Monday, March 11, 2019
A Comparison between the Moral Philosophy of John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant
The discussion on Moral ism and ethics has always been a controversial and very debatable topic, curiously if we are to discuss each and every philosophy or ideology of every philosopher starting off from Greece up to the Post Modernists. In copulation to this particular philosophy, the condition would like to compare two of the philosophers incorrupt philosophies and how each come to have similarities and contrast with each.To be much specific, the author would like to dwell on the similarities and differences between the moral philosophies of Utilitarianism prop acent put-on Stuart zep and Idealist Immanuel Kant and to dissolve the question What are the key concepts in the moral theory of John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant? Furtherto a greater extent, to be able to answer the specific question What are the similarities and differences in the moral ideologies of Mill and Kant?The drill of Utilitarianism had John Stuart Mill as one of its leading proponents. Mill speaks of religion in the feel of longing versus wanted only when he contradicts that of Jeremy Bentham. He further states that the true utilitarian interprets the superlative recreation article of belief to opine not my greatest happiness but the greatest happiness of the greatest number.1 Contrary to the first utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, Mill posits through this principle the concept of greater good for the greater unit of measurement.Mill further states that utility would grade first, that laws and social arrangements should place the happiness or the interest of every individual, as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole and secondly, that education and opinion which have so vast a government agency of human char executioner, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an indissolvable association between his own happiness and the good of the wholeso that a direct impulse to enkindle the general good maybe in e very individual one of the habitual motives of action.2We can see arising from this argument that Mill was giving more emphasis on the quality of pleasures and not just our personal pleasure and turns towards the good of the whole which we must seek. This therefore gives Mill ground holiness not just on personal pleasure but more on our obligation towards the people or on others.This, according to Mill does not at all contradict with the Utilitarian doctrine / pedagogics where one aims to seek for happiness or pleasure. According to Mill, happiness is the digest of moral life and the most desirable goal of human subscribe to. The state argument of Mill gives us a gray area in asking what would be the basis or sole basis of desirable?Mill answers that that which is desirable is that we ought to choose. Happiness is something that we desire and it is our moral duty to watch over happiness. Mills moral principle evolves in the concept that an act is good in so far as it produces happiness. Mill was nerve-wracking to build a moral system that was based on duty, by stating that which ought to do upon what in fact we already do. Happiness for him is still the net of human conduct.When Mill posited happiness as something that man should sought for protrude of duty, it cannot but prevent people from raising their counter-arguments with the query how can we ground that happiness is the true and desirable end of human life and conduct?To answer the query, Mill posits and states that the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable is that people does desire it.3 The answer that Mill provided though has not alone settled his detractors because Mill has made an analogy wherein he compared microscopic to that which is desirable.According to him, that which is visible means that something is capable of being seen, thus, that which is desirable automatically makes us desire it. Such a conclusion falls under one of the discursive fallacies b ecause that which is seen, by means of the faculty of the mind means it is visible to our senses but that which is desirable, cannot and does not automatically become an end that we would ought to desire.The fact lies that the human mind, man, as a person may desire a thing which is not desirable in the first place. Mill proposes that our pursuit is not exceptional to happiness alone but the pursuit of duty. According to him, a sense of duty directs our moral thought. For him, the basis of morality is a powerful inbred sentiment, a subjective feeling in our own minds and the conscientious feelings of mankind.1 Stumpf, Samuel Enoch. Socrates to Sartre A History of Philosophy. Singapore Mc Graw Hill Inc. 1991. p. 348. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. p. 349.
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