Comparing Mill And Utilitarianism

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Though mankind has arguably always tried to justify its behavior through morality, people have never agreed upon the best way to be good. Although many theories focus on the importance of intentions, utilitarianism is a type of consequentialism, which focuses only on the morality of an action’s results. Intentions, though interesting, are morally unimportant, as consequences are really what impact lives. Although utilitarianism does seem to push people towards the correct moral choices the majority of the time, by distinguishing higher pleasures and ignoring such distinctions in pain, especially in cases that take away a person’s autonomy, important moral distinctions are never recognized, which greatly decreases the theory’s validity. Utilitarianism directs everyone …show more content…
Kant is particularly concerned with this possibility, writing: “act that you use humanity, in your own person as well as the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (Kant 41). Rather than treating someone as a medium through which good can be done, people need to treat each other as autonomous individuals. By not distinguishing between treating people as means and lower pains, Mill has rejects this moral issue. Doing so, however, feels hasty, especially in consideration of our everyday moral choices. Moral theories endeavor to reflect the moral choices that humanity already make every day, and general respect for a person’s independence is part of it. When utilitarianism puts moral acceptance on such decisions, it becomes more difficult to see the theory as one that is true to our moral choices. Though Mill does not have to categorically reject this pain, as Kant does, a sharp distinction should be made between the pain of losing personal autonomy and other

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