...In the Utilitarian approach, John Stuart Mill defines utilitarianism as a concept were “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” In other words Mill said that an action is right if produces happiness and wrong if that action reverse happiness. He also stated that some pleasures are higher than others, and what produces greater happiness is the right thing to do. But, there exists objections to the utilitarianism as the individual rights are no respected, it is not enough time to make decision morally right or wrong, and how he contradicts his subordinate rules. I will begin my argument with one of the major objections about the utilitarianism, and it is how Mill’s approach seem to leave no room for individual choices. John Stuart Mill stated that what produces happiness to a large group of people is the moral right thing to do. But part of my disagree with Mills approach, is that not always what produces happiness to a large group of...
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...Mill's methods John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was an English philosopher who wrote on a wide range of topics ranging from language and science to political philosophy. The so-called "Mill's methods" are five rules for investigating causes that he has proposed. § S05.1 The Method of Agreement | The best way to introduce Mill's methods is perhaps through an example. Suppose your family went out together for a buffet dinner, but when you got home all of you started feeling sick and experienced stomach aches. How do you determine the cause of the illness? Suppose you draw up a table of the food taken by each family member : Member / Food taken | Oyster | Beef | Salad | Noodles | Fallen ill? | Mum | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Dad | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Sister | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | You | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Mill's rule of agreement says that if in all cases where an effect occurs, there is a single prior factor C that is common to all those cases, then C is the cause of the effect. According to the table in this example, the only thing that all of you have eaten is oyster. So applying the rule of agreement we infer that eating oyster is the cause of the illnesses. § S05.2 The Method of Difference | | Now suppose the table had been different in the following way: Member / Food taken | Oyster | Beef | Salad | Noodles | Fallen ill? | Mum | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Dad | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Sister | Yes | Yes | Yes...
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...Francis Bacon: "The Secretary of Nature" Bacon's real claim to fame is: not that he, as the lord chancellor, in 1621, was removed from office for accepting a litigant's bribe; nor, that he was the real writer of the Shakespearean plays (one of the controversies in English literature, the "Baconian controversy")3; but rather Francis Bacon is known as a philosopher, one of the first order. Bacon delineated the principles of the inductive method, which constituted a breakthrough in the approach to science, even though philosophers and scientists of the day, - and seemingly today, yet - repudiated both his theories and methodology, alike. Bacon argued that the only knowledge of importance to man was empirically rooted in the natural world; and that a clear system of scientific inquiry would assure man's mastery over the world. He was the originator of the expression, "Knowledge is power." He was quite taken up by the "materialist" theories and the resultant discoveries of both Copernicus and Galileo. Bacon, along with Galileo, are known in the literature as "the great anti-Aristotelians who created the 'modern scientific' view of Nature." Francis Bacon was born at London. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of twelve. He studied law and became a barrister in 1582; two years later he took a seat in the House of Commons. His opposition, in 1584, to Queen Elizabeth's tax program retarded his political advancement. While in the earlier days he supported the Earl of Essex...
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...aim of this paper is to clearly depict how John Stuart Mill’s belief to do good for all is more appropriate for our society than Immanuel Kant’s principle that it is better to do what's morally just. I will explain why Mill’s theory served as a better guide to moral behavior and differentiate between the rights and responsibilities of human beings to themselves and society. Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill are philosophers who addressed the issues of morality in terms of how moral customs are formed. Immanuel Kant presented one perspective in The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that is founded on his belief that the worth of man is inherent in his skill to reason. John Stuart Mill holds another belief as presented in the book, Utilitarianism, which is seemingly conflicting with the thoughts of Kant. What is most unique about the ethics of morality is the idea of responsibilities to particular individuals. According to both Mill and Kant, moral obligations are not fundamentally particularistic because they are rooted in universal moral principles. Both philosophers have made great impacts in their niche areas in the field. An analysis of their theories may help develop a better understanding of them and their theories. Mill holds an empiricist theory while Kant holds a rationalist theory. Kant explains morality through forms that he believes are essential to free and sensible judgment. Mill’s utilitarian approach is a form of consequential theory because the...
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...Ethical Judgments ! Utilitarianism ! An Introduction to the Moral Theories of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill Ethical philosophy differs from the sciences because it is normative or prescriptive, rather than descriptive. In other words, ethics tell us how we ought to act or what we should do, while the sciences are more likely to observe how things are in nature or society. Making Ethical Judgments Areas of Emphasis in Making Moral Judgments Purpose or Act Rule Act, Rule, Motive or Maxim Results or Consequences Making Ethical Judgments in Utilitarianism ! ! ! Utilitarianism says that the Result or the Consequence of an Act is the real measure of whether it is good or bad. This theory emphasizes Ends over Means. Theories, like this one, that emphasize the results or consequences are called teleological or consequentialist. Bentham’s Formulation of Utilitarianism ! ! ! Jeremy Bentham Man is under two great masters, pain and pleasure. The great good that we should seek is happiness. (a hedonistic perspective) Those actions whose results increase happiness or diminish pain are good. They have “utility.” 1 Jeremy Bentham’s Hedonistic Calculus ! Four Theses of Utilitarianism ! ! ! In determining the quantity of happiness that might be produced by an action, we evaluate the possible consequences by p q y applying several values: Intensity, duration, certainty or uncertainty, propinquity or remoteness, fecundity, purity,...
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...well-trained economist. Mill then suffered a nervous breakdown at the age of twenty and used this nervous breakdown to come to the realization he needed more in life than just devotion to the public good and an analytically sharp intellect (Mautner, 2014). As he had grown up a utilitarian, Mill now listened to Wordsworth, Goethe, and Coleridge to help cultivate his aesthetic sensibilities (Mautner, 2014). Mill wanted the British public to understand that there was a need for a scientific approach to understand the political, economic, and social change that was happening. In Mill’s autobiography he claims he introduced the word “utilitarian” to the English language when he was only sixteen. Mill had come into contact with the idea of utilitarian thought early on in life. In Mills writing of Utilitarianism (1861) he tries to justify the utilitarian principle as the foundation for morals (Schefczyk, 2014). The utilitarian principle states that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote overall human happiness (Schefczyk, 2014). This means that Mill will be focusing on the consequences of actions and not on the rights or ethical sentiments (Schefczyk, 2014). Mill’s theory states that for him utilitarians for him were consequentialists who believed that pleasure is the only intrinsic value. The...
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...states that the point of the Utilitarian theory is to conceptualize exactly what is good life by “bringing about consequences of a certain sort that is the greatest happiness for the greatest number” (The Story of Ethics). The Story of Ethics also states that the Utilitarian principle of greatest happiness for the greatest number was first popularized by Jeremy Bentham who according to the Lecture Note “version of utilitarianism is known as quantitative utilitarianism” (Lecture Note). According to The Story of Ethics Bentham states that the principle of utility recognizes right and wrong and the causes and effects from right and wrong. These effects can lead to the nature of mankind being either in pain or pleasure and “Bentham assumes that one can only act according to their aversion to pain or desire for pleasure” (The Story of Ethics). The understanding that I have gained from Bentham’s theory is that good and bad is judged by pleasure and pain that is the greater the pleasure the greater the good and the greater the pain the greater the bad. Bentham’s theory is the ethical position that influenced both John Stuart Mill and his father James Mill. According to an article in the Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia “the central aim of John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism is to defend the view that those acts that produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people are right and good” (Salem Press). The Story of Ethics states that Mill’s believed that Christian belief...
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...Mill's Utilitarianism: Sacrifice the innocent for the common good? When faced with a moral dilemma, utilitarianism identifies the appropriate considerations, but offers no realistic way to gather the necessary information to make the required calculations. This lack of information is a problem both in evaluating the welfare issues and in evaluating the consequentialist issues which utilitarianism requires be weighed when making moral decisions. Utilitarianism attempts to solve both of these difficulties by appealing to experience; however, no method of reconciling an individual decision with the rules of experience is suggested, and no relative weights are assigned to the In deciding whether or not to torture a terrorist who has planted a bomb in New York City, a utilitarian must evaluate both the overall welfare of the people involved or effected by the action taken, and the consequences of the action taken. To calculate the welfare of the people involved in or effected by an action, utilitarianism requires that all individuals be considered equally. Quantitative utilitarians would weigh the pleasure and pain which would be caused by the bomb exploding against the pleasure and pain that would be caused by torturing the terrorist. Then, the amounts would be summed and compared. The problem with this method is that it is impossible to know beforehand how much pain would be caused by the bomb exploding or how much pain...
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...philosopher, political and economic theorist, naturalist, feminist, civil servant, scholar and an author. He was well-known as one of the most influential English philosopher of the nineteenth century. He was the eldest son and was educated by his strict father. Mill’s father was a supporter of Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of utilitarianism and aimed to make his son a genius so that he would carry of Bentham's theory after both his and Bentham’s death. Therefore Mill’s father kept him very sheltered, away from children of his age and taught...
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...After I read Mill’s notion of higher and lower pleasures, I changed the view of my opinion about higher and lower pleasures. Before that, I thought we just need happiness, and then it will be ok. I never think about what kind of pleasures are higher or lower. Through Mill’s view, it’s really difficult to define higher and lower pleasure. But at least, Mill equates happiness with pleasure, and not all pleasures have equal value; higher pleasures of the mind are better than lower pleasures of the body. For human beings, first thing is to seek the most and best food, drink, sleep, sex and so on. This can satisfy people’s lower pleasure. However, people also need higher pleasures. So what are higher pleasures? It mostly focuses on spiritual happiness. Of course, after people’s lower pleasures been satisfied, then people can started to seek higher pleasures. Try to think about it, if people cannot feed themselves, who will try to learn the science. So, reading a good book, seeing a good play or other edifying pleasures would be far superior and would supersede food, drink, sleep, sex etc. When people who are tolerably fortunate in their outward lot find life unhappy, it usually is because they lack altruism or are deficient in mental cultivation. Those who cherish a fellow-feeling for others will always retain a pleasurable interest in life; and a cultivated mind finds inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it--nature, art, poetry, history, the past, present and future of mankind...
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...J.S. Mill’s Economic Philosophy and Political Corruption in 21st Century Australia Carly Sandler Z5088638 University of New South Wales Introduction John Stuart Mill was an influential economic thinker and reformer, whose novel ideals of economic social proved to have a lasting impact on future reformative programs endowed in moral value. Mill’s economic contributions has been characterized into the classical system of economics: production, the distribution of goods, rents and wages, and the economic role of government, which leaves many to critique its practical implications to modern day issues like political corruption in Australia. Today’s political environment in Australia is pigeonholed by a lack of transparency in government contracting and enforcement of regulations, greedy politicians extorting taxpayer money, and power of lobbyists on influencing government policy. Though these concepts were of no concern during Mill’s life, the fundamental theme of institutional power and constraints on societal development can be utilized to weave abstract thinking into realistic interpretations. Thus, the aim of this paper is to ascertain the extent to which Mill’s 19th century economic ideas can be applied to issues of political corruption in 21st century Australia and possible reform. The Economic Philosophy of John Stuart Mill J.S. Mill was born in 1806 in Pentonville, France. He was the eldest son of James Mill, who was a major constituent of Jeremy Bentham’s radical...
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...Contextual Analysis The concept of Utilitarianism by Mill is that an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness- not just the happiness of the performer of the action but also that of everyone affected by it. The Rainbow Fish relates to a core notion of basic utilitarianism, the happiness of the group vs. the happiness of the individual. The basic of utilitarian tenets of "The greatest good for the greatest number" and "Maximizing happiness across the population" are easily apparent when reflecting on Rainbow Fish's decision and the consequences (Mill). In the Rainbow Fish's case, theoretically, he was going to be a little less happy if he lost his scales, but as a result his friends will become much happier. In practice, though, giving everyone a scale actually made him even happier. Mill’s theory of maximizing happiness across the population in Utilitarianism explains why Rainbow Fish becomes happier when he shares his scales with the other fish and his perspective of selfishness explains why Rainbow Fish is unhappy at first. In the book, The Rainbow Fish, there is one of the most beautiful fish in the ocean. Unlike all of the other fish, Rainbow Fish had shimmering, colorful scales. He is asked to share one of his shining scales with a little blue fish, and to which he refuses. All the other fish in the sea leave him alone, and he wondered why. He goes to the wise octopus for advice, and she tells him to give...
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...A utilitarian would respond to the issue by focusing solely on the outcome of the procedure. As per, John Stewart Mill's theory for happiness, for an action to be moral, it must bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. He even goes ahead to state that sacrificing one's personal suffering can be morally acceptable if the action brings about the greatest happiness overall. He states that for people to act in a Utilitarian way, an action must bring about a good consequence which increases happiness and pleasure and diminishes pain; "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce reverse of happiness". (1859) Thus, according to his theory, voluntary euthanasia can produce the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. For instance, if an individual is...
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...of property, for instance, are subject to intervention as these consequences are uncontroversial examples of harm. But not all cases are so clear-cut. Mill himself acknowledges that even purely self-regarding actions can affect others, and it is uncertain at what point affect becomes harm. For example, a person’s religious opinions and right to discuss them should be considered immune from state interference. But expression of these views may well constitute blasphemy for others and in this sense may cause harm. Mill himself distinguishes between causing offence, which does not count as harm, and inciting violence, which is harmful and should be regulated, but the distinction is far from controversial. Other questions may also be asked of Mill’s conception of harm: can a person’s character be morally harmed? Can harm be done to institutions, traditions or other forms of life? Can omission of an action which would benefit others be considered harm? Evidently not all actions that affect others should be considered harmful. There appears to be some further consideration that allows us to distinguish between actions that do, and actions that do not, break the Harm Principle. Acts, of whatever kind, which without...
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...this theory, I will evaluate their personal perspective on Utilitarianism and determine which is more plausible between the two. Ultimately, by doing this I will be able to support the idea that Utilitarianism is not an overall plausible ethical theory to follow. Utilitarianism is a type ethical theory from the ethical objective theory called Consequentialism. Much like in the Consequentialism theory, where morally right and wrong decisions are completely dependent on the consequences produce by an action, morality in Utilitarianism is reliant on the utility of the consequences produced by an action. Utility in this sense means the usefulness of a consequence or the benefits the consequence brings to those all affect by the action. Utilitarians have a strong focus on doing actions that produce the most good. This is due to the principle of utility, which in Utilitarianism states that an action is right if it produces the greatest possibly utility for all those affected by the action. In other words, if an action produces the most good, pleasure, for that situation then that action is right. Unlike in other ethical theories, in Utilitarianism an action is morally right only when it produce the most pleasure. According to Epicurus, ancient Greek philosopher, in “ A Letter to Menoeceus” he taught us that our mission in life should be to attain...
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