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.
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