Intro to Ethics

• In contrast to Kant, Mill argues that the rightness or wrongness on an
• action consists not in its motivating reason but in its anticipated
• consequences. According to his principle of utility, actions are moral
• to the extent that they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest
• number of people. Mill understands happiness as pleasure and the freedom
• from pain, "the only things desirable as ends" (because they are the
• only things actually desired as ends), allowing that some
• pleasures are qualitatively better than others. The inherent superiority
• of some particular pleasure over another can be seen by the fact that
• all or almost all of those who have had experience of both will have a
• decided preference for one, regardless of any feeling of moral
• obligation to prefer it. The utilitarian standard of morality is not the
• agent"s own happiness but the happiness of all concerned, each of whom
• should be given equal consideration.

• Moral theory holding that actions
• are right to the extent that they promote as much happiness as possible
• and wrong to the extent that they promote unhappiness, each person
• counting equally.

According to Mill's utilitarianism, pleasure and the absence of pain, the only intrinsically desirable goods.

• Intellectual and moral pleasures, which are
• superior to lower, merely bodily pleasures not because of their
• intrinsic nature but because of their circumstantial advantages, such as
• greater permanence, safety, and inexpensiveness.