Does happiness have any intrinsic value?

Does happiness have any intrinsic value? I do not think that happiness has intrinsic value. Happiness is a state of well-being that is characterized by intense joy. How can you have intense joy by yourself and nothing external to stimulate this joy?   I believe it is difficult to have happiness that isn’t generated from external sources. If nothing were to occur to you externally, why would you be happy? Something must occur in order to trigger to good feelings that will develop into happiness. A person cannot fall in love all by themselves; they need the love and warmth from another human being.

 

One question I would ask Mill about utilitarianism

If there was one question I could ask Mill I would ask him if he actually follows utilitarianism. If he said yes, I would wonder to what extent he follows utilitarianism. I would question how he can possibly calculate all the possibilities that will bring about the greatest happiness to the greatest amount of people. Throughout these past couple of weeks, I actually tried following this method, which I found to be very difficult. With all this in mind I feel that Mills response to my question would be of course. He spent a majority of the time studying utilitarianism as well as defending it. I am sure though he wouldn’t have a convincing answer to measuring the possibilities that will bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest amount of people. He would most likely use past experiences and past history as an answer however I still feel that is one of the strongest objections against utilitarianism.

Too many little white lies

I do believe that utilitarianism allows for too many white lies. I can think of plenty of situations that I have been in where I could have used a white lie and it would have had the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people, however it was still immoral. I believe for the most part that lying is immoral and not the right thing to do. Of course there are certain situations where one must use a white lie; however, I believe that Mill takes advantage of this. An example of an appropriate use of a white lie would be hearing a rumor about a person, and while knowing it is true, denying it because it wouldn’t be right to spread that information around.

Is Utilitarianism too demanding?

 

Is Utilitarianism too demanding? Utilitarianism is defined has achieving the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. This portrays an idea that it should be a person’s goal to always help others in each and every moment of the day. This seems to be way too demanding for Humans in general. For example, lets say a nun is helping a homeless shelter by assisting them in providing food on Thanksgiving day for those who are homeless. During that 10 hour food drive, she is able to take an hour break to eat, relax, etc. Now when she finally takes this break, according to utilitarianism, she is technically not achieving the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people. Therefore Utilitarianism is too demanding especially if someone who devoted their whole life serving god and doing moral acts is unable to take an hour break because she is not achieving the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people in that hour.

Objections

 

 

The objection that was presented in our group was that there is not enough time to calculate the happiness that will result from different decisions. Calculating the different outcomes can be very time consuming and frustrating. A Response to the objection would be his example of past experiences. He states that mankind has been learning through experiences, these experiences allow people to make appropriate decisions. He uses people who follow Christianity as an example. Those who have read the bible in the past can recall the passages, therefore make appropriate decisions in different situations.