John Stuart Mill's View On Prostitution

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Prostitution: the act of engaging in sexual activity for payment. The morality of prostitution has been a question since Biblical times thru the Middle Ages and continuing today. In Babylon women were to sleep with at least one foreigner as a sign of hospitality and in Isreal Rahab used prostitution as a way to spy and get information to help her country. Greece and even the Roman Catholic Church looked the other was when it came to prostitution, seeing it as a way to prevent rape and other sex crimes. In the sixteenth century sexual diseases began to travel through communities and began to be frowned upon, with brothels being closed and prostitution becoming a crime. There are many different ethical views on prostitution. Some take John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism view of the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. Others take the …show more content…

How does that apply to prostitution? Even with Utilitarianism it is all in your perspective. Mill‘s perspective is that it depends on if a third party is involved. Mill believed that there were higher and lower levels of happiness and pleasure. The higher levels are ones that please and expand the mind and character and the lower are ones that please a person’s urges, sexual and physical. Prostitution, if it only involves the buyer and the seller is morally acceptable because both parties are fulfilling something that makes them happy or gives them pleasure. The buyer is getting their sexual pleasure and the seller is making money, which one would believe makes the seller happy. Mill finds prostitution morally unacceptable if the buyer has a significant other. This other person has to be considered in the equation of happiness. This person is being cheated on and lied to, even if it is by omission. The other person’s higher level of happiness is more important than the lower level of happiness the buyer and seller are

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