John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism

Click here for a general introduction to utilitarianism.

CHAPTER ONE

No progress seems to have been made in ethics since the time of Socrates.

"All action is for the sake of some end," [cf. Aristotle] so to know which actions are right we need to know what this end ultimately is. 

Some people believe in a kind of natural moral sense that will tell us what to do.  BUT there is disagreement about whether such a thing exists at all, and even if it does, it does not tell us what is right in particular cases in the way the sense of sight tells us what colors things are.  Otherwise we would not disagree so much.

"[T]he morality of an individual action is not a question of direct perception, but of the application of a law to an individual case."

BUT there is no recognized, agreed-upon, ultimate principle or standard.

Philosophers tend to agree on what is right and what is wrong because philosophy has tended merely to be "a consecration of men's actual sentiments."

It should, though, be a guide, not a codification or celebration of what we already believe.

Everyone takes happiness and the consequences of actions into account in thinking about right and wrong, even those who do not admit it.  Consider Kant, whose rule is:

"So act, that the rule on which thou actest would admit of being adopted as a law by all rational beings."

No act would prove illogical, irrational, or impossible by this rule.  Bad acts are simply undesirable as universal laws, because of the consequences they would have for our happiness. 

"Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof.  Whatever can be proved to be good, must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof."  [See Chapter Four for more on this.]  

CHAPTER TWO

"The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.  By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure."   

"...pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends;"

Human beings have "elevated" faculties and appetites.

These pleasures are longer lasting, cheaper, and safer than animal pleasures.  BUT they are also just plain better.

"Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure."

Both quality and quantity of pleasure matter, but quality matters more.

It is not just our own happiness for which we should strive but that of all people, indeed of all sentient creatures.

Better education and social arrangements should allow most people to enjoy the combination of tranquility and excitement that makes for a happy life.

Selfishness can lead to boredom and despair at the prospect of death, BUT the more we care about other things and other people, the more interesting we will find life and the less death will bother us.

What we need to do is fight poverty, disease, and lack of fellow human feeling.

Self-sacrifice for the sake of others' happiness is noble.  For any other goal it is folly.

We should love others as ourselves, neither more nor less, and education and public opinion should encourage thoughts of the general good as harmonious with our own individual good.

The motive of one's actions shows one's worth as a human being, BUT has nothing to do with the worth of the actions themselves.

Motive is unimportant in determining the goodness or rightness of an action, BUT "The morality of the action depends entirely upon the intention--that is, upon what the agent wills to do."

[Clearly Mill means different things by the terms 'motive' and 'intention'.  The motive is what makes you do it ($500), the intention is what you aim to achieve (killing LTC Richter).  Or, the motive is the cause of the action (desire for $500), the intention is what the action is (a contract killing).  Or, the motive is what you hope to get out of it ($500), the intention is the rule you are following (kill Richter!).]

Bad acts should not be done even if the consequences on one occasion would be good, because they belong to a class of acts that is generally harmful.  [So what?, you might ask.]

So Mill is a rule utilitarian.  

Lying, for instance, weakens one's tendency to tell the truth and makes one more likely to lie again.

There can be exceptions to this rule, which should be judged by the general principle of utility.  [BUT that judges rules or types of acts, so is this circular, or are we to create sub-rules?  Where does this process stop?  Will rule utilitarianism collapse into act utilitarianism (with one very specific rule to each particular act)?]

All human history shows the tendency of all kinds of actions.  Thus Mill believes in a kind of evolution and democracy in ethics.

CHAPTER THREE

Feelings of obligation come from our upbringing and education (so we can be raised to feel obliged to do all kinds of things).

Reasons for trying to do the right thing are sanctions, penalties for not doing it.  These can be external or internal.

External sanctions are God (the desire to get rewards from him, to avoid punishment from him, to serve him out of love or awe) and other people (the desire to get something from them, to avoid their displeasure, to help them out of sympathy or affection).

The internal sanction is duty, "a feeling in our own mind."

"The ultimate sanction ... of all morality (external motives apart) [is] a subjective feeling in our own minds."

[This analysis is amoral, i.e. it comes from outside the conscience.  The theory says: "We must do x or else feel y."  Conscience says: "We must do x because it is right."  Mill is offering an amoral justification of morality.  He might succeed, he might fail.  But has he missed the point?  If he did fail, what would this show?  Why should there be, why should we want, non-moral reasons for behaving morally?]

Those who believe conscience to be merely a subjective feeling might be thought to be more likely to ignore their consciences, BUT a) this is all that conscience is, and b) people often ignore their consciences anyway.

[Mill seems to miss the point of the objection (so might the original makers of it) and think that how things are from a non-moral, 'objective' point of view is how things really are.  But it ain't necessarily so.]

Society is natural, necessary, and habitual.

"Society between equals can only exist on the understanding that the interests of all are to be regarded equally."

[So we have self-interested reasons for regarding others as our equals.]

CHAPTER FOUR

The only proof that can be offered that something is desirable is that people actually desire it.

[Mill is often taken to think that 'desirable' means 'able to be desired', as if some people's desire for crack cocaine or child pornography or the elimination of all Jews meant that those things must be desirable.  But of course 'desirable' means 'such as ought to be desired' or 'desired by right thinking people'.  I think Mill knows this and is not making a stupid mistake.  He means that he can't prove to us that happiness is desirable except by appealing to our belief that it is so.  "You want proof that happiness is desirable?  Well, don't you desire it?  Do you regard that desire as on a par with a crack addict's desire for crack?  No?  Well, there's nothing more I can say."  Something like that.]             

Each person desires their own happiness, therefore the general happiness is "a good to the aggregate of all persons."

[Just because each of us wants the banana (or the general happiness), it does not follow that we want all of us together to have it.  We might be purely selfish, or even hostile to other people.  Again, I think Mill knows this.  He believes that good people identify their own interests with those of the whole society (see above) and that in future more and more people will see things this way.  Those that do will value the general good.  His critics say he is just not thinking straight on this point.]     

Mill's doctrine "maintains not only that virtue is to be desired, but that it is to be desired disinterestedly, for itself."

It is not an end in itself (only happiness is) but it should be regarded as such (because the belief that it is tends to promote happiness).  

Virtue is part of happiness, i.e. one of the things that make for a high grade of existence. It is thus like music or health--to have these things is to be happy.

The only way to get someone to care about ethics is to make them "think of it in a pleasurable light."

The ONLY thing we desire as an end in itself is happiness, so only happiness CAN be willed as an ultimate end.

CHAPTER FIVE

We might have a natural sense of justice, but a natural feeling is not always a good feeling (i.e. one that we should act on).

"It would always give us pleasure, and chime in with our feelings of fitness, that acts which we deem unjust should be punished, though we do not always think it expedient that this should be done by the tribunals."

"Wrong" means deserving of punishment by law, public opinion, or conscience.

"Duty is a thing which may be exacted from a person, as one exacts a debt.  ...  Reasons of prudence, or the interest of other people, may militate against actually exacting it; but the person himself, it is clearly understood, would not be entitled to complain."

Duties of perfect obligation (things one must do all the time) correspond with rights, and this is what justice is all about.

The rest of duty is duties of imperfect obligation (i.e. things one must do only some of the time): duties of gratitude and beneficence.

"Justice implies something which it is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but which some individual person can claim from us as his moral right."

The feeling of justice is the desire to punish those who do wrong plus the belief that some definite individual or individuals have been harmed.

"To have a right ... is ... to have something which society ought to defend me in the possession of."

Why?  General utility.

Justice is about rules concerning "the essentials of human well-being."  Peace requires social feelings, social feelings require some non-interference by others (i.e. freedom), so freedom (rights) is essential to peace and happiness.

But the protection of individual rights is not an absolute value.  "[T]o save a life, it may not only be allowable, but a duty, to steal, or take by force, the necessary food or medicine, or to kidnap, and compel to officiate the only qualified medical practitioner."