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Recommended: John stuart mill's theory of utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a moral belief that if a deed taken creates more good than bad for all than that deed should be taken. It is the calculation of the end result of whether your decision will lead to a good cause or not. If the deed brings happiness to all, than you are doing the right thing. John Stuart Mill, acknowledged for this theory, explains that utilitarianism theory is based on the following, “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness”. Mill explains happiness as pleasure lacking pain and that pleasure can differ in levels of quality and quantity.

Many people misinterpret utilitarianism by interpreting utility in confliction with pleasure but in reality, utility is described as pleasure itself lacking pain. Another label for utility is the Greatest Happiness Principle. This opinion embraces that "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.” Meaning that, deeds are perceived to be good after they lead to a larger happiness and bad after it cuts down happiness. As such, people who understand their higher faculties are often less satisfied, because they have a deeper understanding of the restrictions in life. This is why Mill says, "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinions, it is because they only know their side of the question." What he is trying to explain is that human desires are extra urbane than animals and as ...

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...norant, and so on. Even with a person who uses higher faculties usually suffer more in life, as people always say "ignorance is bliss”.

Moreover, people can continue lacking happiness, and all virtuous people have come to be virtuous by renouncing happiness. First, Mill replies that it is an exaggeration to state that people cannot be happy. He contends that happiness, after described as moments of rapture transpiring in an existence anxious by insufficient pains, is indeed probable, and should be probable for nearly everybody if educational and communal arrangements were different. The main origins of unhappiness are selfishness and a lack of mental cultivation. Thus, it is fully inside most people's skills to be happy, if their education nurtures the appropriate values of “It is a good if it promotes happiness, but is not a good if it does not advance happiness”.

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