Pursuit of happiness from "summary" of Utilitarianism and On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
The principle of utility certainly recognizes that the pursuit of happiness is the ultimate end of human action. It holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure. On the one hand, human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification. On the other hand, as human beings are not capable of living in the enjoyment of only what they have in common with all other human beings, but require a distinction in their favor, opportunities for exercising their higher faculties, they desire to have as much of those things which are within their reach as are capable of being possessed by them. In this view of happiness, which considers the capacity of the species, the concept of the pursuit of happiness is a clear and consistent one. The theory regards the morality of actions as depending solely on the consequences they produce; if they are conducive to happiness, the actions are right, if not, wrong. It is not a matter of the agent's own happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether. The happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct is not the agent's own happiness, but that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as we would be done by, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.
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