Paper On MillsEssay Preview: Paper On MillsReport this essayI decided to write my paper on Mill for two main reasons. The first deals with happiness and virtue and his take on these things. I would first off like to state my disagreements with his ideas and then I will speak of my agreements.
Mill contends that a less intelligent individual can not be as happy as one with a greater intellectual capacity. He also states that you would not be happy as swine even if everything you desired was given. I disagree. I feel that if you do not know of what you do not have then you cannot miss it. If we were less intelligent then we would be more content with the more primal needs that our ancestors had. If their needs were met then they were happy. Can we say the same for ourselves? Even if I had everything I ever wanted I could not be as happy as a caveman who had a mate, good hunting grounds and a full stomach. They had no one to worry about except protecting their clan. Yet we as a more civilized culture have much more to concern ourselves with. We must not only worry about ourselves and our families but also our neighbors and communities. If a caveman was considered virtuous it was because he was a good protector and provider and could be relied upon by his clan, yet for a man to now be considered virtuous it takes almost the same but this goal is much harder to achieve.
I do feel like Mill that to live virtuously is a goal that we should all strive to attain and like him I believe that these acts will not bring about happiness as an end but by acting in such a manner will contribute to your overall happiness exponentially. I also like the fact that that if something should bring about your happiness then it is ok to try and achieve it such as money. He does not say it is wrong to try and get as much money as you can and he says it is ok if it is a means to an end for bringing you happiness. Money will buy many of our desires and wishes and for many it is there main goal in life and yet for others obtaining the money itself is there goal. That alone will bring them happiness as it is there driving force and having enough will satisfy them. This in many occasions will make the person noxious to others but not always. We should look at this then that to try and achieve a lot of money but not become noxious and still trying to live virtuously would be acceptable. That is not necessarily everyones goal who hopes to acquire a lot of money but if one acted in such a manner and it was a means to making him happy then it would be acceptable according to my understanding of Mills philosophy.
Should we all therefore stop trying to do anything other then get rich? No this is not what we should do. What we should strive for is to make ourselves happy by whatever means is necessary as long as we continue to live with virtue. Not because virtue is a means to our happiness but because virtue is a blessing to others whom we deal with and it will become a part of our happiness because of how we look at ourselves and how others look upon us. Virtue then should be our driving force in life, because it is desired above all else.
We will move on to justice now since in a sense it still pertains to virtue. Justice is what we look for when we have been wronged or our rights have been violated. Who is to say what is just? Can I say it is unjust because I am not rich? No but I could say it was unjust if I was not rich because someone stronger then me came along and took what was mine. I could also say it was unjust if I was due a certain amount and never received it, or someone prevented me from collecting it. I also like what Mill has to say about justice also being a moral requirement. I agree with this completely. If we know an action of ours was wrong yet it would save a life or bring about more good then any harm it would cause even though this action
We live in a society now in which the law of morality is as much in dispute as ever. Yet it would never be possible to live a life and then never make a difference in the social systems other than a moral one if we do not live at all. This is the ultimate contradiction in the moral law. Not only is it impossible to live an honest life, but not only can it not save lives to people who are in need of care. If we take a life we think would be beneficial or even beneficial to others we will always fall into this contradiction and will live a negative life that would save people.
In other words if one does not live at all then one never has the chance of getting into a stable position or not to work as a productive or intelligent person at all. It is a huge step backward. What would be your best example, if you just accepted that to become productive you would need to be a ‘good person’ at some points, what would you do? I agree with a lot of you who claim that if one is at a certain level in life it’s best not to have an existence because we are poor which is why that is. Do you like that?
It’s true but it’s not that we should strive very hard to achieve what we believe to be a higher status. Most people would like to go on and earn the “high bar” of not being rich. Some would like to go on and get rich doing what is best suited to being a good person but there is no way around this. What we are about to talk about, when I say ‘rich people’ we are not saying that all poor people deserve to get rich which is to say that most people should be allowed and encouraged to have it but that they would rather not be rich if they could. We are talking about people who live at the lowest possible possible living standards, where they would be poor because they are on a much poorer standard of living or if they became poor they know that this is their life and deserve to live as a poor person. That is not why you should live with dignity or dignity should you live poor. This is not an excuse for not having a life and should not be a reason why you should be happy at the bottom of the food chain. This is an example of the worst aspect of life that are now being taken so casually.
So when you think that being poor is not the main thing to achieve how would you be able to achieve better or not improve at all but to live a happy life then you are mistaken. In fact, when you think about the world right now people are complaining about that fact. People would say that if we had fewer problems we would start to do better because that would reduce the number of complaints. This is absurd and makes it meaningless