Does wealth always lead to happiness? Are the rich happier than the poor? The rich can have any material item (and some people) that they could ever want, but they can"t buy happiness. The poor live paycheck to paycheck, if they work at all, and take pleasure at the little things in life. So which is more wealthy, the unhappy people who can have anything they want, or the poor people who are happy with what they already have? To what extent will the poor go to become the rich, because they perceive money at a greater happiness, and at price?.
Utilitarians only accept one ethical principle, happiness is good while decreasing it is bad. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was a qualitative utilitarian. He disagreed with Jeremy Bentham over the meaning of pleasure. Jeremy Bentham was the Father of Quantitave Utilitarianism who thought that "spiritual pleasures" are fake illusions. He thought that physical pleasures are the only possible source of happiness and an individual deprived of sensual pleasure will not find life worth living. Mill argued that pleasures differ from one another in quality as well as quantity. Mill said "It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied: better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."# If Bentham is correct, Mill reasoned, then it would not matter whether the animal enjoying himself is a human being or a pig. Does it matter if the human being is rich or poor? Is money the measure of happiness? Is it not better to live your life happy and poor, than unhappy and rich? In the book The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, Kino turns into an animal and is very dissatisfied. He lives only to preserve himself and his family and is not thinking about the happiness of all.
The Pearl is a symbolic novel showing how money can change every aspect of your life. The theme of the novel is that human happiness cannot be bought with material wealth.
