Moreover, how does he justify saying one would rather be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool who is satisfied? His point is obvious - it is better to have brains and not achieve happiness than be dumb and be contented. But Socrates, brilliant as he was, chose death over exile from Athens, which it can be argued did not lead to happiness in Socrates nor in the students who admired him, nor did it lead to happiness in Plato, the scribe who catalogued all that Socrates said. Taking it one step farther, as Mill often does to make his points, had Socrates moved out of Athens, he could have continues to share his wondrous insights with Plato and the world would have benefited in millennia to come. And after all, if Mill's entire thesis is that happiness is the goal for all individuals, who then is to say that a…...

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Works Cited

Mill, John Stuart. The Utilitarians: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation - Jeremy Bentham - Utilitarianism and on Liberty - John Stuart Mill.

New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1823.

John Stuart Mill's concept of liberty professes to be liberal but ends up with a distinctly 'non-liberal' feel when analysing the details. This paper endeavours to define exactly what Mills' notion of liberty is and how it should be regulated by studying his book "On Liberty." The main discrepancies of his theory will be highlighted so as to demonstrate the apparent contradiction between his ideology and the examples he chooses to showcase his theory in its application.
Mill defines liberty (civil or social) as "the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual." (Chapter I - Introductory; 1) The obvious wielder of this power Mill identified to be the government. However the government can be controlled or checked in turn since they are still held accountable to the people. Mill recognized another wielder of this control over the individual, the 'society' in question…...

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Bibliography

Mill, John Stuart (1869) On Liberty. 4th ed. London, Longman, Roberts & Green.  http://www.bartleby.com/br/130.html

Personal usefulness or utility is not required to clash with public usefulness. Usefulness or Utility is often misguided for pragmatism. but, pragmatism is the affinity to encourage certain preferred objective, regardless of the consideration between what is correct and reasonable. Utility is the standard level of being practical, and hence it must take into account not just what would generate a preferred objective, but what would encourage the maximum pleasure, and what is appropriate and reasonable. Mill acknowledges that the theory can be distorted. But he states that, in the event of discord between personal utility and public usefulness, the decisive factor of utility can continued to be used to arrive at a conclusion. (yan, 38)
What is the intention to abide by the theory of utility? According to Mill people long for their individual pleasure, no matter the degree of distortion in their own behavior; they wish and emphasize…...

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References

August, Eugene. John Stuart Mill: A Mind at Large. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1975.

Collini, S.J.S. Mill: On Liberty and Other Writings. Cambridge University Press: New York, 1989

Halliday, R.J. John Stuart Mill. London: Allen & Unwin, Ltd. 1976.

Laine, Michael. A Cultivated Mind: Essays on J.S. Mill. University of Toronto Press, 1991

Unfortunately, we have had no more success at finding that limit than Mill did, for what we see all around us today is that very same "political despotism" of which Mill speaks with trepidation. Mill writes that it is the "majority" who makes "the ways of mankind" (102-3), but his notion of "majority rule" appears to be based on the assumption that political despotism has not been enshrined. Majority rule would, in Mill's unadulterated view, affect the world democracies by forming the ways of the people within those democracies -- guiding them toward "harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole" (103). Again, the vision is extremely Romantic, for it does not take into account the disharmony found in the very heart of man, as someone like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn would say (after experiencing the horrors of societal collapse in Soviet Russia).

"Majority rule," therefore, does not seem as…...

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Works Cited

Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. London: John W. Parker and Son, West Strand, 1859.

Print.

John Stuart Mill on Liberty
In John Stuart Mill's brilliant 19th Century essay "On Liberty" he states that "the worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it." What Mills is purporting in that statement is that the State (the government) must not impede on the natural development of individual liberty. We are never to forget that we have inalienable rights for life and liberty. These rights are as natural as the air we breathe. No government or group of thugs can ever deny our natural pursuits of liberty and freedom. The entire essay stresses the need of what liberty is to be understood and constituted in our lives, and to be warned of external pressures that would impede our basic civil liberties; essentially, he warns that individuals reacting under the conscious of a single, civil mindset to exert chic laws may infringe upon…...

e. herself very unhappy. Personal happiness should not be compromised for the sake of greater happiness of maximum number of people when the one person who would be most affected by your decision is you. I feel that Mill's concept is workable when rights of other people are involved. For example Katie would not be hurting anyone's rights by choosing to become a doctor. But lets consider another example. Larry is in love with Susan while he is married to Anne. Susan wants Larry to seek divorce from his wife and abandon his three children in order to marry her. Though he doesn't love Anne anymore, they are both polite to each other. He often feels that his love for Susan grew out of boredom from his present marriage. Larry is utterly confused. He loves Susan but he is legally married to Anne and loves his children immensely. If Larry…...

The servant is deemed 'other' by society, of an entirely different class than the mistress. The servant seems grateful simply to simply be employed to an individual of high-born status. The 'otherness' between the two women is so great, the servant does not even seem to perceive herself as part of the same substance as the lady. She has no jealousy of the fact that the lady does not work, and seems to not fully understand the sensual implications of the fact she is wearing the lady's jewels and intimately touches the lady to prepare her for the ball.
3. Mrs. Warrens Profession illustrates three different possibilities for Victorian women: Prostitution, marriage, or living as a New Woman. What do these three possibilities say about each other? What attitudes toward marriage are projected in the play? How is marriage equated with prostitution? What moral and ethical questions about respectable society…...

Plato and John Stuart Mill
Glaucon's challenge to Socrates at the beginning of Book II of Plato's Republic is to clarify in what sense justice is a human "good." Glaucon begins by separating goods into three categories: those which are harmless pleasures with no results, those things which are good in themselves but also lead to good results (like knowledge or health), and those which are unpleasant in themselves yet lead to good results (like caring for the sick, or physical exercise). Glaucon wants to know how Socrates would characterize justice in these categories. This leads Glaucon to the famous discussion of the "ring of Gyges" -- like the ring of Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, Gyges' ring confers invisibility on the wearer. Gyges is a shepherd who, according to myth, discovered such a ring and used it to sleep with the local queen, kill the king, and take over the…...

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Works Cited

Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Seventh Edition. London: Longmans Green, 1879. Web. Accessed at:  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11224/11224-h/11224-h.htm 

Plato. (1991). The Republic. Second Edition, translated with notes and an interpretive essay by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books. Print.

For Singer, the human community must receive justice, not simply a society setting its own local standards of morality and justice, as in Mill's argument. For Singer there are no 'imperfect' obligations, rather all obligations are absolute. Someone who merely does no harm to others, or extends help only to family members and his or her immediate community is committing a moral wrong. Even someone who is 'good' but spends his or her money on flat screen TVs rather than on aid to starving children is immoral.
Singer's philosophy is useful to contrast with that of Mill's attempt to justify the moral nature of utilitarianism, because it clearly supports the notion that utilitarianism can be conceptualized as a highly moral system, even more radically so than Mill's. Mill's less idealistic, but seemingly more reasonable and realistic idea of allowing for the 'greatest good' in most instances, while still protecting the…...

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References

Mill, John Stuart. (1865). Chapter 5. Utilitarianism.

Singer, Peter. (1999, September 5). The Singer solution to world poverty. The New York Times.

Liberty, by John Stuart Mill [...] how John Stuart Mill would view the issue of pornography. Pornography has been argued by many feminists and advocates for women's rights to be pernicious to women because it eroticizes and promotes relationships of inequality and subordination of women to men. For this reason, they argue that pornography should be censored. hat you think Mill would say about this? ould Mill be a principled opponent to any form of censorship, including censorship of pornography?
ON LIBERTY

In this paper, I will argue that John Stuart Mill was an early proponent of equal rights for women, but he also believed in free speech, and would never advocate censorship, even of objectionable material, and his opening paragraph clearly states this fact. "The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the ill, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or…...

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Works Cited

Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1978.

It is only then that true liberty has taken place as it has provided a forum and a backdrop for examination of all sides in an issue and given all parties the chance to determine if they still believe in what they stood for (Mills).
According to the essay Mills also does not believe society or the government has any actual or absolute control over an individual. In the essay he addresses his feelings about the government by stating that a good government really has no more power than a poor government over the people that it serves.

Mills refers to civil liberties and social liberties with his essay and causes the reader to examine the meaning of liberty through his use of examples.

According to Mills there is only one justifiable reason that liberty should be limited an that is for the prevention of harm. He is quick to point out…...

Political Philosophy II: Theories of Freedom
John Stuart Mill's On Liberty is one of the foundational defenses of liberal, democratic government. According to Mill, there are certain core principles "that should regulate how governments and societies, whether democratic or not, can restrict individual liberties."[footnoteRef:1] Mill wrote that regardless of whether a monarch, dictator, or even a democratic majority governed, the only reason to deprive others of their liberties was what he called the harm principle, namely, that "a harm, an action must be injurious or set back important interests of particular people, interests in which they have rights" and "justifies restricting liberty to prevent harm to others."[footnoteRef:2] In defining the harm principle, Mill's intentions were clearly noble in that he wished to prevent the illegitimate use of power by the state to restrict free speech, sexual behavior, or other personal, private choices. However, since Mill wrote, even a number of sympathetic…...

Happiness
The author of this report has been asked to answer a specific and thoughtful answer to a question about the greatest happiness principle and what it really means. Indeed, the question is how the principle is supposed to be useful and informative when it comes to guiding someone on what to do, what not to do and why. As the author expected, there is a strong correlation between this question and the general concept of utilitarianism. hile the linkage and comparison of the greatest happiness principle and utilitarianism may make it easy to some to offer some explanations and insights, it just complicates things for others in some ways and the author of this response is certainly among that echelon.

Analysis

Before getting into semantics and how the principle can or should be perceived, the author of this report will quote the man who came up with the principle being cited…...

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Works Cited

Panera. "Day-End Dough-Nation." Panerabread.com. n.p., 2016. Web. 31 May 2016.

UTM. "Mill, John Stuart: Ethics -- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy." Iep.utm.edu. n.p., 2016. Web. 31 May 2016.

Utilitarianism
In the opening remarks to Utilitarianism, Mill sets the stage for this discussion. He accepts that the idea of utilitarianism dates back two thousand years, and is part of a philosophical discourse that has never been resolved. He then explains the prevailing thought that moral laws are considered universal, deriving from the same source. Their evidence is a priori in that they are simply assumed to be correct. These laws, however, lack a fundamental rule, something that is the root of morality, that should be self-evident. Mill is staking out a position that there is no such fundamental rule, and that this is a defect.

Mill then argues that utility, as described by Bentham, is where happiness derives from, and that this ultimately influences decision-making and morality even among those who reject the idea and attempt to base their moral standards on another universal code. Mill does not explicitly say in…...

In this case, Mary would have acted precisely as she did, that is, pursuing her personal happiness and acting according to a pattern she had established before, that of being virtuous and always acting morally. In this case, the decision is plain and easy to take: Mary has to be virtuous so as to satisfy her own moral demands and ensure her emotional and spiritual comfort. Thus, she acts according to her pre-established set of rules.
Thus, Mary acts primarily, as she herself argues, so as not to 'soil' the beginning of her life. She feels that taking the money would save the old man because his own happiness and personal interest would be in giving the money away to anyone else besides his family: "I will not let the close of your life soil the beginning of mine. I will not touch your iron chest or your will."(Eliot, 411)…...

The dynamic intersection between philosophical ethics and Christian theology is a complex and rich area of study that involves examining the moral principles and values that guide human behavior and decision-making, in both secular and religious contexts. This paper aims to explore this intersection, tracing the historical development of ethical thought in Western philosophy and Christian theology, and examining the ways in which these two disciplines have influenced each other over time.

One of the central themes in this exploration is the concept of moral realism, which asserts that moral values and principles are objective and independent of human beliefs or....