objection: morality can’t be all about increasing overall happiness because happiness is unattainable.
While I do not consider myself a utilitarian, I strongly disagree with this objection. You can work to attain happiness even if it’s at the cost of increasing overall happiness. If someone commits a good moral act, aren’t they going to achieve some sort of happiness in there outcome. For example, if a very religious person donates his or her money to charity, they increase overall happiness. Others benefit from their generosity, however, does not the donor receive happiness knowing they did a deed there God defines as morally good? Don’t we all feel happy when we help someone in need? If happiness were unattainable, than why would we we bother to do such actions?
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I completely agree with you and your response to the objection, but I think that the full extent of the objection was not addressed. I think the objector means that complete and total happiness is unattainable, which is a convincing argument. People cannot achieve total, untouchable happiness because there are so many things in the world to make people unhappy.
Yet, if no one can reach complete and total happiness, then does it even exist? It’s like the horizon. You can see it, but never reach it because it’s an illusion based on how our eyes work.