Mill's Utilitarianism › The Core Claim

::: {.callout-note title="The Greatest Happiness Principle"} Actions are right in proportion as they tend 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. ::: That's it. The entire edifice of utilitarian ethics rests on this foundation. But each word conceals depths that occupied Mill for decades. Right action aims at happiness considered impartially. The utilitarian must weigh her own pleasure as worth no more and no less than the pleasure of any other person affected by her action. A stranger's suffering counts equally with your child's. Your own pleasure weighs the same as your enemy's. This impartiality is radical. It demolishes the comfortable assumption that we owe more to those close to us simply because they're close. Mill softens this in practice, acknowledging we can usually do more good by focusing on those within our sphere of influence. But the theoretical foundation remains stark.