However, this response would oversimplify matters. As mentioned before, Mill maintains that hedonism is the differentia specifica of utilitarianism; if he were not a hedonist, he would be no utilitarian by his own definition. His view of theory of life was monistic: There is one thing, and one thing only, that is intrinsically desirable, namely pleasure. In contrast to a form of hedonism that conceives pleasure as a homogeneous matter, Mill was convinced that some types of pleasure are more valuable than others in virtue of their inherent qualities.
Many philosophers hold that qualitative hedonism is no consistent position. Hedonism asserts that pleasure is the only intrinsic value. Under this assumption, the critics argue, there can be no evaluative basis for the distinction between higher and lower pleasures.
Probably the first ones to raise this common objection were the British idealists F. Which inherent qualities make one kind of pleasure better than another, according to Mill? These enjoyments make use of highly developed capacities, like judgment and empathy. This seems to be a surprising thing to say for a hedonist. However, Mill thought that we have a solid empirical basis for this view.
According to him, the best obtainable evidence for value claims consists in what all or almost all people judge as valuable across a vast variety of cases and cultures. This partly explains why he put such great emphasis on education. Until the s, the significance of the chapter had been largely overlooked. It then became one of the bridgeheads of a revisionist interpretation of Mill, which is associated with the work of David Lyons, John Skorupski and others.
Mill worked very hard to hammer the fifth chapter into shape and his success has great meaning for him. At the beginning of Utilitarianism, Mill postulates that moral judgments presume rules CW 10, In contrast to Kant who grounds his ethical theory on self-imposed rules, so-called maxims, Mill thinks that morality builds on social rules.
But what makes social rules moral rules? He maintains that we name a type of action morally wrong if we think that it should be sanctioned either through formal punishment, public disapproval external sanctions or through a bad conscience internal sanctions. Wrong or inexpedient actions are those that we cannot recommend to a person, like harming oneself.
But in contrast to immoral actions, inexpedient actions are not worthy of being sanctioned. Mill differentiates various spheres of action. The principle of utility governs not only morality, but also prudence and taste CW 8, It is not a moral principle but a meta-principle of practical reason Skorupski , But there are also fields of action, in which sanctions for wrong behavior would be inappropriate. One of them is the sphere of self-regarding acts with which Mill deals in On Liberty. In this private sphere we can act at our convenience and indulge in inexpedient and utterly useless behavior as long as we do not harm others.
It is fundamental to keep in mind that Mill looks into morality as a social practice and not as autonomous self-determination by reason, like Kant. For Kantians, moral deliberation determines those actions which we have the most reason to perform. According to Mill, our moral obligations result from the justified part of the moral code of our society; and the task of moral philosophy consists in bringing the moral code of a society in better accordance with the principle of utility.
In Utilitarianism, Mill designs the following model of moral deliberation. In the first step the actor should examine which of the rules secondary principles in the moral code of his or her society are pertinent in the given situation. If in a given situation moral rules secondary principles conflict, then and only then can the second step invoke the formula of utility CW 10, as a first principle. Pointedly one could say: the principle of utility is for Mill not a component of morality, but instead its basis.
It serves the validation of rightness for our moral system and allows — as a meta-rule — the decision of conflicting norms. The tacit influence of the principle of utility made sure that a considerable part of the moral code of our society is justified promotes general well-being. But other parts are clearly unjustified.
One case that worried Mill deeply was the role of women in Victorian Britain. Moral rules are also critical for Mill because he takes human action in essence as to be guided by dispositions.
A virtuous person has the disposition to follow moral rules. He repeats this point in his System of Logic and Utilitarianism :. CW 10, and 8, It is one thing to say that it could have optimal consequences and thus be objectively better to break a moral rule in a concrete singular case. Another is the question as to whether it would facilitate happiness to educate humans such that they would have the disposition to maximize situational utility. Mill answers the latter in the negative. Again, the upshot is that education matters.
Humans are guided by acquired dispositions. This makes moral degeneration, but also moral progress possible. There is considerable disagreement as to whether Mill should be read as a rule utilitarian or an indirect act utilitarian. Many philosophers look upon rule utilitarianism as an untenable position and favor an act utilitarian reading of Mill Crisp Under the pressure of many contradicting passages, however, a straightforward act utilitarian interpretation is difficult to sustain.
In Utilitarianism he seems to give two different formulations of the utilitarian standard. The first points in an act utilitarian, the second in a rule utilitarian direction. Since act and rule utilitarianism are incompatible claims about what makes actions morally right, the formulations open up the fundamental question concerning what style of utilitarianism Mill wants to advocate and whether his moral theory forms a consistent whole.
Thus Mill is not to blame for failing to make explicit which of the two approaches he advocates. In the first and more famous formulation of the utilitarian standard First Formula Mill states:. 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. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said …. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded…. Just a few pages later, following his presentation of qualitative hedonism, Mill gives his second formulation Second Formula :.
According to the Greatest Happiness Principle … the ultimate end … is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality; ….
This, being, according to the utilitarian opinion, the end of human action, is necessarily also the standard of morality ; which may accordingly be defined, the rules and precepts for human conduct , by the observance of which an existence such as has been described might be, to the greatest extent possible, secured to all mankind; and not to them only, but, so far as the nature of things admits, to the whole sentient creation.
CW, , emphasis mine. The Second Formula relates the principle of utility to rules and precepts and not to actions. It seems to say that an act is correct when it corresponds to rules whose preservation increases the mass of happiness in the world. And this appears to be a rule-utilitarian conception. In the light of these passages, it is not surprising that the question whether Mill is an act- or a rule-utilitarian has been intensely debated.
In order to understand his position it is important to differentiate between two ways of defining act and rule utilitarianism. An action is objectively right if it is the thing which the agent has most reason to do. Act utilitarianism would say that an action is objectively right, if it actually promotes happiness. For rule utilitarianism, in contrast, an action would be objectively right, if it actually corresponds to rules that promote happiness. Act utilitarianism requires us to aim for the maximization of happiness; rule utilitarianism, in contrast, requires us to observe rules that facilitate happiness.
Understood as a theory about moral obligation, act utilitarianism postulates: Act in a way that promotes happiness the most. Rule utilitarianism claims, on the other hand: Follow a rule whose general observance promotes happiness the most. Mill is in regard to i an act utilitarian and in regard to ii a rule utilitarian. This way the seeming contradiction between the First and the Second Formula can be resolved.
The First Formula states what is right and what an agent has most reason to do. In contrast, the Second Formula tells us what our moral obligations are. We are morally obliged to follow those social rules and precepts the observance of which promotes happiness in the greatest extent possible.
Whewell claimed that utilitarianism permits murder and other crimes in particular circumstances and is therefore incompatible with our considered moral judgments. Take, for example, the case of murder. There are many persons to kill whom would be to remove men who are a cause of no good to any human being, of cruel physical and moral suffering to several, and whose whole influence tends to increase the mass of unhappiness and vice. Were such a man to be assassinated, the balance of traceable consequences would be greatly in favour of the act.
CW 10, Mill gives no concrete case. Since he wrote — together with his wife Harriet Taylor —a couple of articles on horrible cases of domestic violence in the early s, he might have had the likes of Robert Curtis Bird in mind, a man who tortured his servant Mary Ann Parsons to death [see CW 25 The Case of Mary Ann Parsons , ].
Mill answers in the negative. People should follow the rule not to kill other humans because the general observance of this rule tends to promote the happiness of all. This argument can be interpreted in a rule utilitarian or an indirect act utilitarian fashion. Along indirect act utilitarian lines, one could maintain that we would be cognitively overwhelmed by the task of calculating the consequences of any action.
We therefore need rules as touchstones that point us to the path of action which tends to promote the greatest general happiness. Just as the Nautical Almanack is not first calculated at sea, but instead exists as already calculated, the agent must not in individual cases calculate the expected utility.
In his moral deliberation the agent can appeal to secondary principles, such as the prohibition of homicide, as an approximate solution for the estimated problem. Apparently, the act utilitarian interpretation finds further support in a letter Mill wrote to John Venn in He states:.
I agree with you that the right way of testing actions by their consequences, is to test them by their natural consequences of the particular actions, and not by those which would follow if everyone did the same. But, for the most part, considerations of what would happen if everyone did the same, is the only means we have of discovering the tendency of the act in the particular case.
His first chapter serves as an introduction to the essay. In his second chapter, Mill discusses the definition of utilitarianism, and presents some misconceptions about the theory.
The third chapter is a discussion about the ultimate sanctions or rewards that utilitarianism can offer. The fourth chapter discusses methods of proving the validity of utilitarianism. In his fifth chapter, Mill writes about the connection between justice and utility, and argues that happiness is the foundation of justice. John Stuart Mill. Karl Britton - - Philosophy 45 The Methods of Ethics. Henry Sidgwick - - International Journal of Ethics 1 1 Mill and the Diversity of Utilitarianism.
Daniel Jacobson - - Philosophers' Imprint Indirect Utility and Fundamental Rights. John Gray - - Social Philosophy and Policy 1 2 Taiwo A. Oriola - - Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 37 4 Mill's 'Proof' of Utility and the Composition of Causes.
Fred Wilson - - Journal of Business Ethics 2 2 - Editions, , Pp. Smith - - Utilitas 8 1 A Comment on Mill's Argument for Utilitarianism. On Millgram on Mill. Dale E. Hence, utility is a teleological principle. This once again raises some of the same basic issues of associated with hedonism, as discussed in the earlier section on Teleological Theories. Recall that a hedonist believes that the good life consists solely in the pursuit and experience of pleasure or happiness.
The feelings of pleasure and pain are biological events involving our central nervous system, which are controlled by our cerebral cortex. We obviously experience pleasure when we perform certain acts that fulfill biological functions such as eating, drinking, and having sex.
We also experience pleasure when we perform certain intellectual activities, such as reading a philosophy textbook, playing guitar, or drawing a picture. We sometimes, but not always, experience pleasure when we do the right thing.
Conversely, we experience pain when these functions are left unfulfilled. Many utilitarians believe that pleasure and pain are objective states and can be, more or less, quantified. Hedonistic terms like intensity, duration, fecundity, and likelihood, imply that pleasure can be measured quantitatively, perhaps on a scale from , as part of a hedonistic calculus.
If you are a hedonist, the most important question is: "Whose pleasure counts the most? Therefore, the "Good" increases the number of persons experiencing pleasure among members of a specific group. The "Bad" increases the number of persons experiencing pain. There are several interesting problems here.
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