Jesus Of Nazareth Analysis

John Stuart Mills explains, “In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.” (Mills 17) As individuals we all unknowingly seem to maximize the satisfaction of our own choices when we act. If one chooses to perfect activity A rather than activity B, we are then revealing that we as individual prefer performing activity A to performing activity B. In our everyday lives we would like and hope that other people would maximize the satisfaction of our preferences when they act on their own preferences. This is because that would us attain and achieve our own personal goals, which we are already attempting to achieve through the actions that we perform in our everyday lives. If we were to have additional help in the race to achieve our personal aspirations, it would be like having other individuals throw their weight behind our own attempts to please our own choices to the fullest
extent and Mills would consider this how we “would be done by” them. Hence, if we were to “do to them” and we would be “done by” them, we would be consistently trying to satisfy the preferences and choices of others as much as possible. The same thing can be said equally for other individuals. If the “golden rule” is living a life of doing as we would be done by were to be followed by all human beings, it leads me to believe that everyone would be consistently trying to satisfy the preferences and choices of the general public to the best of their ability. If we are able to comprehend ‘interests’ as the satisfaction of choices and preferences, it would mean that all interests are valid, regardless of whose they may be.
In other words, since preferences and choices can be weak or strong, interests should be provided with careful thought because they should be respected for the actual strength of the choices and preference they belong to. If human morality were the single motivating factor in human life, and everyone accepted preference utilitarianism, then all individuals would be able to respect individuals’ preferences in general. This action would involve a large amount of compromise, because each individual’s choices and preferences will eventually come into conflict with someone else’s choices and preferences. But in an ideal utilitarian world, choices and preferences would be respected to the best of human beings’ ability regardless of whose preferences they
were. Notably, in real life the effects of our actions are limited. As an individual I am unable to affect the lives of individuals would live far from my general vicinity at one point in time. The knowledge we hold and human beings is limited as well. I am unable to foresee what effect my actions will have on individuals who will be living in the future. I am however able to affect the lives of the people who live close to me, whom I have access to influence them. I’m sure Mills understand that at one time these individuals which he is referring to would literally be our neighbors, seeing that individuals only knew the lives and world around them and leisure travel was not particularly a thing people did. The choice of having utilitarian morality ideally is to respect your own preferences and choices as much as someone else’s. The ‘ideal’ would be to “love my neighbor as myself”. In the current world we live in, present day, utilitarianism hopes to influence people to strive to behave morally by satisfying preferences as best as they can. Where the strongest choices and preferences are at stake, moral value can become the primary guiding light of action and choices. Similar to the demand of original Christianity, the demands and hopes of utilitarianism will never be perfectly met, yet as individuals who are able to choose what we believe in and what we act on can strive to attempt to meet them.