Johnston 1 Reece Johnston William Wilkerson PH 202 02/06/2012 In Mills theory of Utilitarianism, he bases his theory around the

Greatest Happiness Principle. This principle holds that actions are right in proportion to the happiness they promote. Mill makes a case for this principle through the following argument: The worth of something is judged with respect to its purposes (ends). Desires are the same thing as purposes. The ultimate desire is happiness. Thus, the ultimate purpose is happiness. Finally, the ultimate criterion for judging the moral worth of an action is happiness. That is to say, that the Greatest Happiness Principle is true. However, upon examination, certain premises within this argument can be found to have flaws. As such, it becomes relevant to examine these premises and expose the logical faults within them. One flaw within Mills argument can be found within his second premise. In this premise, Mill claims that desires are the same as purposes. However, experience argues against this claim. This is evident considering that an individual can do something in stark contrast to their desire. For instance, a soldier may desire to not kill. However, an officer orders him to do so. His sense of duty would drive him to act in contradiction of his desire. However, this act of killing follows from a purpose of duty, hence not desire. That being said, it is evident that desires are not solely encompassing of purposes. More likely, desires are merely a subset of

Johnston 2 purposes. Thus, Mills claim that desires are equivalent to purposes falls apart. Therefore, there is a potential for a standard of morality, which is not happiness. Should we choose to ignore this fault, there are still faults within the remainder of Mills premises. Another issue is raised in Mills premise that happiness is the ultimate desire (3rd premise). One can readily see such a statement is false through simple counterexamples. For instance, consider a masochist. Clearly, he would not necessarily desire his own happiness for the sake of itself since he instead desires pain. Pain has been defined by Mill as the absence of happiness (pleasure). Thus, a masochists ultimate desire would be the complete opposite of Mills ultimate desire of happiness. However, there cannot be two ultimate desires , simply by definition. Therefore, Mills claim that happiness is the ultimate desire must be false. Furthermore, it would follow that his proof for the Greatest Happiness Principle is also false. There remains another issue within Mills argument. This issue lies in his first premise. Although Mill does not explicitly state this premise, his argument falls apart without this assumption. Thus, it can be a point of contention. Now, considering it is valid for criticism, we can do just that: The premise that worth is solely determined by purposes is false. This can be readily seen when considering how gold came to have such a high worth. Clearly, to the ancient man, gold was relatively useless for just about anything outside of coinage. However, for gold to have become coinage a value would have to of been placed on it before such association would exist. Thus, the determining of worth cannot solely be based on purpose because gold in its basic form is useless. Furthermore, gold, before it was coinage, was seen to have great intrinsic worth. Therefore, items can have worth that is

Johnston 3 designated outside of purposes. Thus, Mills first premise falls apart, leaving him incapable of judging worth of a thing. Furthermore, this goes on to dismiss Mills entire argument for the Greatest Happiness Principle. Now, we have seen that Mills proof not only fails, it fails in three different ways. Moreover, while not all of Mills premises fail, it is sufficient to have a single false premise to dismiss an argument. Notice, three premises have been shown to be false. Thus, it would be obvious to state that Mills proof of the Greatest Happiness Principle is invalid.