John
Stuart Mill describes the central point of Utilitarianism; to increase of
happiness at the point of decreasing pain. He also acknowledges the presence of
pain in small amounts. He explicitly states, “The happiness which they meant
was not a life of rapture, but moments of such, in an existence made up of few
and transitory pains, many and various pleasures”. I enjoy that he
mentions pain as a regular part of life, but I think he diminishes the
importance it can play in people’s lives. I’m in agreement with Mills that
happiness and pain are direct opposites, and that very few sound individuals
desire to be pain. But I would argue that pain is more necessary than he
admits. Mills splits general happiness into tranquility and excitement in the
following statement, “The main
constituents of a satisfied life appear to be two, either of which by itself is
often found sufficient for the purpose: tranquility, and excitement”.
Within this statement he is acknowledging the importance of juxtaposition of
the feelings to make each feeling stronger and more impacting. You cannot
appreciate excitement without moments of tranquility and vice versa. I would
like to expand on this need for opposite feelings and say that happiness is
felt stronger because humans experience pain, so in all respects pain cannot be
entirely eliminated. I would like to further question that without pain or
unpleasant experiences would we as humans even be able to appreciate being
happy at all?
So my question
for Mill would be, is it possible to experience true happiness by eliminating
the knowledge of pain? If not, where does this leave Utilitarianism, because
the goal is to decrease and eliminate pain? I think addressing this dualism in
more depth would strengthen his argument about what constitutes general happiness,
as it’s applicable to Utilitarianism.
This is a really cool post, Shannon. I had a problem with his general idea that there could be a rule for determining the "best" course of action, and that pain is automatically undesirable. For example, could numbness sometimes be worse than pain? There's a line in my favorite poem that goes "the irony of paradise, and life without a care, is that happiness is lost on those who have never known despair." A very "utilitarian" counterargument might be that we can always strive to lessen pain because it is impossible to totally eliminate it. What would you say to that?
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