Philosophy short paper #1

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A good life versus the good life—the simple prepositional substitution results in vastly different images. The first, of a stoic, self-sacrificing soul who lives in service to others. The second, of a large bank account, a beach, and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. Perhaps, however, these ideas are not really so disparate. In fact, perhaps they are intimately related. This is the basic idea in John Stuart Mill’s “Utilitarianism.” In it, Mill argues that a moral life is a life dedicated to minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure. In modern parlance, a good life is a life lived in pursuit of the good life.

Mill begins his argument by recognizing that the debate over the foundation of morality has raged for generations (Mill 924). He criticizes both the inductive school (those that believe morals are evident a priori) and the intuitive school (those that believe morals are based on experience and observation) for failing to identify the governing principle behind their moral laws. Mill writes, “Yet to support their pretensions there ought to be some one fundamental principle or law at the root of all morality…” (Mill 925). As expected, Mill offers to fill the void. His answer? Utilitarian theory. Mill describes it this way: “The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals ‘utility’ or the ‘greatest happiness principle’ holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to produce happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (Mill 927).

Utilitarianism leads Mill to some interesting conclusions. By definition, things that cause pain are evil, and things that produce happiness, good. Thus, a good life is one that seeks to reduce the former and increase the latter. These “positive evils” include indigence, disease, unkindness, poverty, and premature loss of objects of affection (Mill 931). Lest these enemies seem too daunting, Mill boldly asserts, “…no one whose opinion deserves a moment’s consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable…”—and this by human effort. (Mill 931).

At this point even Mill’s most faithful disciple is forced to come up for air. Disease, conquerable? Cancer and heart disease alone devastate millions as a matter of course, while a virus currently has much of the world masked-up and locked down. But while Mill may be forgiven for being a touch overoptimistic, a greater blunder exists in the same statement. Mill unequivocally states that no one whose opinion is worth anything would argue against the assertion that poverty “may be completely extinguished by the wisdom of society…” (Mill 930). This would include Jesus, who said, “You will always have the poor among you” (John 12:8). The same Jesus, incidentally, that Mill credits with perfectly summarizing the ethics of his theory (Mill 932). The contradiction is awkward to say the least.

Jesus cannot be piecemealed. A person who claims to have all authority in heaven and on earth and who demands unilateral obedience (Matthew 28:18-20) should not be given a platform on human ethics—unless of course, the claims are true. So it is with Jesus. If Mill really wants to establish the truth of his theory, he must begin with the person who is the truth (John 14:6). His decision to not take serious Christ and his Word is a decision to invent theories that lead to foolishness.

Notice how Mill never answers a very obvious question; that is, why does disease, poverty, indigence, death and anything else that robs man of pleasure exist in the first place? To solve a problem, the problem must first be understood.

The greatest problem for mankind is that God is good and man is not. When God created Adam in the Garden, he gave him dominion over creation (Gen 1:28). Unfortunately, Adam sinned by breaking God’s command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God, by definition of his goodness, is perfectly just. The just punishment for Adam’s sin included binding the whole of creation to decay and ultimately, death (Rom. 5:12; 8:21). The reason for physical corruption of any kind, whether death or disease, is God’s judgment on mankind for sin, and mankind is powerless to reverse it.

It gets worse: Adam was not the only one to sin. Every human being since is a sinner by nature, and volitionally acts on that nature. As Paul writes, “There is no one who does good, no not one” (Rom 3:12). Men and women hate God, hate his law, and willfully break it at every opportunity. God is the only true source of joy, happiness, and peace, and thus the rejection of him is a fundamental rejection of these things. There is no good life when cut off from the only one who is truly good. Thus, the world is filled with hate, theft, murder, mockery, envy, and yes, unhappiness. Changing the world to conform to Mill’s grand ideas would require changing human nature, and the outlook is not good; the leopard still cannot change his spots (Jeremiah 13:23).

Works Cited

Mill, John Stuart. “Utilitarianism.” Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy edited by Stephen M. Cahn, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 924-957.

Holy Bible, New International Version. Zondervan Publishing House, 1984.