Understanding the Idea of Good and How We Decide on What is Right or Wrong

According to Milli, there are few circumstances that make up the present condition of human knowledge, unlike to what might be expected or significant of the backward state in which speculation in most crucial subjects lingers, then the little progress that has been made in the decision of choosing what is wrong or right. Questions concerning the foundation of morality have been a major problem in speculative thoughts, it has occupied most intellectuals and divide them different int sets. This has created a warfare against one another.

Over the years it is true that similar contradictions of classifying what is good or wrong. Milli argues that all action is for the sake of some end, and that of the rules of action. It seems natural to suppose that actions must take their whole character and color from the end to which they are subsequent. To her when we engage in a pursuit, a clear conception of what is being pursued will be the first thing that we may desire as compared to what we want to pursue last. A test of what is right or wrong should be the means one should think of in ascertaining what is right or wrong and not necessarily a consequence of already ascertaining it.

The difficulty is not avoided by having recourse to the popular theory of natural faculty, a sense of instinct in informing us what is right or wrong. Our moral faculty, according to all those of its interpreters that are entitled to the name of thinkers, gives us only the general principles of most moral judgments. It is a branch of our reason and not of our sensitive faculty. Milli agrees that the morality of an individual action is not a question of direct perception but the application of law to an individual case. She recognizes to a great extent that some moral laws may differ as to the evidence from which the authority is derived.

According to the one opinion, the principles of morals are evident, requiring nothing to command, except that the meaning of the terms is understood. According to other doctrines, the questions, observations, and experiences of what is right or wrong hold equally that morality must be deducted from the principles of science morals. They either assume the ordinary perceptions of morals as of a prior authorization or they lay down as the common groundwork of those maxims, some much less obviously authorities than maxims themselves, and which has ever never succeeded in gaining popular acceptance.

Whatever steadiness or consistency these moral beliefs have attained, has mainly been due to the facts influence of standards not recognized. Although ethics may not have much to mens actual sentiments, mens attitudes both in favor and of aversion. Are greatly influenced by what they supposed to be the effects of things upon their happiness, the principle of utility, or as Bentham later named it, the greatest happiness principle has had a large share in forming the moral doctrines even of those who most scornfully reject its authority. Mill argues further by saying that to all prior moralists who deemed it necessary to argue at all, utilitarian arguments are indispensable.

It is evident that this cannot be proof in the ordinary and popular meaning of the statement. Whatever that can be proved to be good must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof.It is assumed that there is a comprehensive formula that includes all things which are in themselves good and that whatever is good is not as an end, but as a mean. The formula may be accepted or rejected but is not subject of what is commonly understood by proof. We are not however, to infer that its acceptable or rejection must depend on blind impulse, or arbitrary choice. There is a larger meaning of the word proof, in which this question is as amenable to it as any other of the disputed questions of philosophy. The subject is within the cognize of the rational faculty, and neither does that faculty deal with solely in the way of intuition. Considerations may be presented capable of directing the intellect either to give or withhold its consent to the doctrine, and this is equivalent proof. It is a preliminary condition of rational acceptance or rejection that the formula should be correctly understood. Instead of opposing the useful to the agreeable or the ornamental, have always declared that useful means these among other things.

The principle that accepts as the foundation of morals, utility or the greatest happiness principle holds that actions are right in proportion. They tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness, pain and the privation of pleasure. To denote the recognition of utility as a standard, not any particular way of applying it. The terms supply a want in the language and offer in many cases a convenient mode of avoiding tiresome circumstances. The acquisition supposes that human beings not to be capable of pleasures except those of which swine are capable, a beasts pleasure does not satisfy a human beings conceptions of happiness.

Men often from infirmity of character make their selection for nearer good, though they know it to be of less value. Milli does not believe that those who undergo this very common change, voluntarily choose to lower the description of pleasure preference to higher. She believes that before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they already have become incapable of the other. The ultimate end concerning end for the sake of which other things are desirable, whether we are considering our won good and that one of other people, is an existence exempt as far as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quality and quantity. The utilitarian morality does recognize in human beings the power of sacrificing their won greatest good for the good of others. It only fails to admit that sacrifices in itself are a good, so that not only he may be unable to conceive the possibility of happiness to himself. Consistently with conduct opposed to the general good, but also that a direct impulse to promote the general good may be in every individual one of the habitual motives of action. And the sentiments connected in addition to that may feel a large and prominent place in every human being beyond in attesting that the motive has nothing to do with the morality of the right action.

Epicurus argues that the purpose of all is the individual happiness. The mention of the feeling by which we tell whether a thing is right or wrong for us leads the letter of Menoccous, which treats a happy life. He argues that the gods exist, but it is impious to accept the common beliefs about them. Practice and study without ceasing which that he always taught, being assured that they were the first principles of good life. For the many the gods are perception but false suppositions. Accustoming ourselves about death is no concerns to us. Since good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death.

Epicurus argues that the innate desires are for the health of body and peace of the mind, if these are satisfied, that is enough for the happy life. You must consider that of the desires some are natural, some vain and those that are natural; some are necessary for happiness, some for the ease of the body, some for life itself. The man who has a perfect knowledge of this will know how to make his every choice or rejection lend towards gaining health of the body and peace of mind since this is the end of the blessed life.

For this reason, we say that pleasure is the beginning and the end of blessed life. We recognize that pleasure as the first and natural good, starting from the pleasure we accept or reject as we judge every good thing, trusting that the feeling of pleasure will be our guide.

He also argues that a truly wise man is who can be happy with a little. We regard self-sufficiency as a great good, not so that we may enjoy only a few things, but so that if we do not have many, we may be satisfied with the few. He further argues that the truest happiness does not come from the enjoyment of physical pleasures but a simple life, free from anxiety with the normal physical needs satisfied. When we quote, that pleasure is the end we do not mean the pleasure of the profligate or that which depends on physical enjoyment as some think who do not understand our teachings. Disagree with them or give them evil interpretation but by pleasure we mean the state wherein the body is free from pain and mind free from anxiety.

Epicurus also argues that prudence or practical wisdom should be our guide of all this, the beginning and the chief good is prudence. For this reason, prudence is more precious than philosophy itself. All the other virtues spring from it; it teaches that it is not possible to live pleasantly without at the same time living prudently, and justly.

He who has reverent opinions about gods, who is wholly without any fear of death. Who has discovered what is the highest good life and understands that the highest point in what is good is easy to reach and hold and that the extreme evil is limited in time or suffering , and who laughs at that which some have set up as the ruler of all things? It would be better to accept the myth of the gods than to be slaves to physicists, for the myth hints at the hope for grace through honor paid by gods. It is better to meet misfortune while acting with reason than to happen upon good fortune while acting senselessly.