Up@dawn 2.0

Thursday, February 21, 2013

John Stuart Mill

Philosoraptors
Group H03
Nate Tilton, Matthew Pyles, Jake Goza, Michele Kelley, Chloe Madigan

John Stuart Mill was raised to be a genius. For his father, James Mill, John was rather like a scientific experiment. From birth, he was kept away from other children and, by the age of three, he was studying Ancient Greek. The result was that James Mill managed to raise a prodigy. In fact, he was parent to one of the most brilliant philosophers of the 19th century.

John's father was friends with another philosopher, Jeremy Bentham. John developed a similar philosophy to Bentham, in that we should seek pleasure in all we do. However, unlike Bentham, Mill believed that some pleasures were better than others. The book gives an example of a pig wallowing in mud. While Bentham would have said that the pig was perfectly happy and that was a good thing because rolling in mud brought pleasure to that pig, Mill would have argued that had the pig known how to read, he would have preferred reading to rolling in the mud. Many disagreed with Mill because they claimed he was assuming that everyone reveled in the same pleasures as he did.

Mill developed this utilitarian view point into what became known as the Harm Principle. He believed that people should not be subjected to paternalism, but should be free to live their lives as they choose so long as they were not harming others in the process.

3 comments:

  1. I think people, at some point or other in their lives, make simple things too complicated. I do this often. I've looked at a math problem before and written a full page of random numbers, only to find out it was only asking me to multiply 4 by 6 (that's why I'm not a math major).

    However, I think some intellectual people believe that simplicity is inferior to complexity. With Mill, he took Bentham's pretty simple idea of happiness and added many levels, parameters, and caveats that confused people and probably made them less happy trying to think about it. While I do think there are differing levels of happiness/pleasure one can achieve from certain actions, thoughts, and circumstances, I do not think we need to chart it out.

    I cannot remember who said this first — different people have been given credit — but I think it's an interesting idea that the radical views of these philosophers were so popular because they could be observed and implemented to a lesser degree by those who studied them. Just like how illustrations are exaggerated to make a point (like my math problem example).

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  2. I think that a lot of these theories are very good in well... theory. In our group, I know we tend to read something like Mill and then list all the reasons and examples where it doesn't work out. Anyhow, I think we can all agree that reading a book is a more "intellectually" higher pleasure than rolling in the mud. Personally, I love reading books. However, getting dirty doing things such as caving and other such things are a ton of fun.

    Maybe Mill's point is that , once we have elevated pleasures, such as going to see the symphony for example, listening to a 6th grade band concert is not exactly the same. Since you have refined you pleasure's taste, inferior things are never quite the same. Another example is, growing up you got spoiled on your mother or father's cooking, and then you come to college and eat cafeteria food. Its not the same, even though the cafeteria food may be very decent food.

    DQ: How can we preserve "simple pleasures", after we have experienced greater pleasures?
    FQ: How do the Harm and Greatest Happiness principle relate?

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  3. Michele, Keaton, I agree with how challenge Mills on how he evaluates pleasure. It makes me think of a certain youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxyhfiCO_XQ).
    Mills impressed me, however, with how he lived out his philosophy and used it to directly impact society, more so than many other philosophers we have read.

    A tangent, but this strikes me how it relates to the foundation of our nation, and the "pursuit of happiness." Though I strongly believe that we should stand against injustice and discrimination, that people should be given equal opportunity, it is a dangerous slope from there to believing that pleasure is something that we deserve. It is a gift. When that perspective is lost, pleasure becomes something that is abused

    DQ: Have you given up pleasure for something else before? If so, what?

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