Seeking Pleasure
“We
are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell”
-
Oscar Wilde
Introduction
Life is such a journey for every
human. Every day, they are faced with different obstacles that will test their
capacity on how well they can survive this cruel world. This place may not be
the ideal one for most of them but despite of that truth, they are still eager
to search for any possibilities that will make them contented and satisfied
whether it will be against the others will.
The fight between the good and the
bad is endless. In this life, we are always bound to make some choices regarding
this two opposing ideas, the good and the bad, the right and the wrong the
wicked and the righteous. We are fortunate because we have the capacity to
choose between the two; however the criteria that we use on how we choose depend
on how these things affect our happiness. In short, we chose the one that will
make us happy and not the supposedly that is better for us. It may seem that
it’s hard to deal with happiness nowadays. In fact, there are a lot of factors
that affects how humans define the idea of happiness. As long as it gives them
the right satisfaction and pleasure that they needed, that’s what happiness is
for them.
Aside from the satisfactions that
they receive from each pleasant experience, happiness for them is more of a
consolation that they need to have in exchange with all the tragic experience
that they have encountered. Of course, if there is pleasure, pain is just on the
other side. The peoples search for happiness is more like finding a cure for a
disease. In this case, pain is the disease and happiness is the medication for
it. In order to overcome pain, they tend to seek for some relieves that
sometimes adds more burdens to them.
Although it is said that happiness
is immeasurable, its degree will merely depend on a person’s perception about
satisfaction.
The Concept of Utilitarianism
It was an English philosopher Jeremy Bentham
that submits the idea of utilitarianism. His ambition in life is to create a
“Pannomion” – a complete code of law of utilitarianism. The philosophy of
utilitarianism argues that each human being, all throughout his existence, is
subjected to the governance of two sovereign masters, the pain and pleasure.
Because of this, he derived the rule of utility, which states that the
good is whatever brings the greatest
happiness to the greatest number of people. Apparently, he notices the two
conflicting ideas of the rule so he simplifies it as “the greatest happiness
principle”.
The Utilitarianism is a
modern form of Hedonistic Ethical Theory,
which is a concept of the Hedonism, a group of
ethical system that believes that happiness is the final and highest aim of
conduct. Being an
ethical hedonist, Bentham claims that the only good is pleasure and pleasure
will therefore bring happiness. He then formulated an algorithm called Felicific
Calculus that tends to calculate the degree or amount of pleasure produced by a
specific action which also determines the moral status of any considered act. In
this algorithm, Bentham points out the key determinants of pleasure and pain
which he called the “divisions” or “elements”. The said elements were intensity,
duration, certainty and uncertainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity and extent.
All these elements are factors which affects the calculation of pleasure and
pain.
Bentham’s ethical theory
of Utilitarianism was adapted by John Stuart Mill, also an English Philosopher
whose father is foremost proponent of Bentham. Mill believes that the
intellectual, cultural and spiritual pleasures are of greater value than the
mere physical pleasure because the former would be valued more highly by
competent judges than the latter. According to Mill, a competent judge, is
anyone who has experienced both the lower pleasures and the higher.
And just like Bentham’s
theory, Mill’s utilitarianism also deals with pleasure or happiness.
The idea of the Bentham
and Mill has influenced more philosophers to also come with such developments
regarding the utilitarianism. And with that, the theory of consequentialism was
later introduced. The consequentialism on the other hand, refers to the
ethical theories that locate the source of moral
value in desirable states of affairs that result as a direct consequence of an
action. These results to the existence of many different accounts of the good
and therefore many different types of consequentialism and utilitarianism have
also been introduced.
Both Bentham and Mill is hedonist.
They tend to define happiness as a balance of pain and pleasure. They also
believe that these feelings alone are intrinsic value and disvalue.
Utilitarianism relies upon on the
some theories of intrinsic values. And
Utilitarian assumes that it is possible to
compare the intrinsic values produced by two alternative actions and to estimate
which would have better consequences.
Bentham’s theory is an
Act-Utilitarian. He relies more on the value of the consequences of the actions
to be able to determine whether the act is right or wrong. This kind of point of
view has urged a lot of grave objections to the Utilitarianism.
Later on, John
Stuart Mill’s classical expression of the system takes utilitarianism into a
higher plane. Mill took Bentham’s principle as a challenge and claims that the
utilitarianism notes that the pleasures differ in quality and in quantity. He
also enlists the association
theory; as the result of experience, actions that have been approved or
condemned on account of their pleasurable or disagreeable consequences at length
come to be looked upon by us as good or bad, without our actually adverting to
their pleasant or painful result. He saw motivation as the basis of the argument
since happiness is the sole end of the human conduct and not all pleasure are of
the same value. The quality of pleasure is also as important as the quantity of
it. Nonetheless, the pleasure of the mind is better than the pleasure of the
body. Same with a small amount of moral pleasure with a virtue is just the same
of a large amount of sensual pleasure.
Mill have changed one thing about
Benthams principles, he believes that the real way to measure utility of the
results of action is to calculate the amount of happiness each activity might
produce to a certain person. The action that produces the greatest happiness for
a large number of people are the morally action required. As a result, Mill
comes up with the Rule-Utilitarianism as his defense with the criticisms to
Benthams theory. His theory suggests that instead of looking at the consequences
of the act, the theory determines the rightness of the particular act.
In the late 19th century,
one of the leading utilitarian, Henry Sidgwick rejected Mills theory of
motivation as well as Benthams theory of the meaning of the moral terms and
sought to support utilitarianisms by showing that it follows from systematic
reflection of morality of “common sense”. In addition with his concept, he
reasoned that utilitarianism can solve the difficulties and perplexities that
arise from the vagueness and inconsistencies of common sense doctrines.
Negative Utilitarianism
The idea of the negative
utilitarianism requires us to prevent the greatest amount of suffering to the
greatest number. Most utilitarian proponent agrees with the ethical formula it
implies because the lesser the harm and evil the lesser the amount of suffering
which intends to give pain to human beings. The negative utilitarians focuses
only in minimizing the bad and that we ought to alleviate suffering as far as we
can. In other words these Utilitarians are more inclined to the activity that
will help lessen the suffering of an individual than to promote pleasure.
Of course the concept of
the negative utilitarianism appears to have its own casualties because it would
only allow the destruction of the world as its promotion continues. Many argue
that the world is place that is full of sufferings; therefore in order to reduce
these sufferings the world should be destroyed. Doing so, will cause many people
to suffer death but we all know that everyone of us will reach that stage so
this act will not increase the suffering in the world. Instead it will decline
the people from such sufferings that the world incorporated to them. According
to negative utilitarianism, this is what they ought to do to lessen all the
sufferings; however this theory is totally irrational and meaningless.
The Grave Objections
A lot of arguments are laid over the past
centuries about the concept of utilitarianism.
Aside from the influences that they
have established in the field of philosophy, many also criticize their
principle. The definition of happiness may differ from what values each persons
has. It is also impossible to compare the level of satisfaction of each human
being. And lastly the method of computing the degree or level of pleasure is
quite a big question to many.
One of the most discussed
flaw on the concept of utilitarianism is the actions have no moral value. They
have been criticized for only looking at the results of the action and not at
the desires and intentions that motivates the person to do it. What if an action
is intended to cause harm on others? Would it still be considered equally to the
action done with a good intention? The moral issue regarding the utilitarianism
is a complicated matter to handle for many utilitarians. However, many
utilitarian saw the morality as a personal guide rather than a means to judge an
action of other people which have already been performed. In short, morality for
them is something to be looked at when deciding what to do.
The next grave objection
with Utilitarianism is the degree of quality and quantity of pleasure. The
sadist and masochist are people inclined of having pleasure in an odd way.
Sadists enjoy inflicting pain to others while masochists enjoy receiving pain.
Both receive gratifications while being hurt at the same time. This is one of
the problems that have been encountered by the ulititarians but according to
Mill, this type of dilemma is reprehensible under the utilitarian custom. Mill
argues that the practices of the sadist as well as the masochist don’t take into
account the value of happiness and this content should not be considered. The
utilitarianisms followers also noted that the pleasure of a sadist and masochist
almost never has any significant weight in a utilitarian calculation.
Another thing is that
Utilitarianism has no scientific basis as said by its opponents. Their concepts
are not been proven by science or logic to be the correct ethical system.
However, most Utilitarians claim that this is a usual circumstance among the
ethical schools unless the problem of regress argument is satisfactorily solved.
In fact, they are the one who first encounter this type of problem but they
stick to their beliefs that the future society may claim that their propose
solution is the one that increases human happiness the most.
Conclusion
Jeremy Bentham is considered a genius
with this concept of measuring the degree of pleasure and with that idea also he
is considered the strangest individual in the history of philosophy. However
without his theories and ideas, we were not be able to be more observant on how
such particular acts affects us as a human being and our entire life. His
proposals have met a lot of objections but to consider all of these, still we
find out that most of us address our pleasure to the acts which still aims
righteousness.
A frivolous enjoyment is
what most people seek for in their entire life. Although, it can denied the fact
the pleasure is always accompanied by pain. Nonetheless the existence of these
both will help each person utilize a more reasonable way of living. It is not
enough to just have or seek for enjoyment just because it is what you think is
good for you. It is not enough to find enjoyment among the activities that
intentionally harm others. It is not enough to let yourself be in the situation
where you are in the height of the blissfulness. Still, we must take into
consideration the benefit of others.
The true happiness
doesn’t lie only on the material things as well as the success that one can
achieve. It is more of the satisfaction that we can get among the things that we
usually thought is meaningless in our life. Our world is full of material
things, this tangible things easy attracts our senses that makes us eager to
have them as possessions. We, human beings are very much inclined with that.
Most of us, measure our happiness in terms of wealth and power. We tend to
create obsessions with these things, nonetheless, our hungry to capture these
possessions sometimes leads us to do things that maybe cause harm to others. Our
greediness leads us to evil doings that we usually ignore because we’ve become
too busy accumulating things that will give us pleasure.
It is true that we have
only but one aim in this life time, happiness. As the principle of hedoism and
utilitarianism have engage in providing us the real pursuit of happiness in the
end it still depends on us. The degree of pleasure will not be measured as long
as each individual has their own perception on what activity will provide them
the pleasure that will make them satisfied.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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