Mill

Question 1

Determining whether something is ethical is based upon the consequences.

Answer 1

fact

Question 2

utilitarianism

Answer 2

greatest good for the greatest #.

Question 3

1. What does mean by the term, summum bonum? How does this play into the quest question of morality?

Answer 3

the greatest good.”sum of all goods. This keys into the question of what really is good. what determines it. It has philosphers wondering, and has separated schools and sects

Question 4

2. What is Mill’s critique of Kantian morality?

Answer 4

It is the consequences that matter. Those are what we are left from.
“So act,
that the rule on which thou actest would admit of being adopted as a law
by all rational beings.” But when he begins to deduce from this precept
any of the actual duties of morality, he fails, almost grotesquely, to show
that there would be any contradiction, any logical (not to say physical)
impossibility, in the adoption by all rational beings of the most outrageously
immoral rules of conduct. All he shows is that the consequences
of their universal adoption would be such as no one would choose to
incur.

Question 5

What is the definition of the the “greatest happiness principle”? What does it mean?

Answer 5

Utility: actions are good which promotes more pleasure for more people than pain.

Question 6

2. What does Mill argue against the idea that utilitarianism is a doctrine “worthy only of swine”? How does he argue against this interpretation of the theory?

Answer 6

We are capable of higher pleasures than the piggy pleasures. The highest pleasures are intellectual.
No educational person would consent to be a fool. This is not selfish because it is for the greatest number of people.

Question 7

3. What does Mill mean when he writes, “better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied”?

Answer 7

It is better to strive for higher pleasures, thant to stay content with the pig pleasures. Higher intellectual pleasures are longer lasting.

Question 8

4. Who is to judge the value of physical and mental (intellectual) pleasures? Which are higher and why?

Answer 8

Those who have experienced both. Those who experience both know that intellectual is higher.
Philosophy is the highest pleasure.

Question 9

5. What does Mill say to those who accuse utilitarianism as being a “godless doctrine”?

Answer 9

It is most in line with a good god. very consistent with christianity. If this is about a god who cares about his creation.

Question 10

6. How does Mill utilize the golden rule of Jesus in the explication of his theory?

Answer 10

He talks about how the golden rule forms the standard of utility. it is “ the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality