Mill's Utilitarianism

According to John Stuart Mill, little progress has been made toward developing a set of standards by which to judge moral right and wrong. He argues that in order to know what morality dictates, it is necessary to know by what standard human actions should be judged. Because our moral beliefs have undergone very few alterations over the course of history (we still have some of the same morals as the ancient Greeks) it seems as though there exist some standards that serve as a foundation of morality. Mill argues that this standard is the “greatest happiness principle.” He uses utilitarianism to note the influence and shaping of moral doctrines. In this essay, I will be arguing against Mill and his utilitarianism. I believe that the principles
of utilitarianism are impossible to apply because we cannot measure happiness and pleasure. First, I will present Mill’s arguments and then I will pose my objections.
John Stuart Mill defines utilitarianism as a theory based on, “actions that are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” This is where the greatest happiness principle comes into play. Mill defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. In opposition, unhappiness would be pain and the privation of pleasure. Pleasure and the absence of pain are, according to Mills, the only desirable things that are inherently good.
Pleasure can differ in quality and quantity and pleasures that are rooted in higher faculties should be weighted more heavily than lesser pleasures.
He describes how to differentiate between higher and lower-quality pleasures. A pleasure is consider higher quality if people would pick it over a different pleasure even if this pleasure is accompanied by discomfort. He argues that if given total access to all kinds of pleasure, people would still prefer those pleasures that appeal to their higher faculties. He also argues that people’s achievement of certain goals (like virtuous living) should be counted as part of their level of
happiness. Take, for example, school. There are certain things about school that are unpleasurable but the pleasures that are associated with school should be weighed more heavily than a baser pleasure, such as eating. Pleasures such as learning and finding meaning would be an example of appealing someone’s higher faculties. In Mills’ eyes, school would bring about more pleasure than eating a hot meal and is therefore a higher pleasure.
It is worth noting that people who employ higher faculties are usually less content because they have a stronger sense of the shortcomings of the world. However, the pleasure they experience is still of a higher character than that of an animal or a human experiencing base pleasures. Mill says, “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of different opinions, it is because they only know their side of the question.” This means those that are best qualified to conclude of a pleasure’s quality are people who have known both the higher and the lower quality pleasures in life. Many object to Mills by arguing that happiness cannot be a rational aim of human life because it is unattainable. Furthermore, it seems as if people can exist without being happy. Mill replies that it is an exaggeration to state that people cannot be happy. He argues that the major sources of unhappiness are selfishness and a lack of mental cultivation. Therefore, it is fully within people’s reach to be happy as long as they nurture the appropriate values. He also believes that most of the evils of the world (like poverty and disease) can be alleviated by a wise and energetic society devoted to their elimination. What about virtuous people in society who have denounced happiness?
Take Gandhi for example. He was extremely self-disciplined and renounced many things that we would consider pleasurable today. Mill doesn’t deny that martyrs exist who give up their happiness. He argues that martyrs sacrifice their happiness for some greater result--the happiness of other people. They sacrifice so that others will not have to make similar sacrifices. This willingness to sacrifice one’s happiness is, according to Mill, the highest virtue. He also claims that maintaining such an attitude of willingness to sacrifice one’s own happiness is actually the best chance of gaining happiness because it will lead a person to be tranquil about his life. It is important to note that Mill is not arguing to promoting one’s individual happiness over others’ happiness. The utilitarian standard for judging an act is the happiness of all people, not of one particular person. Law and education help instill generosity and make sure that one doesn’t value his own happiness over the happiness of others. However, this also doesn’t mean that people’s motives must only be to serve the greater good. According to Mill, utilitarianism is not concerned with the motives behind an action, like with Kant; the morality of an action depends on the goodness of its result
only. It seems like one could argue that utilitarianism is unsympathetic because it is concerned only with the consequences of people’s actions and not on the individuals as moral or immoral in themselves. Mill responds in such a way that utilitarianism does not let the right or wrong of an action be affected by the type of person who partakes in the action, then this is a criticism of morality. Other ethical standards judge actions in themselves, without the consideration of the morality of the people who performed them. Mill also presents a few more misunderstandings about utilitarian theory which he claims are wrong. First, utilitarianism’s foundation is human happiness, not the will of God, so it sometimes call a godless doctrine. Mill replies that the criticism depends on what we see to be the moral character of God; if God desires the happiness of all His creatures, then utilitarianism is more religious than any other doctrine. Utilitarians believe that God’s revealed truths about morality will fit with utilitarian principles.