Mill and Happiness
The English philosopher Bentham had suggested morality is simply maximising pleasure for yourself and others. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) thought this paid insufficient attention to our higher interests. Pleasure might be what matters but some pleasures are better than others, eg intellectual, artistic, social pleasures. It’s not enough to work for more pleasure for all: we must try to increase the higher pleasures in society.
The problem with this is that humans actually value things besides pleasures. People value being able to perform activities like sport, study, prayer – even when they are not pleasurable. We also value being in touch with often-painful reality: pain is not the worst thing that can happen to us. There is more to happiness than simply increasing one’s pleasures.
Seeking to maximise human pleasure has many other downsides, eg if the best way to maximise a nation’s pleasure is to torture its native people to death, would it be right to do so? Obviously not. Therefore there is more to morality than maximising pleasure. We value human rights, the cultivation of the virtues and the sanctity of life, as well as our pleasures—hopefully, much more than our pleasures.
The English philosopher Bentham had suggested morality is simply maximising pleasure for yourself and others. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) thought this paid insufficient attention to our higher interests. Pleasure might be what matters but some pleasures are better than others, eg intellectual, artistic, social pleasures. It’s not enough to work for more pleasure for all: we must try to increase the higher pleasures in society.
The problem with this is that humans actually value things besides pleasures. People value being able to perform activities like sport, study, prayer – even when they are not pleasurable. We also value being in touch with often-painful reality: pain is not the worst thing that can happen to us. There is more to happiness than simply increasing one’s pleasures.
Seeking to maximise human pleasure has many other downsides, eg if the best way to maximise a nation’s pleasure is to torture its native people to death, would it be right to do so? Obviously not. Therefore there is more to morality than maximising pleasure. We value human rights, the cultivation of the virtues and the sanctity of life, as well as our pleasures—hopefully, much more than our pleasures.
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