Kant's catagorical imperitive is superior to J.S. Mill's Utilitarianism

A. Any moral philosophy tries to grasp what is and what should be in terms of reality. J. S. Mill and his philosophy however are based on a major flaw with what is. He bases the ideal of Utility on happiness which means that individuals are classifying an act as good or bad. According to Mill however, this classification must be based on happiness in and of itself. Thus Mill misinterprets what is or is not "good" on a whole or raising utility. The implication of this argument is twofold: 1. There is some kind of intrinsic good in reality as something has to make us "happy" 2. Mill misinterprets this good and says this good is happiness thus suspending the moral philosophy into a cycle of does this make something happy. A classification of happiness is always going to be arbitrary however. If we accept Mill's framework of there being something like happiness that we are always going to want to increase, we place a value judgment on certain actions. For example if ice cream made me happy then we place a value of good on ice cream. This judgment in and of itself is flawed as there can be no concrete version of reality. Martian Heidegger explicates Hence all Being is "Becoming. " The broad vista onto Becoming is a preview of and perspective into the powering of will to power. It intends only that will to power "be" as such. But this vistalike perspective into the will to power pertains to the will to power itself. As the empowering for over powering, will to power, is as Nietzsche says, "perspectival" in a way the previews and "sees through". But the "perspective" is never the mere angle of vision from which something is seen; rather, this perspectival vista looks towards "conditions of preservation/enhancement. " As, conditions, the "viewpoints" posited in such "seeing" are of such a kind that they must be reckoned on and reckoned with. They take the form of "numbers" and "measurement," that is, values. Values "are everywhere reducible to this numerical and mensural scale of force" (WM, 710). Nietzsche always understands "force" in the sense of power; that is will to power. Number is essentially "perspectival form" (WM, 490). Thus it is bound up with the "seeing" that is proper to will to power, as seeing that in its very essence is reckoning with values. "Value" has the character of "viewpoint". Values "are" not, nor do they have validity "in themselves. " In order also occasionally to become "viewpoints" (WM< 715). " Because as Heidegger says, nothing onto itself is true in the form of a value, Mill's Utilitarianism is based on a misconception. To put it more simply, Mill's principle is based on an interpretation of reality, not what is. B. The way a utilitarian calculus is framed, what is good can not be determined in advanced. Since there is no way to predict the future there is no way to know if your action is good or bad in the present. For example, if i jumped into a swimming pool with the intention of saving a drowning child but hit another child who preceded to drown because of my action, it would be said i did a morally wrong (i. e. bad) thing. Even if we were to know the result of the action with some degree of certainty, we can not know what would have possibly happened if we were to omit from taking action. Going back to my previous example, what I did not know jumping into the pool was that if i had not jumped into the pool, the lifeguard would have and the whole situation would have been adverted. Since that action was not taken however it is impossible to know what the results of omitting the action would be. C. There is no way to weigh how good an action is. Since all the calculations are based upon happiness, there must be some way to tell how happy a person is. Alas no such measurement exists. I can not weigh the happiness that i have when i win a debate, and the happiness i get from swimming because there is no ultra basic unit to weigh happiness. D. Utilitarianism requires sacrifice to a non-existent societal organism. Society is made up of people and it is people alone who exist. However, utilitarianism says that there will be some "greater good" for society. This good may require some individuals to sacrifice or give up some for that society up to an including thier lives. However each individual is a universe onto themselves. When an individual dies, the universe that was and all ideals (the perspectival vista that Heidegger talks about) disappear because that individual no longer exists on this plane. You destroy existence my dear opponent. E. Utilitarianism justifies slavery and the deaths of millions of people as long is there is a rise of the overall level of happiness. Remember Hitler's justification for the holocaust and Stalin's for his own mass murders? Well those are justified under a utilitarian calculus since they sought the greater good. Same with slavery. Deontology (abbreviated deon from this point on) solves for all of these because it prevents individuals from doing things detrimental to the existence of society. A. is solved because the existence of society and of an individual is concrete. Deon sets up the categorical imperative to protect society and allow social interaction, both of which are not value judgments. B-E. are solved because these are unique criticisms of Utilitarianism. Since A. Misrepresents existence and B-E have negative implications (listed below) i don't need to prove that deon is good only that it is comparatively better than Util. Deon has no harms (even if my opponent says there is no net benefit to it) and is thus superior. By saying there are no harms i am making a negative claim that something does not exist meaning that my opponent has the burden to prove me wrong since there are an infinite possibilities that can exist. For example if i said aliens do not exist, since space is infinite and i can not make something appear to prove it does not exist, aliens have to be proven to exist to prove that claim as false. The impacts of the arguments listed above B. By not being able to tell if an action will be good or bad in the present one of two things will occur, either action will be stopped because i will never be able to know if my action is good or bad and thus i would not take action to prevent being morally wrong or good and bad will cease to have function as we can not apply it to people with any degree of meaning since people take action without care of an action being good or bad. Legal systems and institutions of the like cease to function as their goal is to evaluate actions as good or bad. C. Same as B D. Destroys the existence of individual universes. For more read Kierkegaard. E. This is obviously bad as it proves that any future Hitler or Stalin can justify their actions. Now for some positive benefits of Deon just in case i lose my burden argument or all my arguments A-E. Deon is the only rational moral option. H. L. A. Hart furthers "Any morally adequate political philosophy must recognize that there must be certain protections of freedom and basic interests of individuals. Though the pursuit of the general welfare is indeed legitimate an indeed necessary concern, it is something to be pursued with certain constraints [Deontology for those of you wondering] imposed by the recognition of such rights. No rational person bargaining with others on a footing of equality could agree to regard himself as bound to obey the laws of any government if his freedom and basic interests were not given protection and treated as having priority over mere increases in aggregate welfare. " For the sake of space i cut the quote down. Nothing important was omitted. Since society is created by the combination of a people into a system it must be based on deon. Arguments that were not addressed previously should be considered conceded.