Mill's Utilitarianism Strengths
Explain the main strengths of Mill’s Utilitarianism. (25)
Mill argues that the pleasures of the mind should take precedence over physical pleasure and that once basic human requirements are fulfilled the primary moral concerns should be for higher order goods. Mill rejected Bentham’s Hedonic calculus because he believed that other values were needed to be taken into consideration when measuring people’s happiness like freedom and emotions. Seeing as Mill succeeded Bentham as a famous utilitarian, he obviously looked at the flaws of Bentham’s utility and tried to improve it. Bentham believed that you should lead your life by bringing the least amount of pain to the least amount of people. This brings up the suggestion that Bentham therefore …show more content…
Bentham held that all pleasures are the same. It is still necessary to weigh pleasures, to multiply them by different numbers as you try to calculate the consequences of your action, but the criteria for the weighing of pleasures are subjectively felt intensity, duration, purity, and other considerations of this nature. Mill, on the other hand, disagreed. Mill thought that ‘it is better to be Socrates unsatisfied rather than a pig satisfied,’ whereas Bentham had famously opined that ‘push pin is as good as poetry’ – push pin being a mindless game for children. This is a way that Mill shows his splitting of pleasure into higher and lower pleasures. The higher pleasures included intellectuality and pleasure of the mind, whereas lower pleasures are more like materialistic needs such as food and water. He believes that it is much easier to acquire the lower pleasures in comparison to the higher pleasures which require hardship and suffering to obtain. Mill understood that both higher and lower pleasures are connected, because in order to survive we must eat and drink, but when we fulfil that and are comfortable, we should always pursue intellectual gain rather than bodily
Mill argues that the pleasures of the mind should take precedence over physical pleasure and that once basic human requirements are fulfilled the primary moral concerns should be for higher order goods. Mill rejected Bentham’s Hedonic calculus because he believed that other values were needed to be taken into consideration when measuring people’s happiness like freedom and emotions. Seeing as Mill succeeded Bentham as a famous utilitarian, he obviously looked at the flaws of Bentham’s utility and tried to improve it. Bentham believed that you should lead your life by bringing the least amount of pain to the least amount of people. This brings up the suggestion that Bentham therefore …show more content…
Bentham held that all pleasures are the same. It is still necessary to weigh pleasures, to multiply them by different numbers as you try to calculate the consequences of your action, but the criteria for the weighing of pleasures are subjectively felt intensity, duration, purity, and other considerations of this nature. Mill, on the other hand, disagreed. Mill thought that ‘it is better to be Socrates unsatisfied rather than a pig satisfied,’ whereas Bentham had famously opined that ‘push pin is as good as poetry’ – push pin being a mindless game for children. This is a way that Mill shows his splitting of pleasure into higher and lower pleasures. The higher pleasures included intellectuality and pleasure of the mind, whereas lower pleasures are more like materialistic needs such as food and water. He believes that it is much easier to acquire the lower pleasures in comparison to the higher pleasures which require hardship and suffering to obtain. Mill understood that both higher and lower pleasures are connected, because in order to survive we must eat and drink, but when we fulfil that and are comfortable, we should always pursue intellectual gain rather than bodily