UTILITARIANISM

The Greatest Happiness Principle says that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure” (Mill, 1862, p. 3). Utilitarianism is a theory of doing morally right actions with the right intentions in which will maximize happiness. To break it down even more there are two main elements which are what is of highest importance in life and what makes actions right or wrong? Happiness should be for all and the Greatest Happiness Principle says actions are moral if they promote utility and but immoral if they promote the opposite. Utility in this standpoint is happiness without pain. Happiness or pleasure is of highest value in Mill’s principle. For example you decide to fix your car now because you believe it will save you time and money in the future, less suffering and more happiness. This is where using The Greatest Happiness Principle would help with what one should do morally in a situation. When doing a certain action there should be less suffering and more happiness which would be the best choice of action. There needs to be a balance between happiness and suffering in an action. Trying to make yourself happy for social happiness wouldn’t be morally right under this principle however. 

Some might argue that Utilitarianism is pig philosophy but its not, because pigs like happiness as well as pleasure, all they do is eat food, have sex, and play. However human beings are able to do more than just live a life of sense pleasure, they also have intellectual and

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