WWS 370 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: On Liberty
6 Nov 2018
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Achieving happiness for the greatest number of people. Utilitarianism says you"re responsible for people"s reactions to your actions. If you can foresee a person"s reaction to your action, you are responsible for making sure it will lead to the greatest happiness. Utilitarian sets the goal of being egalitarian. People seek their own happiness and the happiness of others. Mill says with utilitarianism, you should seek the higher pleasures. Mill also says people who have experienced higher and lower pleasures will prefer the higher pleasures (pg. 242: it is better to be socrates, satisfied, than a fool, satisfied. With more education, people will be steered towards higher pleasures. Betham said each person counts as one individual. No one counts as more than one individual. Some people hate sarah so much that they want her utility to decrease so theirs will increase. Some people are willing to pay something (lose their own utility) just to hurt.
