to, in five paragraphs, cover each of the chapters of Utilitarianism in enough depth to allow any reader to decide whether or not they subscribe to Mill's doctrine, and if so, which part or parts they subscribe to. I do this with the realization that much of Mill's deliberation in the text will be completely gone. I suggest that anyone who seeks to fully understand Mill's work should read it at length.

In “Utilitarianism” Mills argues that utilitarianism originates from the humans’ social nature and as a result society should welcome these standards as morally obligatory. The word “pleasure” is defined by Mills as possessing happiness

In his essay, Utilitarianism Mill elaborates on Utilitarianism as a moral theory and responds to misconceptions about it. Utilitarianism, in Mill’s words, is the view that »actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.«1 In that way, Utilitarianism offers an answer to the fundamental question Ethics is concerned about: ‘How should one live?’ or ‘What is the good or right way to live?’.

John Stuart Mill, English philosopher and social reformer, was one of the most influential figures of the nineteenth century. His writing includes a wide range of topics in ethics,logic,religion, economics, current affairs, and social and political philosophy. His most significant writings include Principles of Political Economy, Utilitarianism, and The Subjection of Women.With strong influences from his father and his father's mentor, Jeremy Bentham, he adopted their ideologies and became a leading figure in utilitarianism. As a result of Mill’s large philosophical and literary output we are able to apply his ideas and theories into everyday issues and topics.

Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher in 18th century London, England. Influenced by the works of John Locke and David Hume, he brought up a philosophical theory that derives from an empirical viewpoint, which means theorizes that all knowledge are obtained through our sense experience. Bentham was considered as the founder of utilitarianism which he defines as, “the ethical doctrine that virtue is based upon utility and that behavior should have as its goal the procurement of the greatest happiness for the greatest number of persons. “. In other words, Bentham believes that all our actions should be decided by comparing how much utility, or pleasure, it could be derived for society as a whole. For example, the utility result of you pulling an all-nighter to complete your philosophy paper would be the pleasure of getting a significantly good grade compared to the pain of having little sleep for one night.

Utilitarianism is one of the most influential moral theories which holds that the morality of an action is determined by whether it contributes to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people or not. John Stuart Mill, a famous philosopher of the 1800s, is widely known as one of the founders of utilitarianism. He states that the foundation of utilitarianism is that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness”(Mill 10). Further, he raised the concept that pleasures that are generated by higher faculties values more than the one brought by baser faculties. Also, he distinguished between the quality and quantity of utility yields by an action. As a branch

Jeremy Bentham and John Stewart Mill both present great ideas towards Utilitarianism. Bentham on one hand came up with the theory of Utilitarianism, while Mill tried to build upon Bentham’s ideology, and make his own stronger. Bentham believed in one ultimate moral principle, the principle of utility.

The two main advancers of the utilitarian ethical theory, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, had similar views as they pertain to the theory, with one main difference, quantity verses quality. The production of the best possible outcome is common between these men’s views, with the exception of what the product is.

The main concept behind John Stuart Mill’s essay Utilitarianism (1861) is to support and strengthen views proposed by Jeremy Bentham in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). The backbone of both of these essays is the view that “actions are right in proportion to their tendency to promote happiness and wrong in proportion to their tendency to promote the reverse of happiness” (Mill, 1861). Moreover, something is considered morally “right” if it brings greater pleasure than suffrage, and this is essentially the idea of “utility” which utilitarianism promotes. At it’s surface, this idea originally may sound alluring and like a good way of life, but when looked at closely, it is evident that there is a logical error.

According to Mill, acts are often categorized into ethically right or wrong, if the results are not merely exhorted and influenced in a preferred way. Therefore, Mill’s utilitarianism theory depends on the intrinsic value, where happiness is analyzed by measuring the balance existing among pleasure and pain. Mill also believed that intrinsic values are produced by various alternative actions over the good and the bad tendencies of an activity. Certain similarities and differences in supporting utilitarianism theory and the principles of justice are also witnessed to prevail between the perceptions of Mill and another English philosopher named Jeremy Bentham. Evidence suggests in this context that both Mill and Bentham believed human actions to be motivated entirely by pain as well as pleasure.

The founder of modern utIlitarianism is Jeremy Bentham. Mill had based his ideas and theories of utilitarianism off of Bentham’s to help him fully gather all of his thoughts on utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the theory that actions are moral if they aim at the general good or the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. The aim that humans reach to get at is happiness or or pleasure there for utilitarianism is a category of hedonism. Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure, the theory believed that pleasure is the highest good and the aim.

Along with other noted philosophers, John Stuart Mill developed the nineteenth century philosophy known as Utilitarianism - the contention that man should judge everything in life based upon its ability to promote the greatest individual happiness. While Bentham, in particular, is acknowledged as the philosophy’s founder, it was Mill who justified the axiom through reason. He maintained that because human beings are endowed with the ability for conscious thought, they are not merely satisfied with physical pleasures; humans strive to achieve pleasures of the mind as well. Once man has ascended to this high intellectual level, he desires to stay there, never descending to the lower level of

Bentham began his perspective to the principles of Morals and Legislation with the classic sentence: