Post to the blog about the next reading (Mill,
Utilitarianism, chapters 1-2) by Wednesday night at 11:00 PM. Your blog post should
either (a) raise and support an objection to Mill's position,
or (b) raise and support a fresh argument in support of Mill's position.
“The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness,
ReplyDeletewrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.”
I found this the most interesting part of the chapters because I believe it has a lot to do with what we talked about in class today. We touched on how we are supposed to know if something truly makes us happy or whether it is a short term happiness that will soon fade. The Greatest Happiness Principle is brought up and states that actions are right when they promote happiness through intended pleasure, and wrong when unhappiness or pain occurs. I do not completely agree with this principle. I think that this principle has the major flaw of knowing that something that makes us happy right now, may not make us happy in the future, nor may it be good for us. For example, if drinking makes someone happy now, is it morally right? What if they become an alcoholic, then was the action to drink morally correct since the person was originally happy from it? In addition, something that makes us happy may not necessarily be moral. To add to that, something that we do now that may not make us happy in the current moment, may be best in the long run and have a positive outcome that may have been unforeseen originally. I think that this is a very controversial principle because we don’t know if what makes us happy now will make us happy in the future, and we also have to live with the consequences of our actions, even though they may be unforeseen.