John Stuart Mill: Happiness And The Individual's Pursuit Of Happiness

Utilitarians believe that the best moral choice directly yields the greatest beneficial consequence. In some situations, a single individual’s happiness is the sole factor that drives moral choice. Balancing pain, or unhappiness, with pleasure, or happiness, is the basic formula of the utilitarian doctrine. Generally speaking, it is common in human nature to obtain happiness or a means of happiness specifically to keep one’s sanity in the chaos that is life; however, a person’s happiness may lead to another’s demise, and although most utilitarians believe in optimizing consequences, others believe in optimizing their own happiness. The concept of utility as described by Mill focuses on the immediate wellbeing of a single human but not the attitudes or feelings of others in the wake of the act performed by said human. This is not only selfish, but also an atrocity, because the maximization of one’s happiness can lead to the minimization of another and a means to happiness, or more specifically general happiness, is completely subjective and depends on the individual. …show more content…
Many times the process leading up to that consequence are overlooked because the end result is the only thing that matters. Mill states that “if [my own] happiness lies in something else, why [may I] not give that the preference”, which may sound logical on the surface, but when analyzing the clause there is much to criticize. Take for example a serial murderer. Their preference and/or happiness may derive directly from the death of others, especially when that death is the result of the murderers doing. According to Mill and the utilitarian doctrine, it is morally right for that murderer to optimize their own happiness by continuing to their means to happiness, which happens to be murder. Obviously killing someone is immoral most of the time, but this idea of preference utilitarianism begs to