In order to understand the greatest happiness principle by Stuart Mill, let’s first explains the term utilitarianism. This term states that actions are considered moral in cases where they demonstrate and promote utility and on the other hand they are considered immoral when they do otherwise (Sullivan, 1989) . According to Mill, utility means happiness without any pain (Sullivan, 1989) . Therefore, a person is said to be moral when his/ her actions promote happiness with absence of pain according to the greatest happiness principle. However, an action that promotes utility does not necessarily make it moral because there needs to be an optimal choice to promote utility while promoting happiness. Mill provides a system to determine the ultimate choice because it is difficult to decide which actions are moral and which ones are immoral. This system considers the action that is preferred by most people to be moral as it is considered the action that provides high quality results. If the actions are considered by an equal number of people, then both actions are considered equally moral (Sullivan, 1989) . Generally, the greatest happiness principle according to Mills, holds that actions that promote happiness are right or moral while those that produce sadness are wrong or immoral.
In a case where federal agents have captured a suspect whom they believe has information about impending terrorist attacks in which hundreds of people would die, Mill would not advocate for him to be tortured into giving the federal agents the information that they so would have been seeking. This is because according to his principle, pleasure and happiness are the only desirable results, which humanity craves. Having said this, inflicting pain on the suspects would mean causing them a lot of pain, which sharply contrasts with Mill’s dream of happiness as the most preferable end result of any human action.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Immanuel Kant had an idea about ethics and he referred to it as categorical imperative. According to him, there is no other right way to act except in a categorically imperative manner ( Mill, 1863) . For instance, one is supposed to help a cripple to board a bus because it is the right thing to do but not because it will make one feel good. He categorizes it as an objective, a necessary and an unconditional principle in which people must always abide to despite any other desires that they may have to do otherwise ( Mill, 1863) . In addition, Kant categorizes all other moral requirements in this principle and this means that all other immoral actions are irrational because they act against categorical imperative (Mill, 1863) . Therefore, generally, Kant argues that a person’s actions are bad or good based on what motivates them to do something rather than on the consequences of their actions. He also argues that a person is good if they complete their duty because it is their responsibility to do so (Mill, 1863) .
With that explanation of Immanuel Kant’s principle, he would advocate for federal agents to torture the suspect if they think that he has information that could save millions of people. This is because it is the duty of those federal agents to keep the country safe and this means doing everything they can to fulfill their duty. According to him, this would not be morally wrong because they are not motivated by the reward that might follow their actions but they are guided by their loyalty to serve a nation.
In my opinion, the federal agents would be justified in torturing the suspect only if they had very promising leads to the terrorists. Otherwise, it is not justified to torture someone because you suspect they know something. For instance, if the suspect was a member of a terrorist group and is believed to withhold information that could save lives, it would be a good call to torture them and extract information. However, if the suspect was only alleged to have known whatever it is that s/he is claimed to know, then s/he should not be tortured.
References
Mill, J. S. (1863). Utilitarianism . London: Parker, Son and Bourn.
Sullivan, R. J. (1989). Immanuel Kant's moral theory . Cambridge University Press.
