In class on Wednesday we defined utility as the usefulness of something. John Stuart Mill defines utility as happiness with the least amount of pain. This leads into the Greatest Happiness Principle, which essentially states that maximizing utility is key in order to bring the greatest amount of happiness or pleasure (or the least amount of pain) to the greatest amount of people. After we discussed that in class, Dr. Johnson brought up the idea of Felicific Calculus. That is an algorithm that calculates situations to figure out what is going to produce the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people while bringing the least amount of pain.
I think that John Stuart Mill's philosophical ideas are very interesting because of how he lays out his concepts. They are very easy to interpret compared to some of the other people we have studied so far. I feel this way because he actually responded to criticism of his ideas and refuted them. I particularly enjoyed the following quote by Mill.
“It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied.”
Humans have unique pleasures (that can come with pain) than animals have. For instance, success (involves struggles, hardships, etc to become successful) is a pleasure that we have as humans, but that animals do not have because they aren't self-aware for the most part. I agree with Mill's quote in that I would rather be Socrates because I know I am dissatisfied rather than a pig that is satisfied by basic pleasures (being fed, awake, nice weather, jumping around in mud, etc) but doesn't necessary know the pleasure behind it, if that makes sense.
What do you think about Mill's ideas? Are they easier to understand than the other philosophers we've studied so far?
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