John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism

Second Writing Assignment, PHILO 120
Professor Shelley, Tue/Thur 230pm
Mill is an heir of an intellectual movement in England known as Utilitarianism; utilitarianism is concerned with the acquisition of pleasure and elimination of pain. John Stuart Mill follows the guidelines of utilitarianism in order to decide if certain actions are moral. Utilitarianism states that a person should perform the action that produces the most pleasurable outcome for every person involved. In order to accurately judge if one pleasure is greater than another, the person must be unprejudiced and have experienced both; such judges will prefer the higher pleasures over the lower ones. However, Mill recognizes that people aren’t always driven to follow moral social
Mill would look at this action by looking at the conditions of utilitarianism. Although they meet the first criteria of producing happiness through the elimination of pain by acquiring large amounts of money, they do not meet part two or three. In regards to part two, it does produce happiness for the ones directly performing the scam but it indirectly affects the other members working for Initech as well as stakeholders and therefore causes pain for those indirectly affected. Lastly, the third condition to count for one and only one is not met because a lot of people are
This goes to show that their scam is immoral because it only directly increases their happiness due to their own self-interests. Also, Mill argues that a person with high capacities will need more to make him happy and therefore is capable of experiencing larger quantities of pain; however, they still shouldn’t allow this to lower their expectations and faculties. Although Peter has experienced a prolonged period of pain while working at Initech through tedious tasks and constant pressure from his eight bosses, this should not be a good enough reason for him to affect others’ faculties and reduce their worth as human beings. Mill says,” it is greater to be a man dissatisfied than a pig satisfied,” (p.162). In other words, Peter is not capable of experiencing the highest form of pleasure, and therefore chooses to increase the lower pleasures, lowering his existence in the world. Many people who start off wanting everything which is moral sometimes turn to selfish measures. The reason why so many people end up becoming selfish is due to being in occupations that lower their aspirations of something greater; which may be a reason why Michael, Peter, and Samir choose to go through with this scam. They are not unprejudiced judges because they do not know what higher pleasures consist of; due to lack of