The Moral Philosophy of John Stuart Mill
At the very heart of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism is a concern which can be traced back to the Biblical parable of the house built on sand - an improper foundation. With this in mind, Mill audaciously sets out to develop a "foundational program" of morality, one that incorporates a principle that can be the basis for all other moral thinking. To find this foundational principle, the naturalistic Mill examines the common, fundamental beliefs of humanity. Mill finds his foundation in the statement that "pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends". While it is possible to bolster such a statement with rational supporting arguments, Mill accepts that there can be no definite "proof", necessitating that it be both intuitive and, with some explanation, self-evident. A thorough understanding of this statement (and its slightly less self-evident role as the foundation of the most influential moral theory of the 19th century) is crucial, as its effect on Mill's moral outlook as a whole is impossible to overstate.
It is imperative at this juncture to contrast the metaphysical naturalism of a figure such as Hobbes with the metaphysical and ethical naturalism one finds in Mill. Mill does not believe in the "naturalistic fallacy" which caused Hobbes such grief, and is therefore free to move from an empirical statement, such as "human beings tend to seek pleasure and avoid pain", to a normative one, like "therefore, pleasure is good, and pain is bad". This normative presupposition is Mill's basic preface to the foundational statement above, and it is necessary (and easy) to accept the former to explain the latter.
The tenets of utilitarianism that have been raised thus far, namely that pleasure is necessarily a "good" thing and that, furthermore, it is the only intrinsically good thing, desirable in...
More Modern Philosophy
essays:
The Life & Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche: Timeline
... dismissed John Stuart Mill as a "blockhead" for the presupposition that everyone was equal. He wrote about Mill: "I abhor the man's vulgarity when he says "what is right for one man ...
Utilitarianism and Omelas Applying John Stuart Mill's "Utilitarianism" to Ursula Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"
... of John Stuart Mill's "Utilitarianism" would disagree with the events taking place in Ursula Le Guin's "The One's Who Walk Away from Omelas." "The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle ...
An Examination of Thomas Hobbes' Moral Philosophy with an Emphasis on the Escape from the State of Nature.
... Unlike moral naturalists, Hobbes disagrees that one can simply observe how nature "is" to see how man "ought to be". Rather, his Laws of Nature are those which can be devised by reason, which prevent a person from doing ...
Happiness, refers to John Stuart Mill's ideas
... goal, John Stuart Mill, a nineteenth century philosopher, correctly advocated the pursuit of happiness, and maintained the concept that above all other values, pleasure existed as the final destination, Mill's hedonistic views correctly and rationally identified ...
Transcendentalism, the Philosophy of the Mind
... act desired of everyone would be a good act, or if the act is performed with good intentions it is good no matter if it brings pain. He also said human life is only possible on this moral basis ...
Mill and Locke's conception of Freedom
... these freedoms from the individual and places it on the state. John Stuart Mill believes that man's should be strictly limited in political society. Mill differs from Locke in the basic principle that ...
The Socratic Doctrine of the Soul. Deals also with philosophers through ages from Pythagorous up to Plato
... separate from the body. The belief in an active principle in some sense distinct from the body is inference from the ...
The Life and Philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Dissertation on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind and is it Authorized by Natural Law? , Rousseau explains that there are two kinds of inequality among men and those are physical/natural, and moral/political ...