In the article, Mill describes “utilitarianism as the principle of happiness”. People are always going to pick higher pleasure in the end despite the idea that they may have chosen small pleasure once in a while. The basic idea of being a utilitarian is to uphold the idea of utilitarianism which is basically, the greatest amount of good that is produced from the greatest number from an action, the whole idea of utilitarianism is to be away from pain and to be in happiness. I agree with J.S. Mill’s idea, the principle of happiness because, in a way, we are all utilitarians, we are doing what we are doing because we feel happy or pleased with the thing that we are doing. There is a different type of happiness, as it mentions in the article, there is a small pleasure and a big pleasure. The only difference between these two is that one requires effort, and it takes a long time to accomplish, so that’s why many people rather choose lower pleasure rather than higher pleasure.
Mill has pointed out through paragraphs of how people are always in the pursuit for the bigger pleasure but sometimes come down to choose the inferior pleasure, it is not because we want to, it is because we don’t have the time to sit down and taste it, in other words the bigger pleasure seems too far out of reach. Humans choose now rather than the future because they never get satisfied with anything. Happiness doesn’t last, so many choose the inferior pleasure because it is easy to get and it satisfies their needs very well there and then. It is not wrong to say utilitarianism as a “pig philosopher” quote and quote that we are lazy and pleasure-loving maniacs, this is true for most people, no one doesn’t like pleasure and is indeed we are lazy, people spend millions of dollars to hire maid, or house cleaner, whether is to serve them or clean the house it shows that our laziness, we would rather spend money to clean the house where we could have done it ourselves.
The reason I say this is a “Pig philosophy” is because some people devote themself to pleasure and eventually lose themself, what difference between them and a “pig”, other than humans, is more evolved than a pig. Both are doing what they want in terms of happiness, whether is splashing around in mud or is getting a higher paid jobs there is still a difference between these two, Of course, there is a huge difference between a human and a pig, but the metaphoric idea of humans enjoying pleasure like a pig is not wrong. There have been many incidents where people are addicted to drugs and end up looking like a patient just coming out of mental hospitals. The most important difference between a pig and humans is that even though we pick inferior pleasure, in the end we always pursue higher pleasure. I’m going to school to pursue an engineering degree, but sometimes I choose smaller pleasures, like playing video games etc, but the idea is that no matter what smaller pleasure I choose, I am always in pursuit of a higher happiness which is to become an engineer.
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