Utilitarianism: The Conflict with “Lesser and Greater Goods”
In this paper I am going to argue that John Stuart Mill’s view on Utilitarianism is flawed
due to his belief that there are different levels of pleasure which he describes as “lesser goods”
and “greater goods”. He promotes the idea that an individual should sacrifice their personal
pleasures if it would help them to satisfy the “greater good” of all people. This view is
completely illogical; the happiness of all persons cannot be achieved if the individual persons are
not satisfied, because individuals are what a community is constituted of. If an individual
actually does focus on contributing to the greater good instead of helping themselves, it can
prove to be very difficult due to the subjective nature people and how this affects their decision
making concerning communal happiness.
In Chapter 2 of Mill’s Utilitarianim, Mill explains that Utilitarianism is based off of
morality and that its goal is to urge people to do what is considered morally good. He describes
something as being moral only if it promotes happiness or pleasure, on the other hand, something
is immoral if it does the opposite and deprives one of happiness (Mill 10). From these two
premises we can gather that the main purpose of Utilitarianism is to help all people achieve
happiness through moral action. After understanding the basis of Utilitarianism we can look at
the idea of “lesser goods” and “greater goods”. “Lesser goods” for the most part include what
makes an individual person happy, and is often viewed as self-centered and selfish. Greater
goods are more impactful as they include what makes the majority of people in the community
happy. According to Mill, it is noble to sacrifice the lesser goods for the greater goods, because
greater goods benefit more people. Although this seems the right thing to do, in some cases, it
might be disastrous for the individual and result in him giving up happiness completely.
If we look back at Mill’s initial definition of Utilitarianism and its relation to morality,
we can see how his argument for people to give up “lesser goods” begins to fall apart. If it is
indeed immoral to do anything that deprives one of pleasure, then it would also be immoral for
an individual to give up what personally makes him happy (“lesser goods”) even if it is to do
what is best for others. To further explain this idea we can look at an example of a financial
decision and what a Utilitarian is expected to do when it comes to money. Let’s say that an
individual has worked a very demanding job for his entire life and earned a good amount of
money for him to retire at 65 and live comfortably for the rest of his life. Should he instead
donate that money to the less fortunate and keep working for the rest of his life to support
himself? A Utilitarian with Mill’s views would say that he should donate his money because it
can benefit more people this way and his money would be put to better use. Although this is a
