Mill, Chapter II
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Stenberg
Mill, Utilitarianism, Chapter II
I. Terms and Ideas
A. The Greatest Happiness Principle: “actions are right in proportion as they tend to
promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (p.365).
A morally good action is one that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest
number.
B. Happiness: “pleasure and the absence of pain”.
1. But we’ll have to see what Mill really means by “pleasure” – because it’s
demonstrably not the same as what Bentham (seemed) to mean.
C. Basis of the Theory: “pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable
as ends”; all other things are desirable as “means to the promotion of pleasure and the
prevention of pain” (p.365, my italics).
D. Utilitarianism: The ethical theory based on the greatest happiness principle (the
principle of utility), in which the rightness or wrongness of actions is determined by
the consequences of those actions—specifically, whether or not the action produces
the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
II. Pleasure and Pain
A. Mill uses the same language as Bentham when talking about the “happiness” at the
center of the Principle of Utility: i.e., he says it means pleasure (and the absence of
pain). But we can no longer ignore the question of what, exactly, utilitarians mean by
“happiness”.
1. So, what does it mean for Bentham?
a. People generally accept that happiness, for Bentham, is solely a matter of the
amount of pleasure (which, again, includes the absence of pain) one has.
b. What is abundantly clear is that Bentham did not distinguish between types (or
qualities) of pleasure. Pleasure is a single category; pleasures differ only
quantitatively, i.e., a pleasurable experience can be more or less pleasurable
than another—but it can never be qualitatively better or worse.
2. What else might we mean by “happiness”?
a. Perhaps “pleasurable”, in the sense of a feeling of satisfaction.
b. A tranquil contentment? A sense of accomplishment?
3. What does it mean for Mill?
a. Right off the bat, Mill raises the “crude” criticism of utilitarianism: “Now
such a theory of life excites in many minds … inveterate dislike. To suppose
that life has … no higher end than pleasure—no better and nobler object of
desire and pursuit—they designate as utterly mean and groveling, as a
doctrine worthy only of swine” (p.365).
b. The critic is suggesting that by focusing on pleasure as the highest good,
utilitarianism reduces human life to something no better than a pig’s life—
which they find utterly degrading to human beings.
c. How does Mill respond? By claiming that it is the critic who is treating
humans in a degrading manner, for this objection is only damning if one
assumes that humans are capable of no greater pleasures than pigs.
d. Although, even if that were actually true, it still really wouldn’t be an
objection, because “if the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to
human beings and to swine, the rule of life which is good enough for the one
would be good enough for the other” (p.365).
e. Mill, of course, thinks that it’s not true. Thus, what the criticism actually
points out is that we all believe humans to be capable of experiencing
pleasures that pigs cannot experience (i.e., that pigs are incapable of
experiencing).
f. Why are we capable of experiencing more pleasures? Because we can
experience different types of pleasures. Or, more precisely, we can experience
pleasures which are qualitatively better than all the pleasures a pig can
experience.
g. That quality should be important when considering pleasures Mill takes as
almost obvious: “It would be absurd that, while in estimating all other things
quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasure should be
supposed to depend on quantity alone” (p.366).
B. So, pleasures (for Mill) can differ both in quantity and quality.
1. What are (at least some of) these qualitatively superior pleasures then?
a. For Mill, they are just those pleasures that engage our “higher faculties”—i.e.,
our minds.
b. They are intellectual pleasures, though not of some limited kind (e.g.,
studying philosophy), but generally: those pleasures that involve our intellect,
that rely on the fact that we can think, reason, reflect, judge, contemplate,
love; appreciate art & science, beauty & virtue, liberty & independence &
dignity; etc.
c. So reading philosophy is an intellectual pleasure (well, assuming you take it to
be pleasurable in the first place ), but so is, say, having a casual
conversation with your best friend—because you engage your mind when
having that casual conversation.
d. Mill is so convinced that the intellectual pleasures are better than the physical
pleasures that he refers to the former as the higher pleasures and the latter as
the lower pleasures. And, for Mill, we cannot help but prefer the higher to the
lower pleasures.
e. A famous line: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig
satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied” (p.367).
2. But how does Mill know that the ‘pleasures of the intellect’ are the higher
pleasures? For that matter, how do we ever decide that one pleasure is
qualitatively better than another?
a. Answer: The ‘competent judges’ decide.
b. Who are the competent judges?
c. Simple: those who have experienced both pleasures (if we’re deciding
between two). That is, if you have experienced both pleasures in question,
you are a competent judge—there’s nothing elitist in Mill’s notion of a
competent judge.
d. Everyone will be competent to make some judgments, but not others. I, for
example, am not competent to judge which is better between reading Mill or
going skydiving—because I have never been skydiving.
e. So how does one pleasure get designated as qualitatively better than another?
f. All the competent judges weigh in, and whichever pleasure they (or the
majority of them if they disagree—Mill is very democratic about it) would
prefer—those are the better pleasures.
g. And Mill is quite certain that those who have experience both of physical
pleasures and intellectual pleasures will generally prefer the latter. (It’s
important to note, though, that even if he is wrong about this, his method for
sorting pleasures—ask the competent judges—could still be a valid method
for making the decision.)
III. Objections & Replies
A. Now that the basic utilitarian position is clear, Mill spends the rest of Chapter II
responding to various possible objections to utilitarianism. This is useful for two
reasons:
1. First, responding to objections allows Mill to further refine his vision of
utilitarianism. That is, the objections and his replies will make his picture of
utilitarianism clearer.
2. Second, responding to objections makes his case for utilitarianism stronger,
because he is identifying and defeating possible reasons for rejecting the
utilitarian theory.
B. Happiness is unattainable. (Pp.368-371).
1. The Objection: Happiness cannot be the end (i.e., goal or purpose) of human
life (and hence the basis of moral action) because happiness is unattainable.
2. The Reply: There are three stages to Mill’s reply, each more important than
the one before it.
a. (I) First of all, Mill grants that if happiness is unattainable, then it cannot
be the basis for moral action – but even if that were so, we could still say
something in favor of utility, viz., that it at least favors minimizing pain
and suffering.
b. (II) More importantly, though, Mill claims that the objection is at the very
least an exaggeration: “If by happiness be meant a continuity of highly
pleasurable excitement, it is evident enough that this is impossible”
(p.368), but that’s not what the utilitarian means by happiness.
c. Happiness is made up of many and fleeting moments; it is a happy life if
such moments outweigh the moments of pain. In fact, a happy life can
very well be one made up mostly of mild contentment, perhaps with
occasional instances of true excitement.
d. (III) Most importantly, however, is the fact that many people do live
without happiness—but this fact in no way imperils utilitarianism.
e. “Unquestionably it is possible to do without happiness; it is done
involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind …; and it often has to be
done voluntarily by the hero or the martyr…” (p.370).
f. But why does the hero or martyr sacrifice her own happiness, if not to
secure the happiness of others? Important: Mill acknowledges the
possibility of acting against one’s own self-interest—he is clearly not an
ethical egoist (someone who believes that ethics is based on self-interest).
g. In such cases, though, the only end worth giving up one’s own happiness
for is the happiness of others, i.e., the greater good. To sacrifice one’s
happiness for something other than the happiness of others may be
possible, but is not what people should do.
h. “I must again repeat what the assailants of utilitarianism seldom have the
justice to acknowledge, that the happiness which forms the utilitarian
standard of what is right in conduct is not the agent’s own happiness but
that of all concerned” (p.370). You must be impartial between your own
happiness and that of others—all that matters is the maximizing.
C. Utilitarianism’s standards are too high. (Pp.371-372).
1. The Objection: Consider the end of the previous reply: that leads to this
objection, viz., that utilitarianism demands too much of people. For it is
simply unreasonable to require people to always act with the intent of
maximizing happiness, i.e., with the purpose of promoting the general
good.
2. The Reply: Mill’s reply involves a very important distinction: between the
rule of action and the motive of action.
a. “It is the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test
we may know them; but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive
of all we do shall be a feeling of duty; on the contrary, ninety-nine
hundredths of all our actions are done from other motives, and rightly so
done if the rule of duty does not condemn them” (p.371).
b. An ethical theory like utilitarianism tells us what it is right to do; it gives
us the rule of action.
c. But the reason for an action, i.e., the motive behind it, need not be (and
most often is not) because morality demands it. (Example: saving a
drowning man is morally right, even if you do it only to get a reward.)
d. Put another way: what makes an action right can be different from the
reason we perform the action.
e. Most of the time the best we’ll be able to do is try to maximize the
happiness of those near to us. But that’s perfectly fine, if we’re doing
what utilitarianism demands of us.
D. Utilitarianism makes people “cold and unsympathizing”. (P.372).
1. The Objection: Being concerned with consequences, utilitarianism would
seem to make us disregard everything about a person (e.g., that she is caring,
kind, empathetic, honest, intelligent, etc., etc.) but the consequences of her
actions. We become cold calculators of ends, disregarding everything else
that may be good (or bad) about a person.
2. The Reply: The critic is wrongly supposing that the only thing about other
people that matters to us is the rightness or wrongness of their actions.
a. Of course, a utilitarian could make this mistake, viz., care only about the
rightness or wrongness of actions, with no regard for the various qualities
of the person in question.
b. But, first of all, this is not unique to utilitarianism: any moralist could
focus exclusively on others’ conformity to the rules of right action, and
disregard their character, their worth as persons.
c. And, secondly, one need not make this mistake. One can be a utilitarian—
recognizing that the rightness or wrongness of actions are determined by
the consequences of those actions—and still recognize that there are other
things about people that matter to us.
d. We may like a person because he is caring, empathetic, or heroic. But
those qualities don’t make his actions right.
e. Similarly, just because someone’s actions are right does not mean that he
is likable. For example, the surgeon who (rightly) saves people’s lives
might be a greedy jerk, in it only for the money.
E. Utilitarianism advocates the “expedient”, rather than the right, action. (Pp.373-
374).
1. The Objection: Rather than advocating acting on principle, utilitarianism
just tells us to do whatever, in the moment, will produce happy results.
2. The Reply: The critic is using “expedient” in the sense of “immediately
beneficial for the agent him- or herself”—taking the easy way out. Which is
not, of course, what utilitarianism advocates.
a. Doing what is immediately/momentarily of benefit to oneself will often go
against doing what maximizes (overall) happiness.
b. For example, telling an “expedient” lie could get one out of an awkward or
sticky situation, but may ultimately undermine overall happiness (if, say, it
tends to produce a world in which people can no longer trust one another).
c. The response here also suggests a later development in utilitarianism: The
difference between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism.
i. Act utilitarianism is pretty much the type of utilitarianism we’ve
been assuming all along (and that probably best describes Mill’s
view): Individual actions are judged to be right or wrong to the
extent that they maximize happiness.
ii. In rule utilitarianism, by contrast, we use the principle of utility to
determine which rules are most likely to maximize happiness, in
general. Then we follow the rules (though with room for
exceptions).
F. We have no time to perform the calculations of utility that the theory demands
before we must act. (Pp.374-375).
1. The Objection: It is impossible to perform all the necessary calculations of
utility in a moment of action; i.e., we must act now, without the time to
laboriously determine which action will produce the greatest happiness.
2. The Reply: That assumes that we have no idea what sorts of actions tend to
promote happiness—as though we’re starting from scratch.
a. But, of course, we’re not starting from scratch. We’ve had millennia to
learn (and pass down to others) which actions tend to promote the greater
good.
b. My favorite line from Mill: “There is no difficulty in proving any ethical
standard whatever to work ill if we suppose universal idiocy to be
conjoined with it…” (p.374).
c. There is room to improve, of course, but it is foolish to object to
utilitarianism from the standpoint of total ignorance. We already know a
great deal about what actions produce happiness and what actions do not.