Mill's Utilitarianism

In this section, I will begin with a brief overview of Mill’s view, focusing mainly on the elements that will be relevant for Mill and Kant’s ethics, I will discuss that Mill and Kant has the common part on consciousness and reason. I will then turn to Mill’s claim that the central claim of utilitarianism is that an action’s rightness or wrongness derives from the extent to which it maximizes (or fails to maximize) happiness. I will argue Mill’s utilitarianism is considerably more plausible than it has been thought, once we interpret it from the first-person point of view. I will discuss that understanding the claim from a moral point of view legitimates the controversial inference. Although Mill’s first person view take issue with the abstract
In the Introduction of his book, Utilitarianism, Mill remarks that it is rare that moral thinkers do not provide a list of a priori principles or offer a guiding first principle or an area of common ground. In utilitarianism, Mill’s view is that right actions are the intention of promoting happiness while wrong actions are the products of the reverse of happiness. Happiness for Mill is a positive balance of pleasure over pain; in contrast, unhappiness is a positive balance of pain over pleasure. Mill’s focus of happiness is to point out that happiness is an end of human action. Happiness is the only thing desirable; all other things being only desirable are means to that end. The utilitarian doctrine then goes to the interpretation that happiness is the only desirable end, and actions are right in virtue in terms of promotion of happiness. In Mill’s augment, the moral agent is to promote the end of human action. Mill interprets further the reasons that we have to act morally or immorally. In this sense, Utilitarianism does not have to face any problem for explaining moral motivation, in some sense, as I understand, it is about the source of morality, moral motivation has been explained with many trends, for example autonomous capacity see my discussion about autonomy in last
Mill list two sources that are internal sanction and external sanction. External sanctions include physical or moral punishment. In contrast, the internal sanction is kind of subjective feeling that is our conscience. Mill says:
This feeling, when disinterested and correcting itself with the pure idea of duty, and not with some particular form of it, or with any of the merely accessory circumstances, is the essence of conscience… (28- 29). Mill claims only the internal sanction of duty is feeling in our own mind and violation of duty because of our moral nature, will be considered as moral impossibility. Further, our consciousness refrain us from acting immorally. Conscience tells us what can be regarded as right and as duty. Mill’s interpretation of sanction of duty is based on the interpretation of feeling, if my action is constrained by my subjective feeling in our own minds, what will that particular constraint effect? The answer may be we all mankind have such conscientious feelings.
Undoubtedly this sanction has no binding efficacy on those who do not possess the feelings it appeals to; but neither will these persons be more obedient to any other moral principle than to the utilitarian one