Does Happiness Have An Intrinsic Value?

I would argue that happiness has no intrinsic value. Happiness is an emotion, a feeling, a mental state and without happiness derived from or given to one creature or object or whatever you want to call it is a meaningless word. Happiness could just as easily be related to love, what is love without hate, happiness without sadness, and someone or something to experience these feelings and decide the differences between them? Would happiness exist without people? I would argue that it would not and the reasons are simply that it is human to be happy or sad and that without consciousness to experience these things and without situations and social interactions that have a positive or negative effect on these overall feelings happiness or more to the point, any emotion has no value and in my own opinion truly does not even exist.

One Question to John Stuart Mill

The one question I would have to ask Mill would be about his footnote regarding intent. Now I based a significant amount of my arguments in support of Mill both in and out of class on this footnote., however as I read in the book it only appears in version two of Mill’s writings and nowhere else. Now that could be for any number of reasons but it strikes me as especially important to look at when determining Mill’s positions on morality versus overall happiness. In several examples in class we posed the question that what if someone acts with good intention but for any number of reasons the action ends in a bad way, meaning a decrease in overall happiness. In Mill’s footnote he makes a distinction in the case of lying to a friend to avoid “fatal” consecuences to oneself, that friend or another person, and also in the case of a tyrant saving his enemy for the sole reason of torturing him later. Mill argues that the inteded consequence, the prevention of harm or the intent to do greater harm in the future, determines the morality of the whole action. I like this understanding but it appears in conflict with other of Mill’s defenses and is susceptable to too many grey areas of moral responsibility.

Is Happiness Unattainable?

The objection to Mill’s idea that morality is based upon our influence on overall happiness is rather weak in my opinion. The objector says that morality cannot be based on happiness because happiness is unattainable. Now I see several flaws in this argument including the very obvious one that there is simply a gut feeling that this is wrong. Mill argues as would I that yes, everyday people around the world go without happiness, but it is most often not by their own choice and when it is by their own choice, happiness is sacrificed for something that the person finds more valuable than their own happiness. Now in this state yes it would seem that perfect happiness is unattainable, and to a very certain degree both Mill and I would agree, but that does not prove the objection it merely highlights a flaw. Just as Mill explains in the section on the demands of Utilitarianism, the perfect state of happiness is only an ideal, something to be worked for so the fact that one is becoming less unhappy only proves that happiness is attainable.

Is Utilitarianism Too Demanding?

I support Mill in his defense of utilitarianism against the critiscism that the ideals of utilitarianism are far too demanding to be achievable by humanity. Mill’s argument is that the ideals of utilitarianism, that one should act for the increase in total happiness without regard for self, is merely a guidline not a concrete demand of humanity. Mill highlights the idea that no set of moral principles expects its followers to adhere to it at all times and in the most perfect sense, but that they should attempt to work towards the ideal. Mill also sights that the increase of overall happiness is not required on a grandios scale, at least with reference to the average person, but that one should act for the betterment of those around oneself. I simply do not believe that an idea that promotes the increase of overall happiness can be too demanding, especially in the context of Mill’s argument.

Group Assignment #1

In our assigned reading today our group was asked to look sections from John Stewart Mill on pages 323 and 325. In these sections Mill introduces another objection to utilitarianism. The objection is that renouncing happiness for virtue is the basis of human life and therefore happiness cannot be the purpose of human life. Mill defends against this objection by several methods. The first way Mill confronts the objection is by ceading that it is possible to do without happiness but that it is not a voluntary action to do so, but that when done it is for the attainment of something one values more than his own individual happiness.  Mill also points out that the object of renouncing ones own happiness is never for virtue that would be attained by doing so. Mill admits that in an imperfect world (like our own) it is impossible to attain perfect happiness for everyone and bearing that in mind often an individual or a group must cead a certain degree of happiness for the increased effect of overall happiness for the rest of the society.

Reflection on Mill

“I asked you to think about Mill’s position that some pleasures – the “higher” pleasures – are intrinsically better than others – the “lower” ones.”

Mill defines higher and lower pleasures simply as the ones which humans uniquely possess, and those that all animals possess. I can agree that a certain individuality and therefore increased worth can be found in the “higher pleasures” but then again I am not willing to say that there is a definite division of worth between the lower and the higher. Are not some of the “lower pleasures” what make us human, I assume Mill would say the opposite and say that they only define us as animals, but if the lower pleasures are what first define us and the higher pleasures only distinguish are they not both independently important to what we are as human beings?

Moral Responsibility

“To what extent are we morally responsible for the consequences of our actions, and what does this tell us about utilitarianism?”

I believe that the extent of our moral responsibility is to what we intend in our actions. We might act with the intention of doing good but due to forces outside of our control the eventual outcome might be to the detriment of overall happiness or overall good. Now utilitarianism does not take into account intent, which I believe is its major flaw. To use an example repeated in class that of the boy saved from drowning that goes on to be a serial killer, the original intention was to save the boy for the benefit of the boy and his family. By doing so, adhering to utilitarianism we have done a good act by preventing sadness, but later on once the situation is out of our control we have actually added to overall sadness because of the boys actions. I think that what is important is our intention and once another intervenes with their own actions and motives the chain of moral responsibility is broken.

Rationality vs Moral Good

     The question posed is whether a moral God has to also be a rational one. To this I say that rationality and morality have little in common. If we were to anthropomorphize God further, as we already are by relating moral good to him, then we can relate such traits as love to him as well. Now almost anyone would agree love, in any form, is for the most part irrational. We put ourselves through a hell for love, for someone else or something else and usually, if we were to think about our actions rationally weighing the pros and cons, we would not even attempt the endeavor. Yet we do because something sparked inside of us drives us to this endeavor which I deem good above all others. So if God were to be morally good I do not believe he would have to be rational but that the possession of one trait would not automatically exclude the other. Rationality can be both morally good and morally bad. One could conjure up any number of examples but since the Holocaust is so commonly related to issues of moral evil I will continue the strain. The National Socialist party in Germany sought to rebuild the German straight to the status it once held, and one of the tools they achieved to achieve this end was the concept of racial supremacy. Not only the Jews, but Catholics, Communists, gypsies, Poles, captured enemy personnel, the mentally ill and handicapped suffered due to Nazi practices meant to highlight the power of the Aryan race and how all others were simply a drain on the race. The Nazi party used this brutality and superior race mentality to empower its people, to provoke the change required to achieve its end goal, and did so in a rational way. “The needs of many sometimes outweigh the needs of few.” I think what I am trying to say is that rationality and morality can coexist but only in a certain degree of harmony, one cannot be too rational and still moral but to achieve moral goals sometimes one needs a certain degree of rationality and if these parameters apply to us and we seek to anthropomorphize God then we can apply these guidelines to him as well.

Divine Command Theory

Divine Command Theory is the idea that our morals and inherent view of things as good or bad is established by God/religion. If the Divine Command theory is false it would mean a few different things. First of all good and bad, in moral consciousness terms, would exist independt of God and religion, meaning if there is a God then he/she/it would not be the real “be all end all.” What I mean is that if good/bad exists indepentely of God then that means an inherent moral view would have existed before God. This view calls into question the typically accepted perameters of “God” as omnipowerful, omnipresent and immortal, because if the previous three were true (and the three are codependent in my view) then DCT must be true and an inherent sense of good/bad could not exist. As for the ramifications for religion I can not really say. I suppose it could be possible to ignore this quirk and maintain a faith in a divine entity but if reflected on it would demand an answer of where inherent moral beliefs come from.

Cultural Relativism

     I would say a great example of a moral disagreement between cultures would be the segregation and sectarian violence in Northern Ireland from the 1960’s mid 90’s. The British/Protestant minorities in Northern Ireland controlled most of the business and higher level government and through their positions were able to suppress the Catholic majority. At present there have been major reforms and things are finally normalizing but at the time gross injustice could be found merely at a glance. If one were to adopt a policy of cultural relativism here and merely allow things to proceed as they were suffering would have continued on both sides. I say this because at the beginning of this period, no change was seen by the Catholic majority so they took action through violence. In short, this conflict was resolved by confronting it and not by merely saying “it is what it is” and letting things continue.