Utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill)

Question

What would be the main claim and supporting arguments for Utilitarianism?

Answer 1

Actions are right insofar as they tend to promote the sum total of happiness, i.e. pleasure; wrong insofar as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness, i.e. pain. (Note: This is known as the Principle of Utility or the Greatest Happiness Principle.
Mill, in this selection, argues for his position by replying to common objections against utilitarianism.
Objection #1
This theory reduces mankind to the level of animals, since it supposes that life has no higher purpose than the pursuit of animal pleasure.
Reply to Objection #1
The objection is misguided, since it supposes that humans are capable of no higher pleasures than animals. Mill argues that we must consider not simply the quantity of pleasure, but the quality of pleasure. "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." (Note: Later utilitarians have tended to reject Mill's claim that we can distinguish between qualities of pleasure and have focused only on quantity of pleasure.)
Objection #2
Happiness cannot be the goal of the moral life because happiness is unattainable.
Reply to Objection #2
Happiness is, to a very large degree, attainable. "In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who has ... [a] moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable ..." "All the grand sources ... of human suffering are in a great degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort ..."
Objection #3
People can live without happiness. Indeed, the virtuous life requires that individuals learn to sacrifice personal pleasure for the sake of others.
Reply to Objection #3
The happiness the utilitarian is committed to maximizing is not his own but that of all concerned. This is entirely consistent with sacrificing his own good for the good of others. What the utilitarian denies is that sacrifice is a good in itself. "A sacrifice which does not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness ... [is] wasted."