John Stuart Mill's Utilitarian Theory

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John Stuart Mill believes in the utilitarian principle that no action in of itself is good or bad, but the consequences of the action. People who believe in the utilitarian principle agrees that the way to judge an action’s morality is by seeing if it promotes the greatness amount of happiness, or pleasure, to the greatest amount of people. Based on that belief, Mill thinks that the only possible standard to judge ethics is happiness. Every action that we take, whether it be for short-term pleasure (lower-order pleasures) or if it’s for long term pleasure (higher-order pleasures), the tail end result for doing anything in this lifetime is to be truly happy. He also believes that happiness is the only thing that can be universally, in terms …show more content…

Another example of this, is the story of Robin Hood. Robin Hood tells the tale of a man that steals from the rich and gives on to the poor. In this case, utilitarians would find nothing wrong with this man stealing money from people, because we don’t give actions their own morality, only thing that makes an action good or bad is the consequences that proceed them. So, this is morally acceptable based on that standard because the consequences are relatively good because the greatest amount of happiness is being promoted to the greatest number of people. Stealing from one person to feed a whole village or maybe even two is the right thing to do morally, no matter the means in which he achieved …show more content…

The theory of utilitarianism is unrealistic because it asks you to consider the happiness of everyone before every action. Any action can negatively affect someone, the consequences may not show immediately, but they could happen further into the future. There is no way to consider every person’s happiness in making everyday decisions. Even though Mill responds to this objection by saying just concentrate locally and it would create a trickle-down effect in the ideal situation, it still wouldn’t work simply because it’s no way of knowing if the people you help will pay it forward and continue to help other

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