Analyzing mills saying Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Analyzing mills saying - Essay Example From the aforementioned statement, the English philosopher suggests that happiness or satisfaction is not the ultimate objective of performing an action or making a decision. This means that he does not quite agree to the principle of utility because he maintains that there would be a difference in the kinds of such individual. Meaning, a thing might be good, acceptable and brings happiness to someone but not to another. For the first person may be happy however, when someone looks deeper into what the former is satisfied about, it could be because that person’s standards are way below what his humanity demands of him. For example, one may find pleasure in sex but another finds it displeasing because the person acts immorally. That certain person acts like an animal which simply satisfies his wants. For Mill, he is likened to a pig. It is known that a pig does nothing but eat, sleep and relieves itself from the heat by swimming in the mud or worse, in its own dirt and it is sa tisfied with such kind of life. Therefore, the philosopher argues that he would rather be an unhappy human being than an animal which acts in such a manner but is still satisfied about itself. For the second person, he might be dissatisfied and unhappy but considers himself of higher morality than the former. This contradicts the philosophy of Bentham who says that a person is moral when his actions bring him happiness. Similarly, Mill believes that it is better to be a dissatisfied wise man than a satisfied fool. It is assumed that he argues that when a wise man is unhappy or dissatisfied about his actions or decisions, it is not only because he has done unacceptable things. Rather, the unhappiness and dissatisfaction might be the result of unmet high standard one has set for himself to achieve. In the same way, one cannot say that a person who is satisfied and happy with