Ethics of consequence; greatest happiness. Inductive.
A decision procedure, an action is right/wrong. (A: a complete life)
Pleasure/pain
Will is the child of desire.
与Kant的爱恨情仇。
ch2, 3上来就反驳质疑差评,不过ch...Ethics of consequence; greatest happiness. Inductive.
A decision procedure, an action is right/wrong. (A: a complete life)
Pleasure/pain
Will is the child of desire.
与Kant的爱恨情仇。
ch2, 3上来就反驳质疑差评,不过ch5对于justice的分析很有意思。相比《理想国》中理性且理想的justice is everyone doing his own work,从感性层面拆分成self-defense和sympathy,可以解释很多injustice甚至道德绑架;用强制/鼓励区分正义/值得。(展开)
这里首先应该解释一下什么叫功利主义,严格意义上而不是随便说说的。首先功利主义是一个伦理学的概念,它是在休谟和康德分别创立互相对立的两大伦理学流派以后,由边沁和穆勒分别提出理论的另一伦理学流派。他们的伦理学的基本原则是greatest happiness principle: We should ...
(展开)
I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change coluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that, before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. Capacity for other nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by me...
2011-09-12 22:131人喜欢
I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change coluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that, before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. Capacity for other nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favorable to keeping that higer capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying.引自第10页
In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he...
2019-04-28 12:57
In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not fail to find this enviable existence, if he escape the positive evils of life, the great sources of physical and mental suffering- such as indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. The main stress of the problem lies, therefore, in the contest with these calamities, from which it is a rare good fortune entirely to escape; which, as things now are, cannot be obviated, and often cannot be in any material degree mitigated. Yet no one whose opinion deserves a moment's consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extinguished by the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and providence of individuals. Even that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be indefinitely reduced in dimensions by good physical and moral education, and proper control of noxious influences; while the progress of science holds out a promise for the future of still more direct conquests over this detestable foe. And every advance in that direction relieves us from some, not only of the chances which cut short our own lives, but, what concerns us still more, which deprive us of those in whom our happiness is wrapt up. As for vicissitudes of fortune, and other disappointments connected with worldly circumstances, these are principally the effect either of gross imprudence, of ill-regulated desires, or of bad or imperfect social institutions. 引自 2
According to Mill, utilitarianism is the principle that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (7). Mill defines “happiness” as “pleasure and freedom from pain” (7), and the “happiness” as called for by the utilitarian principle is not just one particular agent’s, but “the greatest amount of happiness...
2016-02-04 01:04
According to Mill, utilitarianism is the principle that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (7). Mill defines “happiness” as “pleasure and freedom from pain” (7), and the “happiness” as called for by the utilitarian principle is not just one particular agent’s, but “the greatest amount of happiness altogether” (of all human beings) (11). Mill accords utilitarianism with the status of the fundamental “first principle” (i.e. the ultimate standard) by which the rightness or wrongness of every action can be determined. (3, 26) This fundamental principle takes precedence over all the rest of moral principles (which Mill deems as “secondary principles”, 26) and decides between these principles when they are in conflict.
In my opinion, the strongest objection to utilitarianism is that it degrades human nature by supposing that life has no higher/nobler end than pleasure (7). Mill responds that this accusation wrongly assumes human beings as incapable of enjoying pleasures which are “higher” than the pleasures from mere sensation (8). For his response to hold true, Mill has to differentiate higher pleasures from lower pleasures in the first place. This ranking/differentiation of pleasures (not in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality, or the “intrinsic nature” of pleasure, insofar as Mill’s attempt goes, 8) inevitably calls for some other more fundamental index/standard than pleasure/utility itself, by which different pleasures can be evaluated, compared, and ranked insofar as their quality is concerned. But Mill has already established pleasure/happiness/utility as “the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable” (12). If so, how can there be some other underlying standard, presumably representing an end that is even more ultimate than pleasure/utility itself, by which some pleasures are judged as having higher quality than others, hence worthier for us to strive for?
Mill indeed anticipates the question “what makes one pleasure more valuable than another” (8). His initial answer is: higher pleasures are those pleasures “to which almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference” (8). What draws almost all human beings under the same conditions to the unanimous preference of the so-called higher pleasures? On P9, Mill continues to explain higher pleasures as the kind “which employs their higher faculties” (9). One is left to ask, what makes a higher faculty “higher” than other faculties? Should the concept of a “higher” faculty be explained in terms of some other value that overrides utility/pleasure (Mill’s insistence on the primacy of the utilitarian principle, then, is at the risk of being overturned), or circularly explained in terms of the susceptibility of such faculties to (higher) pleasures? In either case, I find Mill’s answer unsatisfactory.
In sum, the objection on P7 is strong in the following way: this objection assumes that there are aspects of human nature which are higher, or nobler than those aspects in animals, an assumption which Mill does not reject. Human beings, according to Mill, are superior to animals in that they can appreciate higher pleasures. Either there are pleasures inherently higher than others, or nobler pleasures are those which human beings alone, with their higher faculties, can experience. The former observation requires Mill to acknowledge the existence of some other underlying principle according to which we can rank pleasure, and this principle therefore represents a more fundamental value than pleasure/utility. The latter observation constitutes a circularity: human beings are superior because of their susceptibility to higher pleasures, and these pleasures are higher because human beings are superior creatures, i.e. they have superior faculties that are susceptible to such pleasures.
"Happiness...was not a life of rapture; but...many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing."
2013-01-05 23:11
"Happiness...was not a life of rapture; but...many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing."
I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change coluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that, before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. Capacity for other nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by me...
2011-09-12 22:131人喜欢
I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change coluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that, before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. Capacity for other nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favorable to keeping that higer capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying.引自第10页
In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he...
2019-04-28 12:57
In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not fail to find this enviable existence, if he escape the positive evils of life, the great sources of physical and mental suffering- such as indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. The main stress of the problem lies, therefore, in the contest with these calamities, from which it is a rare good fortune entirely to escape; which, as things now are, cannot be obviated, and often cannot be in any material degree mitigated. Yet no one whose opinion deserves a moment's consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extinguished by the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and providence of individuals. Even that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be indefinitely reduced in dimensions by good physical and moral education, and proper control of noxious influences; while the progress of science holds out a promise for the future of still more direct conquests over this detestable foe. And every advance in that direction relieves us from some, not only of the chances which cut short our own lives, but, what concerns us still more, which deprive us of those in whom our happiness is wrapt up. As for vicissitudes of fortune, and other disappointments connected with worldly circumstances, these are principally the effect either of gross imprudence, of ill-regulated desires, or of bad or imperfect social institutions. 引自 2
According to Mill, utilitarianism is the principle that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (7). Mill defines “happiness” as “pleasure and freedom from pain” (7), and the “happiness” as called for by the utilitarian principle is not just one particular agent’s, but “the greatest amount of happiness...
2016-02-04 01:04
According to Mill, utilitarianism is the principle that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (7). Mill defines “happiness” as “pleasure and freedom from pain” (7), and the “happiness” as called for by the utilitarian principle is not just one particular agent’s, but “the greatest amount of happiness altogether” (of all human beings) (11). Mill accords utilitarianism with the status of the fundamental “first principle” (i.e. the ultimate standard) by which the rightness or wrongness of every action can be determined. (3, 26) This fundamental principle takes precedence over all the rest of moral principles (which Mill deems as “secondary principles”, 26) and decides between these principles when they are in conflict.
In my opinion, the strongest objection to utilitarianism is that it degrades human nature by supposing that life has no higher/nobler end than pleasure (7). Mill responds that this accusation wrongly assumes human beings as incapable of enjoying pleasures which are “higher” than the pleasures from mere sensation (8). For his response to hold true, Mill has to differentiate higher pleasures from lower pleasures in the first place. This ranking/differentiation of pleasures (not in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality, or the “intrinsic nature” of pleasure, insofar as Mill’s attempt goes, 8) inevitably calls for some other more fundamental index/standard than pleasure/utility itself, by which different pleasures can be evaluated, compared, and ranked insofar as their quality is concerned. But Mill has already established pleasure/happiness/utility as “the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable” (12). If so, how can there be some other underlying standard, presumably representing an end that is even more ultimate than pleasure/utility itself, by which some pleasures are judged as having higher quality than others, hence worthier for us to strive for?
Mill indeed anticipates the question “what makes one pleasure more valuable than another” (8). His initial answer is: higher pleasures are those pleasures “to which almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference” (8). What draws almost all human beings under the same conditions to the unanimous preference of the so-called higher pleasures? On P9, Mill continues to explain higher pleasures as the kind “which employs their higher faculties” (9). One is left to ask, what makes a higher faculty “higher” than other faculties? Should the concept of a “higher” faculty be explained in terms of some other value that overrides utility/pleasure (Mill’s insistence on the primacy of the utilitarian principle, then, is at the risk of being overturned), or circularly explained in terms of the susceptibility of such faculties to (higher) pleasures? In either case, I find Mill’s answer unsatisfactory.
In sum, the objection on P7 is strong in the following way: this objection assumes that there are aspects of human nature which are higher, or nobler than those aspects in animals, an assumption which Mill does not reject. Human beings, according to Mill, are superior to animals in that they can appreciate higher pleasures. Either there are pleasures inherently higher than others, or nobler pleasures are those which human beings alone, with their higher faculties, can experience. The former observation requires Mill to acknowledge the existence of some other underlying principle according to which we can rank pleasure, and this principle therefore represents a more fundamental value than pleasure/utility. The latter observation constitutes a circularity: human beings are superior because of their susceptibility to higher pleasures, and these pleasures are higher because human beings are superior creatures, i.e. they have superior faculties that are susceptible to such pleasures.
"Happiness...was not a life of rapture; but...many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing."
2013-01-05 23:11
"Happiness...was not a life of rapture; but...many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing."
In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he...
2019-04-28 12:57
In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not fail to find this enviable existence, if he escape the positive evils of life, the great sources of physical and mental suffering- such as indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. The main stress of the problem lies, therefore, in the contest with these calamities, from which it is a rare good fortune entirely to escape; which, as things now are, cannot be obviated, and often cannot be in any material degree mitigated. Yet no one whose opinion deserves a moment's consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extinguished by the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and providence of individuals. Even that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be indefinitely reduced in dimensions by good physical and moral education, and proper control of noxious influences; while the progress of science holds out a promise for the future of still more direct conquests over this detestable foe. And every advance in that direction relieves us from some, not only of the chances which cut short our own lives, but, what concerns us still more, which deprive us of those in whom our happiness is wrapt up. As for vicissitudes of fortune, and other disappointments connected with worldly circumstances, these are principally the effect either of gross imprudence, of ill-regulated desires, or of bad or imperfect social institutions. 引自 2
According to Mill, utilitarianism is the principle that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (7). Mill defines “happiness” as “pleasure and freedom from pain” (7), and the “happiness” as called for by the utilitarian principle is not just one particular agent’s, but “the greatest amount of happiness...
2016-02-04 01:04
According to Mill, utilitarianism is the principle that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (7). Mill defines “happiness” as “pleasure and freedom from pain” (7), and the “happiness” as called for by the utilitarian principle is not just one particular agent’s, but “the greatest amount of happiness altogether” (of all human beings) (11). Mill accords utilitarianism with the status of the fundamental “first principle” (i.e. the ultimate standard) by which the rightness or wrongness of every action can be determined. (3, 26) This fundamental principle takes precedence over all the rest of moral principles (which Mill deems as “secondary principles”, 26) and decides between these principles when they are in conflict.
In my opinion, the strongest objection to utilitarianism is that it degrades human nature by supposing that life has no higher/nobler end than pleasure (7). Mill responds that this accusation wrongly assumes human beings as incapable of enjoying pleasures which are “higher” than the pleasures from mere sensation (8). For his response to hold true, Mill has to differentiate higher pleasures from lower pleasures in the first place. This ranking/differentiation of pleasures (not in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality, or the “intrinsic nature” of pleasure, insofar as Mill’s attempt goes, 8) inevitably calls for some other more fundamental index/standard than pleasure/utility itself, by which different pleasures can be evaluated, compared, and ranked insofar as their quality is concerned. But Mill has already established pleasure/happiness/utility as “the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable” (12). If so, how can there be some other underlying standard, presumably representing an end that is even more ultimate than pleasure/utility itself, by which some pleasures are judged as having higher quality than others, hence worthier for us to strive for?
Mill indeed anticipates the question “what makes one pleasure more valuable than another” (8). His initial answer is: higher pleasures are those pleasures “to which almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference” (8). What draws almost all human beings under the same conditions to the unanimous preference of the so-called higher pleasures? On P9, Mill continues to explain higher pleasures as the kind “which employs their higher faculties” (9). One is left to ask, what makes a higher faculty “higher” than other faculties? Should the concept of a “higher” faculty be explained in terms of some other value that overrides utility/pleasure (Mill’s insistence on the primacy of the utilitarian principle, then, is at the risk of being overturned), or circularly explained in terms of the susceptibility of such faculties to (higher) pleasures? In either case, I find Mill’s answer unsatisfactory.
In sum, the objection on P7 is strong in the following way: this objection assumes that there are aspects of human nature which are higher, or nobler than those aspects in animals, an assumption which Mill does not reject. Human beings, according to Mill, are superior to animals in that they can appreciate higher pleasures. Either there are pleasures inherently higher than others, or nobler pleasures are those which human beings alone, with their higher faculties, can experience. The former observation requires Mill to acknowledge the existence of some other underlying principle according to which we can rank pleasure, and this principle therefore represents a more fundamental value than pleasure/utility. The latter observation constitutes a circularity: human beings are superior because of their susceptibility to higher pleasures, and these pleasures are higher because human beings are superior creatures, i.e. they have superior faculties that are susceptible to such pleasures.
"Happiness...was not a life of rapture; but...many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing."
2013-01-05 23:11
"Happiness...was not a life of rapture; but...many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing."
I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change coluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that, before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. Capacity for other nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by me...
2011-09-12 22:131人喜欢
I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change coluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that, before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. Capacity for other nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favorable to keeping that higer capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying.引自第10页
1 有用 某然 2012-01-03
哲学课里还比较能接受的一个理论...虽然mill讲话真让人头痛嘤嘤嘤
0 有用 時代抗疫totoro 2011-04-15
the greatest happiness of the greatest number is what is the right thing to do。。。
1 有用 Imim 2019-02-16
可可爱爱utilitarianism超喜欢
1 有用 夕颜 2018-11-15
Ethics of consequence; greatest happiness. Inductive. A decision procedure, an action is right/wrong. (A: a complete life) Pleasure/pain Will is the child of desire. 与Kant的爱恨情仇。 ch2, 3上来就反驳质疑差评,不过ch... Ethics of consequence; greatest happiness. Inductive. A decision procedure, an action is right/wrong. (A: a complete life) Pleasure/pain Will is the child of desire. 与Kant的爱恨情仇。 ch2, 3上来就反驳质疑差评,不过ch5对于justice的分析很有意思。相比《理想国》中理性且理想的justice is everyone doing his own work,从感性层面拆分成self-defense和sympathy,可以解释很多injustice甚至道德绑架;用强制/鼓励区分正义/值得。 (展开)
0 有用 Eibba Unz 2012-11-30
延续Hume的An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals讲Utilitarianism这个Normative ethical theory..
0 有用 张八折 2021-03-07
Mill真的好可爱好毒舌啊哈哈哈哈哈哈哈上来先傲娇地把对手理论都批了个遍 奈何真不说人话啊 各种自相矛盾和补足解释之处噼里啪啦 但不妨碍utilitarianism本身成为一个值得探讨的morals 引起了我很多对于自由主义和右派的思考(结合on liberty)在探讨的双方都成为平等 善良 利他 开放的个体之前 还是先停止讨论吧
0 有用 朝仓美羽 2021-03-03
并没有很高明。
0 有用 Sebastianen 2020-10-25
继续..............
0 有用 胡桃夹子 2020-08-19
还是更喜欢论自由,这本逻辑上还是有所欠缺的
0 有用 JAMESWALKER 2020-07-29
自己加加减减 自以为多多少少读懂了mill的逻辑链 还想着“我要为被误解的功利主义正名!” 结果读到最后一页 又完全confuse了 上大学后再来读一遍。 真让我感叹:哲学家都是矛盾共同体啊 elitist or equalitarian?人性善 or人性恶?(我偏向前者)因为和卢梭一起读 总是在半梦半醒间把两者搞混 pity and protection