Utilitarianism - John Stuart Mill

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John Stuart Mill - was also a hedonist and accepted that happiness is of the greatest importance. He stressed hapiness rather than pleasure.

The Greatest Happiness Principle - He changed the origonal idea of  pleasure to happiness. 

'The Greatest Happiness Principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they thend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure

The Quality of Pleasure

Mill modified Bentham's approach, especially the quantative emphasis. He stressed that:

'some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more VALUABLE than others, it would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is not also considered as well as quantity.' 

He is answering the objection of Bentham's approach that utilitarians are just 'pleasure-seekers'. For example : Christians and the Romans; many Romans get a lot of pleasure from seeing a few Christians eaten by lions - here the greatest happiness is produced by an act (Christians being eaten by lions) which is surely quite wrong. 

Human pleasure is of a higher quality as people are mroe capable than animals, so it takes more to make a human happy. 

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