Utilitarianism The Pursuit Of Happiness Philosophy Essay

Utilitarianism The Pursuit Of Happiness Philosophy EssayThe contrive life, liberty, and the pursuit of contentment, enshrined in the founding documents of the United States, was derived from John Locke. Lockes grooming, however, was life, liberty, and property. In choosing the broader formulation pursuit of happiness, the framers were certainly not drawing from John Stuart Mill, since they wrote many decades in advance he did. They were writing and thinking in the same philosophical tradition, which goes in the long run back to Aristotle. Mill, however, has given us in Utilitarianism the some concise, analytical commentary of this concept.What is meant by happiness, and what justifies regarding it as the goal either of a political organization or of a system of ethical philosophy? In terrestrial usage, we use it most often in the sense of being joyous (Im happy you could come), or of universal well-being (Happy Birthday). It has lovable connotations, merely not, in everyd ay usage, particularly lofty ones. One office pass judgment moral philosophy, or make up political philosophy and statecraft, to seek near more profound goal. Mill, however, constructs his approach to moral philosophy from the bottom up. He starts from the premise that we naturally seek out pleasant experiences, and try to subjugate pain or unpleasant experiences. At starting glance this might appear to be an invitation to mere hedonism, eat, drink, and be merry. However, human experience shows that pleasant experiences are not limited to the material. We enjoy music, for example, and friendship, and seek these things out. Indeed, we often specify satisfaction in experiences that might well be arduous and even unpleasant, such as running a marathon. evening the effort of surviving up to a system of values carries its satisfactions (7-8).The sum total of these satisfactions and pleasures, or dissatisfactions and miseries, though the course of a lifetime constitutes our overa ll happiness or unhappiness (3-4). Happiness is therefore the good life not in the narrow sense of a house in the suburbs, convenient to a golf course (though not excluding these things), but in the broadest sense of a satisfying and joyous human existence. This, suggests Mill, is our goal in life, not compel on us by some moral authority or power, but as a consequence of our human nature.Moreover, the pursuit of happiness extends even as a purely practical matter beyond our own origin of life to the condition of the parliamentary law in which we start. Even if our motives are entirely selfish, for example, we have a vested interest in a order in which, for example, theft and robbery are not the general because we do not wish to be robbed or stolen from. (Even a professed(prenominal) thief benefits from not being a victim of theft as well.) The same practical principle can be extended to vices and deservingnesss in general We are all better off for living in a partnership where virtues are general practiced (31-32).However, what produces the general condition of a society but the behavior of the people who make it up. A burglar may benefit from living in a society where people do not lock their doors, but his behavior makes society less likely to display such mutual trust. If we wish to live in a virtuous society, therefore, it is in our interest to practice the virtues ourselves. What goes around, later on all, comes around. Indeed, Mill speaks of a contagion of sympathy, a sort of virtuous unit of ammunition (the opposite of a vicious cycle) in which the practice of virtue encourages virtue in others, and improves the condition of life for all.This implicitly is what the founding fathers had in mind. A free society does not seek to impose virtue by fiat, but depends on the general practice of virtue to sustain itself. By aiding in the pursuit of happiness by others, we improve our own chances of prosecute it.A contemporary issue on which move p ropositions might regorge light is the controversy over gay marriage. Many people, perhaps most people, have found the idea strange or shocking when first presented. Some fear that it would destroy marriage. However, it is hard to see how permitting gays to marry detracts from marriages betwixt men and women. Their marriages are unchanged. What permitting gay marriage does is permit a immature satisfaction a further pursuit of happiness for gay couples. Moreover, by recognizing such couples, it encourages gay individuals to seek stable relationships, improving the condition of society as well as their own lives.Thus, the pursuit of happiness, combined with Mills analysis of how ethical principles can be built up from our association of human existence, casts a powerful light on how we can reckon social issues and their possible resolution.Source CitedMill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Indianapolis Hackett Publishing, 1979. (Original publication 1861.)