Mill pg. 205-209 - Summary The Moral Life: an Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature PDF

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Mill pg 205-209...

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Mill pg. 205-209 Monday, February 4, 2019

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Mill - Utilitarianism Refined Definitions • Privation - a state in which things that are essential for human well-being such as food and warmth are scarce or lacking • Ignoramus - an ignorant or stupid person Notes • Previous utilitarian teachings ○ Actions are right if they promote happiness, wrong if they produce the reverse of happiness ○ Happiness = pleasure and the absence of pain ○ Unhappiness = pain, privation of pleasure ○ It is more than just pleasure and the freedom from pain as desirable ends ○ If the sources of pleasure were the same to humans as to swine, the rule of life which is good enough for one would be good enough for the other § This thought is degrading ○ Humans have more elevated faculties than animals ○ Utilitarian writers have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures § Safety, permanency, un costliness • Mills argument: Some kinds of pleasures are more desirable and more valuable that others Quality does not equal quantity, instead we should base it on quality alone • Difference of quality in pleasures ○ If someone has a decided preference, regardless of moral obligation, it is the more desirable pleasure • Two different ideas of happiness and content ○ Anyone whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest

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chance of having them fully satisfied ○ A highly-endowed being will always feel that any happiness is imperfect § They can learn to bear the imperfections § It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied Talks about how people want different things ○ Men want bodily pleasures and sensual indulgences ○ Two pleasures, two modes of existence ○ Quality of pleasures ○ Two pains ○ Feelings and judgement of the experienced determines the cost of a particular pain or purchasing of pleasure* ○ These are preferable in kind, apart from the question of intensity...