PHILOS 2YY3 Chapter Notes - Chapter Hospers and Mill: John Stuart Mill, Rule Utilitarianism, Categorical Imperative
3 Apr 2018
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Mill seeks to distinguish happiness from mere sensual pleasure. Utility = aka the greatest happiness principle": holds that actions are right when they promote the most happiness and wrong when they produce the reverse of happiness. Happiness = pleasure and the absence of pain. Unhappiness = pain and the privation of pleasure. What happiness / unhappiness includes is left as a subjective state for all of us. Freedom from pain, as well as pleasure, are the only desirable ends: all desirable things are either desirable for the pleasure inherent in themselves or as a means to promote other pleasures / prevent pain. Difference of quality in pleasures: if there are two pleasures and there is one which many people have a decided preference for, then this is the more desirable pleasure. He rejects ideas of act-utilitarianism defended by bentham, nietzsche and mill.
