One of the misconceptions about utilitarianism is that “you can’t make happiness the aim of human life because it is unattainable.” I disagree with this statement, but I am not sure that I agree with Mill’s and his response. I agree that Mill’s is right when he says that people that believe this are exaggerating and putting the world into conditions. However, I questioned what I conditions I believed were prevalent when considering happiness. To feel happiness is one of the most innately human emotions, but interestingly so is pain. I think that feeling happiness continuously is not human, rather that is unattainable. However, to feel the greatest happiness is human when accompanied with pain. Human’s do not feel continuous pain like we do not experience continuous happiness. To have one of these extremes, in my opinion, would be to not experiencing what it is like to be truly “human.”
We live in a world of conditions. There are conditions of emotions, in this instance happiness and pain, but I feel like to say that you can’t make happiness the aim is being very unrealistic and ignoring something that is naturally human. However, you cannot only experience happiness, you must also experience pain (and other human emotions). This is all a part of being human, and to ignore it, is to not embrace who you are as a human. There are 2 main causes of unhappiness: selfish and lack of mental cultivation. This is not to say when you are feeling pain you are selfish or stupid; however, there could be something missing that is causing the pain. In contrary to Mill’s, if you are unhappy, I believe that this is human and natural to feel all emotions. If we are going to live in a world of conditions, we must embrace who we are as humans and not discount our emotions whenever we are experiencing optimal pain or happiness.
No comments:
Post a Comment