Mill and the pursuit of Pleasure

In class, we have begun a discussion on John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is the theory that the best moral action is one that maximizes utility, or usefulness. It’s been called a form of hedonism, which means that utilitarianism is a pursuit of pleasure and self-indulgence and that pleasure is the highest good and proper aim of human life. With that, we discussed Mill’s “Greatest Happiness Principle”. It says that an action is morally good as long as it produces the greatest amount of happiness and the least amount of pain for the greatest amount of people. From that definition, I see how there could be some misunderstandings. Especially in the case of people believing that utilitarianism is demeaning because it reduces the meaning of life of pursuing nothing but pleasurable things. As Mill explains it, we have higher pleasures, which are distinctly human, and lower pleasures, which we share with animals. He says that we, as humans, will choose a lesser amount of a higher pleasure before choosing a greater amount of a lower pleasure. 

What I’ve gleaned from this discussion is that to be at our highest potential of happiness, we must avoid anything that can cause us pain, which is near to impossible sometimes, and find things that are pleasing to us, no matter what that thing may be. I suppose that could mean making tons of money could make half the population of the world the happiest people ever. But isn’t it also true that pain can be pleasurable as well? Say, for instance, people that take place in things like UFC fights. Yes, they’re making money, but they’re beating the living daylights out of each other to get that money. Also, pain can lead to pleasure and happiness. Everyone has struggled at some point in their life before they got to that one part that they felt truly happy. That in itself is painful because you feel as if you’ll never get to where you want to be in life. I guess this goes to show that there really is no gain without pain.