John Stuart Mill

John stuart mill believed in the principle of utilitarianism, a moral philosophy focused on the outcome of one’s actions. This is in counter to the Kantian or Aristotelian ethics, which focus on one's actions and the character of the one acting respectively. Utilitarianism according to Mill is a philosophy that seeks to produce the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. The good in that principle being based on Hedonism, a philosophy that believes in maximizing net pleasure. It is as a result of this that Mill uses good instead of right.

In hedonism there is no right or wrong necessarily, only the intrinsic values of pleasure, the only intrinsic good, and pain, the only intrinsic bad. All other things have extrinsic value,
Bentham’s indifferent stance on the source of pleasures led to many mocking his form of hedonism as the philosophy of swine. John Stuart Mill and bentham’s other critics questioned whether we should believe that a satisfied pig lead a better life than a dissatisfied human, an idea that Bentham’s Hedonism seems to endorse. Mill argues that the hedonist can defend higher pleasures as superior to lower pleasure on the grounds that they produce better pleasure. This contrast was one of quality of pleasure as opposed to Bentham’s quantity of pleasure. Mill argued that, in addition to the quantity of pleasure, the quality of it can also be important. He argued that higher pleasures, such as reading and gaining knowledge, were more valuable in comparison to lower, sensual, pleasures entirely because of the quality of the pleasure being received. This particular variation of hedonism encompassed the value theory that took the place of utility in his version of
Kantian ethics is the philosophy described by Immanuel Kant. Immanuel Kant argued that the supreme principle of morality is a standard of rationality that he dubbed the “Categorical Imperative”. Kant characterized the Categorical Imperative as an objective, rational and unconditional principle that we must always follow despite any natural desires or inclinations we may have to the contrary. All specific moral requirements, are justified by this principle, which means that all immoral actions are irrational because they violate the Categorical Imperative.

This argument was based on his idea that a rational will must be regarded as autonomous, or free. The fundamental principle of morality — the Categorical Imperative— is none other than the law of an autonomous will. Moreover, it is the presence of this self-governing reason in each person that Kant thought offered decisive grounds for viewing each as possessed of equal worth and deserving of equal