igher faculties to the immediate gratification of lower faculties in moments of temptation. This often happens when either two bodily or bodily and mental pleasures come into conflict. For example, a person would ultimately desire to enter into a long term, monogamous relationship that fosters love and security. Yet that person simultaneously desires physical relationships with many people that s/he is attracted to. Frequently the person who wants the long-term relationship abandons that goal in a time of temptation for a one-night stand. They discard the higher pleasure (the relationship) for the fulfilment of the lower pleasure (sex). Mill believes that this common occurrence develops from an individual's inability to realize the higher pleasure. They come to enjoy inferior pleasures precisely because they can no longer enjoy the higher pleasures or because they do not have the access to them. He believes that the purpose of all human life is to pursue happiness and avoid pain and that everything else that is desirable is a means to these ends. The question often asked about utilitarianism, ‘Why maximise happiness?’, then is really just about what makes happiness desirable. Mill offers an analogy to explain this: the only way to prove that an object is visible is to demonstrate that others can see it. He claims that the only evidence to prove that happiness is desirable is that others desire it. Each individual desires his or her own happiness, so general happiness is the sum of individual happiness and is itself desirable. Another area that Mill was more sensitive to than Bentham was that of individual moral rights. Bentham believed that the only ‘real’ rights a person had were legal rights and that individual moral rights conflicted with happiness and excellence, Mill, on the other hand, thought that individual moral rights are a necessary means to maximise the happiness of a community. He believed that right...
