Utilitarianism

<p>John Stuart Mill<span style=color: rgba(32 33 34 1)>'s book </span><strong style=color: rgba(32 33 34 1)><em>Utilitarianism</em></strong><span style=color: rgba(32 33 34 1)> is a classic exposition and defence of </span>utilitarianism<span style=color: rgba(32 33 34 1)> in ethics. The essay first appeared as a series of three articles published in </span><em>Fraser's Magazine</em><span style=color: rgba(32 33 34 1)> in 1861 (vol. 64 p. 391-406 525-534 659-673); the articles were collected and reprinted as a single book in 1863. Mill's aim in the book is to explain what utilitarianism is to show why it is the best theory of ethics and to defend it against a wide range of criticisms and misunderstandings. Though heavily criticized both in Mill's lifetime and in the years since </span><em style=color: rgba(32 33 34 1)>Utilitarianism</em><span style=color: rgba(32 33 34 1)> did a great deal to popularize utilitarian ethics and has been considered the most influential philosophical articulation of a liberal humanistic morality that was produced in the nineteenth century.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span>??</span>Mill took many elements of his version of utilitarianism from Jeremy Bentham the great nineteenth-century legal reformer who along with William Paley were the two most influential English utilitarians prior to Mill. Like Bentham Mill believed that happiness (or pleasure which both Bentham and Mill equated with happiness) was the only thing humans do and should desire for its own sake. Since happiness is the only intrinsic good and since more happiness is preferable to less the goal of the ethical life is to maximize happiness. This is what Bentham and Mill call the principle of utility or the greatest-happiness principle. Both Bentham and Mill thus endorse classical or hedonistic forms of utilitarianism. More recent utilitarians often deny that happiness is the sole intrinsic good arguing that a variety of values and consequences should be considered in ethical decision making.<sup>[4]</sup></p><p>Although Mill agreed with Bentham about many of the foundational principles of ethics he also had some major disagreements. In particular Mill tried to develop a more refined form of utilitarianism that would harmonize better with ordinary morality and highlight the importance in the ethical life of intellectual pleasures self-development high ideals of character and conventional moral rules.</p>