A Comparison/Contrast of Kant and Mill with Regards to Happiness Comparison Essay by Top Papers

Francis Hutcheson suggests that people often extend good will and well wishes to others without any selfish intent. Kant, for his part, believes that people fundamentally act morally toward others because they would want others to act that way towards them; he also seems to argue that people who do good deeds (and, presumably, think good thoughts) towards others out of inclination are being selfish; true magnanimity comes when good is done out of duty. For his part, John Stuart Mill lauds Kant's contributions to philosophy, but he has a slightly different "take" of how people arrive at happiness through their human interactions. As he perceives it, the morality which should inform our interactions with other people is not a universal law - "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" - but a utilitarian one predicated on giving the greatest happiness possible to the greatest number. However, since Mill seems to have a hierarchical view of living organisms, it is conceivable that anything that makes the higher organism more unhappy than the lesser organism actually makes it impossible for truly selfless acts to be carried out by the "best sort" of individual. In any case, any moral precept that insists all actions are good which create the greatest happiness is one that makes it possible for nothing to be done completely selflessly. In the end, neither man believes that humans really do good (or wish good for others) for non-selfish reasons.