John Stuart Mill And Utilitarianism

Kant’s Groundworks of the Metaphysics of Morals and Mill’s Utilitarianism present morality from two vastly different perspectives. They both give us fundamental and universal theories pertaining to morality. Mill begins Utilitarianism by introducing the issue of the foundation of morality as one that has been discussed by philosophers for more than two thousand years (Mill 95). He then mentions that in areas like the sciences it is common to have some confusion and uncertainty. However, in the sciences, there exists the first principles that are the basis of all learning. These principles are always held true and will always remain accurate even if there is a contrast in understanding amongst different people. Mill describes these first …show more content…
In practical art, a theory is developed and from it, general principles are derived. Mill illustrates this idea when he mentions, “That the morality of an individual action is not a question of direct perception, but of the application of a law to an individual case” (96). He then brings up how the first principles bring forth difficulty in relation to if morality exists, “ a priori, requiring nothing to command assent except that meaning of the terms be understood” (96). Meaning a priori requires no past experience. With the opposite being a posterior which is dependent on past experience. Mill refers to Kant’s theory of morality as an example for a priori reasoning, stating that Kant’s imperative allows for immoral behaviors to be justified, unless some parts of utilitarianism are brought in. Mill believes that Kant’s categorical imperative is actually rather close to the same as utilitarianism, for it deals with determining the good or bad consequences of an action in order to decide if it is moral or not. Mill believes all Kant does in the categorical imperative is to show that the adoption of the consequences of a certain maxim would be …show more content…
He explains both “higher pleasures” and “lower pleasures”. We talked in class and we get a good understanding from the texts that to best understand these pleasures, experience of both is helpful. However, if two people have experienced both of these types of pleasures and they do not agree on which is more desirable, where do we go from there? Pleasures help us define a morally correct action. Mill tries to answer this question by proposing a formula to solve this issue. However, this formula is not the best way to solve all issues that come about in the community, because there are times the formula doesn’t correctly solve an issue or there is not time to calculate the effects of general happiness. In contrast, Kant does not base rationale on each person’s past experiences, but rather on if a person can tell the difference between right and wrong. If they do know the difference they should then be acting right for that is what is needed for the moral agent to be defined as goodwill. This is very straightforward and easy to abide by. Kant tells us to, “act only in accordance to the maximum through which you can at the same time will that it become the universal law” (Kant 4:402). As simple as this theory is, Kant wants every rule to be able to be universal which is not possible. It is not possible to come up with laws that every single human follows. Many people break laws every day for they do not care the outcome or