Utilitarianism Essay

Hard Times offers a critique of the Utilitarian ideology from a romantic perspective. Hard Times demonstrates that one cannot reason oneself to happiness, but that relying solely on the faculties of the mind will not fulfill the complexities of the human being. John Stuart Mills, in his paper Utilitarianism proposed the philosophy is "not something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but pleasure itself, together with exemption from pain; and instead of opposing the useful to the agreeable or the ornamental..." However, Dickens did not find this harmony to be a possible outcome of the rigidity of logic, but found the imagination to be a more fertile ground for producing happiness.

Dickens wrote of utilitarianism as it was applied during British industrialization. In the economic climate of the Industrial Revolution capitalism prevailed and social equality was more rhetoric than practice. Capitalism combined with the philosophy to put an emphasis on the individual achieving his or her own goals, rather than focus on the
Bounderby claims he is a self-made man, it isn 't the truth. Contrary to his claims, Josiah Bounderby was raised in a well-to-do house by a caring mother. In Hard Times it is apparent that despite rhetoric about egalitarianism, the people are governed by very different rules according to class. When a working stiff, Stephen Blackpool asks his employer, Mr. Bounderby for advice on how to obtain a divorce from his alcoholic wife, he is chastised. However, in the same scene it becomes apparent Mrs. Sparsit herself was divorced, but only thanks to her social status and wealth. Bounderby is angered Blackpool should even think of himself as having such liberties. The scene represents the disempowered situation of the lower class. Blackpool 's employer reminds him he has no rights and immediately expresses concern he will next want more worker 's rights. At points like this Dickens makes turn of the 19th century Britain seem almost