University of Kansas, Fall 2002
Philosophy 672: History of Ethics
Ben Eggleston
Class notes: Mill
The following notes correspond
roughly to what we cover, including at least a portion of what I put on the
board or the screen, in class. In places they may be more or less comprehensive than what we
actually cover in class, and should not be taken as a substitute for your own
observations and records of what goes on in class.
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chapter 1: “General Remarks”
- 1.1: some laments about the lack of progress in moral philosophy. One
thing to notice is Mill’s claim that Socrates “asserted . . . the theory of
utilitarianism.” This is the first of several places in which Mill claim a
prestigious pedigree for utilitarianism, and it should be noted that not every
one of these references is terribly strongly supported by the most natural
readings of the texts in question.
- 1.2: distinction between arts, such as ethics and politics, and sciences
- the importance of “first principles” in the former while being practically
afterthoughts in the latter
- Mill refers to English law’s being “full of fictions.” This is because the
English law, indeed the whole English legal system, was absurdly complicated.
(Dickens, a contemporary of Mill, ridicules it in his novel Bleak House,
published in 1851–53.)
- 1.3: the intuitive school vs. the inductive school
- To understand this conflict, it helps to think in terms of three levels of
moral judgments or principles.
- judgments about particular cases (e.g., “It was wrong of our
representative to vote for that bill”)
- moral rules pertaining to certain classes of cases, underwriting judgments
about particular cases (e.g., “It is wrong to lie,” “It is wrong to steal,”
“It is wrong to vote against your constituents’ interests”)
- a “first principle” underwriting all moral rules and, when conflicts among
them arise, specifying which shall take precedence (e.g., “You always ought to
do whatever will promote happiness the most”)
- What distinguishes intuitionists from inductivists is that the former
think that moral judgments are evident a priori (i.e., evident as true as soon
as their meanings are comprehended), whereas inductivists (such as Mill) think
that moral knowledge, like other kinds of knowledge, comes only from
observation and experience.
- Mill’s chief complaint about intuitionists is that they are content once
they have some moral rules, and do not seek a first principle underlying them
(or, when they do seek a first principle, it’s less compelling than the rules
it’s meant to explain). Mill, in contrast, thinks that you need a first
principle, in order to deal with conflicts that may arise among your moral
rules.
- One problem with Mill’s argument here (discussed more fully in Crisp’s
notes): one could be an intuitionist, in the sense of thinking that moral
knowledge is based on intuition rather than experience; and still agree with
Mill that you need a first principle and should not be content with a
plurality of general rules; and one could reject Mill’s structural point
(about the need for a first principle) and be an inductivist. So, really, Mill
is here criticizing both those who hold a certain thesis about basis of moral
knowledge and those who hold a certain thesis about the need (or lack thereof)
for a first principle. These are two independent (though partially
overlapping) targets that it would have been nice for Mill to distinguish.
- 1.4: the tacit influence of utilitarianism
- Mill now continues the line of thought begun in 1.1 and 1.2, where he
lamented the lack of progress in the development of moral knowledge, and he
now considers how badly off we all are due to this lack of progress. The
answer? Not much, because the connection between morality and happiness,
insisted on by utilitarianism, is also present in most common-sense morality.
- He also takes a shot at Kant, which we’ll come back to when we get to
Kant.
- Notice that Mill is here gently preparing his readers for his arguments in
favor of utilitarianism, by saying, in effect, “Hey, most people are already
pretty much utilitarians, at least implicitly!”
- 1.5: of what sort of proof we can expect
- Mill points out that if someone says that one thing is good because it
leads to another, then, if we agree that the second thing is good, then we
have a pretty strong reason to regard the first thing as good: it’s an
instrumental for achieving the second thing, which is already agreed to be
good. But if someone (e.g., Mill, in the chapters to come), asserts an entire
package of values as good, not as instrumentally good but as containing all
that one would ever want to aim at, then the same sort of instrumental
argument is not available, and we shouldn’t blame Mill for its absence.
- Here Mill is trying to navigate a narrow strait he’s gotten himself into:
he’s already criticized the intuitionists for being willing to accept moral
principles without requiring them to be proved in any meaningful way; but he
himself knows that the “proof” of utilitarianism he’ll be offering—which he
characterizes as “considerations capable of determining the intellect”—will
not be as rigorous as, say, a scientific proof or, especially, a mathematical
proof. So here he’s saying, in effect, “O.k., I’ve slammed the intuitionists
for not giving real proofs. But don’t be too strict when you judge my
proof, because there is a limit as to how rigorous an ethical proof can be.”
- 1.6: most of Mill’s efforts to be devoted to explaining utilitarianism, on
the assumption that the main reason for opposition to it is misunderstanding
of it
- chapter 2: “What Utilitarianism Is,” paragraphs 1–18
- 2.1–2: the core idea of utilitarianism: what makes actions right is their
contribution to happiness (and the elimination of unhappiness), happiness
being understood in terms of pleasure.
- 2.3–9: the “doctrine worthy only of swine” objection and Mill’s reply
- A common objection to utilitarianism is that it’s a doctrine “worthy only
of swine,” since it says that “life has no higher end than pleasure” (2.3).
- In response, Mill says that there are distinct replies available to the
utilitarian, each sufficient by itself (2.4)
- First, there is the fact that, because of the ways in which humans and
pigs are differently constituted, what humans need to enjoy themselves, and to
be happy, is quite different from what pigs need. Moreover, the mental
pleasures, which humans but not pigs, are capable of experiencing, are more
permanent, safer, less expensive, and so on, than the bodily pleasures are. So
for a variety of “circumstantial” reasons, utilitarianism does not recommend
that humans treat themselves like swine—even though it recommends that humans
make their lives, as well as the lives of swine, as pleasant as possible. (This is the reply that is implicit
in earlier utilitarian works, such as Jeremy Bentham’s 1789 An Introduction
to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.)
- Second, there is the “higher ground”: the claim that some pleasures are
“more desirable” and “more valuable” and of a different “quality” than others.
How do you tell when two pleasures differ in quality? One pleasure is “more
desirable” than another if the majority of those who have experienced both
decidedly prefer one to another, irrespective of any feeling of moral
obligation to prefer it (2.5). (For some reason Crisp says, on p. 37, that
Mill has in mind the stronger condition expressed in the latter part of 2.5
(having to do with “any amount”). But this condition seems to pertain to a stronger difference
than a mere difference in quality.) And, Mill claims, people with a wide range
of experiences do tend to prefer mental pleasures over bodily ones (2.6–7).
This last result is important for Mill because he wants to show that if you use
his doctrine of higher and lower pleasures, you end up regarding, as the higher
pleasures, precisely those that need to be privileged in order to answer the
“doctrine worthy only of swine” objection.
- Mill’s discussion of pleasures’ differing in quality is one of the most
problematic passages in the whole book.
- First, it is unclear what Mill means by the idea of one pleasure’s
being “more desirable” or “more valuable” or of a different “quality” from
another. He gives us a test for how to tell when this is the case, but what
this test refers to—the preferences of people with certain
qualifications—presumably is not constitutive of the difference. For an
analogy to clarify this point, think about the task of distinguishing two
other things, such as water and gasoline. One test for distinguishing them is
to put a lighted match in each: the water will put the match out, and the
gasoline will blow up. (So it’s an extremely dangerous test, but it’s still a
test.) But this test doesn’t tell us much about how water and gasoline really
differ; that is, what this test refers to is not (entirely) constitutive of
the difference between water and gasoline. Similarly, the test that Mill
refers to, for distinguishing pleasures of different qualities, presumably
does not explain what constitutes the difference he’s getting at; it only
tells us how to detect that difference.
- Second, even if we set aside the first problem, Mill seems, in taking this
“higher ground,” to be compromising his commitment to the idea that happiness,
understood as pleasure, is the only ultimately valuable thing. This is a
standard criticism, made by Mill’s close successors in the utilitarian
tradition as well as pretty much continually since then.
- In 1874, just 13 years after Mill’s Utilitarianism was first
published, Henry Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics was published. There
(specifically, in book I, chapter vii, section 2, paragraph 2) Sidgwick
(himself a utilitarian) argues that “in order to work out consistently the
method that takes pleasure as the sole ultimate end of rational conduct, . . .
all qualitative comparison of pleasures must really resolve itself into
quantitative.” If you introduce other considerations that are not taken into
account in regarding some experiences as more pleasant than others (i.e., not
taken into account in a purely quantitative way), then
you’re no longer a consistent proponent of happiness, understood as pleasure,
as the sole end. Mill should either stick to this sole end, and be consistent
about it, or ’fess up and admit that he has other priorities than just
happiness, understood simply as pleasure.
- Then, in 1903, G. E. Moore’s Principia Ethica was published. There
(specifically, in sections 47 and 48), he praises Sidgwick for rejecting
Mill’s doctrine, and launches into pretty vigorous attack of his own. The gist
of his attack is similar to Sidgwick’s, in arguing that Mill is faced with a
dilemma: when we apply Mill’s test and find that people prefer one pleasure to
another in the way that Mill specifies, then either (1) we are just finding
out that one pleasure is more pleasant—differs in quantity—from the other; or
(2) we are finding out that although the preferred one is not more pleasant
than the other (in a quantitative way), it is anyway somehow better than that more pleasant one. If
Mill takes the first option, then—as Sidgwick urged—differences in quality
resolve themselves into differences in quantity, and we have no need for
Mill’s elaborate complications (i.e., the old, purely quantitative approach
works just fine); and if Mill takes the second option, then he’s
admitting that there’s more going on, when it comes to things’ being valuable,
than just pleasure (in which case Mill should just come out and say what he
has in mind).
- Roger Crisp, in his introduction to our edition of Mill’s
Utilitarianism (and in his separately published commentary on the book),
offers a helpful way of thinking about this objection to Mill’s account, with
his example of the life of the oyster and the life of Joseph Haydn. Crisp also
refers to Nozick’s experience machine, which is apt here.
- 2.10: Mill says that whatever is “the end of human action” “is necessarily
also the standard of morality.” Here is a fairly abstract statement by Mill of
his commitment to consequentialism: morality, he’s saying, is a function of
the consequences of actions.
- 2.11–18: some more objections and replies
- 2.11: two objections
- Happiness is unattainable.
- Happiness can be renounced, and must be, in order to be virtuous.
- 2.12–14: reply to the unattainability objection: If happiness were
unattainable, then we’d have all the more reason to lessen unhappiness,
as utilitarianism also recommends. But happiness is attainable, to many people
now; and it can be made attainable to more people in the future, through
favorable social developments.
- 2.15–18: reply to the renunciation objection: The only virtue to be found
in the renunciation of happiness is found in those instances of it that
increase the happiness of others. Renouncing happiness, for no reason
connected with increasing others’ happiness, is just a waste.
- Note, in 2.18, that Mill says “In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we
read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility.” Here is another place
(like 1.1, with its reference to Socrates) in which Mill tries to claim strong
a grounding for utilitarianism in the history of prominent ethical thought.
- The claim about the golden rule is sometimes also read as a rebuttal to
Dickens, who in Hard Times (1854) sets up an opposition between
the morality of utilitarianism and that of the golden rule.
- chapter 2, paragraphs 19–25
- 2.19: the demandingness objection and Mill’s reply
- The objection—and it is a common one, even today—is that utilitarianism is
unreasonably demanding, since it requires people to act from the motive of
maximizing overall happiness.
- Mill’s reply has two parts:
- What utilitarianism requires is not anything about the motive from which
one acts, but something about one’s intention, or what one foresees will be
the results of one’s conduct. So you can act from selfish motives, and still
act rightly, as long as
you believe that you are doing the act that a person motivated by
utilitarianism would do.
- Utilitarianism does not require that a person try to make himself a
“public benefactor”—one who bestows great benefits on the world at large—but
only that he try to improve the lot of the individuals in his vicinity.
- 2.20–21: the coldness objection and Mill’s reply
- It may be objected that utilitarianism encourages people to look on the
world as one giant math problem, with something (the sum total of utility) to
be maximized, and that utilitarianism thus renders people cold and unfeeling
towards one another.
- Mill replies by emphasizing the difference between the evaluation of an
act and the evaluation of someone’s character. The fact that utilitarianism
requires utility-maximizing does not mean that it cannot also recognize the
value of a virtuous character. Of course, utilitarians will understand the
virtues as those dispositions that tend to maximize utility, but this will
include many “warm” things like love, loyalty, friendship, compassion, etc.
- 2.22: the “godless” objection and Mill’s reply
- It may be objected that utilitarianism is “a godless doctrine.”
- In reply, Mill considers several interpretations of this accusation.
- If it means that utilitarianism requires people to act contrary to the
will of God, then this the accusation is false, as long as we understand God as wishing for
people to be happy.
- If it means that utilitarianism does not recognize the revealed will of
God as giving people the moral law, then the accusation is false, insofar as utilitarians
are fully confident that the revealed will of God just is the utilitarian
theory.
- If it means that utilitarian theorists usurp the role of God as the only
source of moral insight, then the accusation is false, insofar as utilitarians may
acknowledge that God’s insight is needed in order to discern the consequences
of actions.
- 2.23: the expediency objection and Mill’s reply
- It may be objected that utilitarianism favors “expediency” over
“principle.”
- In reply, Mill notes that utilitarianism does not so favor expediency in
the sense of self-interest over others’ interest, or in the sense of
short-term benefit over long-term benefit. It favors expediency in the
broadest, most long-term sense. As a result, it urges compliance with
beneficial rules, such as rules against lying.
- 2.24: the shortage-of-time objection and Mill’s reply
- It may be objected that utilitarianism demands calculations more complex
than time normally allows.
- In reply, Mill points out that there are a lot of questions of
consequences whose answers are common knowledge and are implicit in the
“intermediate” principles of morality that are commonly followed. Three things
to notice about this reply:
- Mill does not think that, when you’re verifying the permissibility of your
conduct, you have to figure out all the consequences, and their values and
disvalues, from scratch. Rather, you can use rules of thumb and other pieces
of common sense.
- Mill does not think that conventional morality is in need of radical
overhaul. Rather, most of the rules of conventional morality offer pretty good
guidance towards acting morally, though some improvements are possible and
needed.
- Mill’s remarks are somewhat ambiguous between the following two
possibilities: (1) To act morally, one generally ought to think in terms of
utility, but ought to use rules of thumb to speed up one’s calculations, and
(2) To act morally, one generally ought not to think in terms of utility, but
ought to stick with common-sense moral rules (most of which do not refer to
utility).
- 2.25: the temptation objection and Mill’s reply
- It maybe objected that utilitarianism, by involving complex calculations,
affords scope for individuals to give unjustified priority to themselves over
others.
- In reply, Mill says that this is true of any moral theory that respects
the complexity of moral judgment. Moreover, at least utilitarianism offers a
definite standard for judging conduct, whereas other systems—such as those
espoused by intuitionists—leave much more latitude, and are more open to
manipulation and abuse. (Recall Mill’s criticism of intuitionism for not
having a “first principle” in 1.3.)
- chapter 3: “Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility”
- 3.1–2: Mill raises the question of how people might be motivated to comply
with the principle of utility, or to come to regard it as binding. A few
things to notice:
- When Mill asks, on line 3 of paragraph 3.1, “what is the source of its
obligation?” he is using ‘obligation’ in a different sense from that current
today. Mill means it in the sense of felt obligation: you could
paraphrase Mill’s question as “what is the source of any feeling of obligation
we might have regarding it?” Ordinarily we could say of someone, “He had an
obligation to help, but he didn’t think he did,” but in the same case Mill would
apparently say something like, “He should have had an obligation to help, but
he didn’t.” So Mill is talking here about how someone may come to feel that
they ought to comply with the principle of utility, not why it is true that
they ought to do so—this latter question is put off until chapter 4.
- Notice Mill’s references, on lines 15–17 of paragraph 3.1, to “corollaries” and “the
original theorem” and to “the superstructure” and “its foundation.” For
clarification of these notions recall the levels of moral thinking implicit in
paragraphs 1.2–3.
- Mill is concerned to add here, reasonably I think, that the problem he’s
discussing now is not unique to utilitarianism: any attempt to make more
explicit the
foundations of common-sense morality, as well as any attempt to overturn it,
is going to face the problem of how people are supposed to be motivated to
regard, as morally binding, some theory or principle they do not already
accept.
- 3.3–11: external and internal sanctions
- 3.3: external sanctions
- social: “hope of favour and fear of displeasure from our fellow
creatures” as well as sympathy or affection for them
- religious: likewise, mutatis mutandis, towards God
- 3.4–11: the internal sanction
- 3.4–6: its nature and operation
- 3.4: The internal sanction is, in a word, conscience.
- 3.5: Surely this sanction can operate in support of utilitarianism as much
as in support of any other moral theory.
- 3.6: It doesn’t have to be regarded as having its source outside the human
mind (e.g., in some “transcendental fact” about one’s duties) in order to
operate with full force.
- 3.7–8: its origin
- 3.7: If the internal sanction is innate, there is no reason why it should
not support utilitarianism as much as any other theory. (Indeed intuitionist
moralists already admit that happiness is morally important.)
- 3.8: If the internal sanction is not innate but acquired, then there is
all the more reason to think that it could be brought to operate in support of
utilitarianism.
- 3.9–11: its potential: The sentiments utilitarianism needs for its support
are perfectly natural, being grounded in the social feelings that humans
naturally have, and are bound to be strengthened as society progresses and all
individuals’ interests are brought into greater harmony.
- chapter 4: “Of What Sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible”
- 4.1–3: proof that happiness is desirable
- 4.1–2: on the connection between morality and desirability: Mill begins by
noting the difficulty of proving any theory of “ultimate ends”; here it is
appropriate to recall 1.5, where Mill tries to lower our expectations as to
what sort of proof might be available for his theory. He claims that what
someone proving a moral theory needs to show is that what that theory takes as
foundational is all that is (ultimately) desirable; so if he can show
that happiness (which utilitarianism, of course, takes as foundational) is all
that is desirable, then he will have provided as much of a proof of
utilitarianism as can be given in support of a moral theory.
- 4.3.1–5: the most notorious lines in the book
- Mill’s argument
- The only proof that something is visible is that people actually see it.
- The only proof that something is audible is that people actually hear it.
- Similarly, the only proof that something is desirable is that people
actually desire it.
- People desire happiness.
- Therefore, by 3 and 4, happiness is desirable. (It remains to be shown
that only happiness is desirable, but this is a start.)
- the problem: Mill uses the word ‘desirable’ ambiguously. Note that
‘desirable’ may be used descriptively—meaning something like ‘capable of being
desired’—or prescriptively—meaning something like ‘worthy of being desired’.
If ‘desirable’ in line 3 is supposed to be analogous to ‘visible‘ in line 1
and ‘audible’ in line 2, then it must be being used descriptively. But the
conclusion, in line 5, uses ‘desirable’ prescriptively, to declare that
happiness is worth desiring. This difference (prescriptive/descriptive) is
important because the fact that happiness is capable of being desired
does not mean that it is worthy of being desired.
- a possible solution: Maybe Mill doesn’t mean to suggest that capability of
being desired means worthiness of being desired. Maybe, instead, Mill
means that if something is capable of being desired, then that’s evidence that
it’s worthy of being desired. After all, as Mill suggests, what other evidence
could we have that happiness is worthy of being desired than that it is
capable of being desired (and is, in fact, desired)? Unfortunately Mill’s
argument is so briefly sketched that any charitable reconstruction is
necessarily speculative.
- 4.3.12–13: the second most notorious lines in the book
- Mill’s argument
- Each person’s happiness is a good (desirable, in the prescriptive sense)
to that person.
- Therefore, the general happiness is a good to the aggregate of all
persons.
- the problem: Mill’s argument exemplifies what is known as the fallacy
composition: inferring, from the fact that all of a set of individuals have
some property, that something composed of those individuals must have that
property as well. (Here the property would be that of one’s own happiness
being a good to one.)
- a possible solution: Maybe Mill doesn’t mean to suggest that an aggregate
of individuals all of whom have a certain property necessarily also has that
property. Maybe, as before, he means something more modest—like the claim that
when groups of people are concerned, the only way to figure out what’s good
for a group is to see what’s good for the individuals of which it’s composed.
This thought would not be so far-fetched if you’re quite an individualist, as
Mill was, and believe that all value ultimately resides in the lives of
individual beings rather than in, say, the arrangements and achievements of
groups such as cities or congregations.
- 4.4–12: proof that only happiness is desirable (i.e., ultimately
desirable)
- 4.4–8: Mill admits that other things (e.g., virtue) are desired (by many
people, at least) apparently for their own sake, as not as means to happiness.
In reply, he argues that things such as virtue are parts of happiness, as well
as means to it, and so when they are desired, it is (part of) happiness that’s
being desired—not something other than happiness. What Mill seems to
mean is that if being virtuous makes someone happy, then when that person
desires virtue, he or she is desiring (a particular kind of) his or her own
happiness, and so it can be claimed that whenever something is desired,
happiness is desired (though perhaps under some other description, such as
‘virtue’). It often happens that something originally desired only as a
means—virtue, money, power, fame—comes to be desired for its own sake. When
this happiness, it makes the possessor happy (or, at least, he who desires it
thinks it will make him happy) and thus is desired as a part of happiness, not
something other than happiness.
- 4.101: The only way to see whether this is right is to reflect on
experience, both by observation of others and by self-observation. And we find
that people aim only at things they find pleasant, and avoid only things they
find painful.
- 4.11: To be sure, people sometimes choose things not out of desire, but
out of will; this happens by the operation of habit. But the patterns of
conduct that are constitutive of habitual behavior are not indicative of what
is good, and so the fact that people do choose things habitually, rather than
because they really desire them (as sometimes happens) does not imply that
these things are good. (But there is considerable coincidence because habits
tend to arise out of desires.) Mill’s argument in this paragraph is
complicated, because he is engaged in two tasks which go against each other in
spirit if not in logic:
- denigrating habits as indicators of what people “really” desire, so that
he can maintain that people really do desire only pleasure and the avoidance
of pain
- praising habits as important means to overall happiness, since
deliberation from scratch every time isn’t as reliable as virtuous habits are
- chapter 5: “On the Connexion between Justice and Utility,” paragraphs 1–25
- 5.1–2: aim of the chapter: to answer the justice objection
- The objection is that the principle of utility is not an acceptable
foundation for morality, because it is is opposed, in idea and to some extent
in practice, to the notion of justice. The latter (the objection continues)
must take precedence because it strikes us as so much more important than
(mere) expediency.
- Mill indicates that in reply, he will seek to do two things.
- What he emphasizes here is that he will try to “demystify” (not his word,
but I think it’s apt) the notion of justice by showing how it is just a
combination of perfectly unmysterious ideas, rather than being sui generis
(“of its own kind”). If this can be done, then when conflicts arise between
utility and justice, the case for letting justice take precedence will be
undermined.
- What he also mentions, but does not emphasize, here is that he will try to
show that justice is “only a particular kind or branch of general utility,”
rather than something opposed to it.
- 5.3–10: what the concept of justice covers
- Mill begins his demystification of the notion of justice by examining the
particular cases that we regard as cases of justice or injustice. The driving
thought is that if we can get a more definite idea of what the concept of
justice covers, then we can better understand its origin—i.e., whether it’s
sui generis (“a special provision of Nature”) or just a combination of
other, perfectly unmysterious, ideas.
- He catalogs, as paradigm cases of injustice, the following:
- violating legal rights (5.5)
- violating moral rights (5.6)
- denying someone what he or she deserves (5.7)
- breaking faith (breaking promises, disappointing expectations) (5.8)
- failing to be impartial (5.9)
- not respecting the value of equality (5.10)
- One thing to notice, throughout these paragraphs, is that Mill is
simultaneously engaged in both of the two tasks mentioned above, in connection
with 5.1–2. He is consistently concerned with what the concept of justice
covers, in the service of the first task; but the second task, too, is
advanced by Mill’s many digressions into the coincidence between justice and
utility. See, for example, the following lines:
- 5.6.8–21
- 5.10.3–22
- 5.11–15: what the concept of justice turns out to be
- Mill suggests that, since the applications of the concept of justice are
so diverse, and the “mental link” holding them all together is not obvious, we
might learn something from considering the etymology of the word (5.11).
- For a time, in very early times, justice was taken to have to do with
conformity to law. But as people (such as the Greeks and Romans) became more
aware of the possibility of laws’ being different from what they ought to be,
justice came to be associated with the idea of those laws that there ought to
be, however far existing laws might fall short of this ideal (5.12).
- Mill notes that it might be objected, against this understanding of
justice, that we do not desire all acts of injustice to come under the purview
of the police and courts of law. In reply, he says that we would like for all
acts of injustice to be punished in some way, however informally (5.13).
- Having said this, though, Mill immediately confesses to having painted
with too broad a brush. For the aptness of punishment (whether by the legal
system or more informal means) characterizes not injustice specifically, but
wrongdoing more generally, distinguishing it from blameless inexpediency
(5.14).
- So what distinguishes cases of injustice from other cases of wrongdoing?
The existence of “some assignable person who is wronged” (5.15.23).
- 5.16–23: on the special feeling of urgency which attaches to the idea of
justice
- Mill moves next to the completion of the first task mentioned above, in
connection with 5.1–2: ascertaining whether the extreme force with which the
idea of justice operates in conventional morality is explicable in terms of
familiar, unmysterious ingredients, or whether this must be left mysterious,
as “a special dispensation of nature” (5.16.4).
- Mill says that the ingredients in the idea of justice are (1) that someone
has done wrong (i.e., has done something warranting punishment) and (2) that
there is some identifiable person who has been wronged (5.18).
- Mill says that the desire to punish (the core of the first ingredient)
grows out of the impulse of self-defense and the feeling of sympathy (sympathy
with whoever has been wronged—this apparently accounts for the role of the
second ingredient). Since these are entirely natural and unmysterious, so
likewise is the seriousness with which we view violations of injustice
(5.19–20). Mystery solved, or dissolved.
- Interspersed among these comments, which have to do with the first task
mentioned above, in connection with 5.1–2, are comments which have to do with
the second task mentioned above: that of showing the close relation between
justice and utility.
- In 5.17, for example, Mill somewhat abruptly throws in a reference to
utility (“expediency,” he says there), which for a few moments seems rather
strange.
- This is made good in 5.21–22, where Mill says that considerations of
utility regulate our desire to punish, by making us desire to punish all and
only only those harms that detract from overall happiness, as opposed to all
and only those which detract from our own self-interest.
- 5.24–25: reinforcement of the foregoing account, by consideration of the
concept of a right
- Mill reinforces his account of justice by showing that it also suffices to
explain what it means for someone to have a right to something (5.24).
(This serves to reinforce the account of justice on the assumption that
justice and rights are closely connected, as Mill argued earlier, in 5.15.)
- Mill claims that whether someone has a right to something or not is
determined by considerations of utility. This claim helps to complete each of
the two tasks mentioned above, in connection with 5.1–2:
- It demystifies justice, by demystifying rights, by making them seem based
entirely on considerations of utility (especially serious considerations of
utility, of course, but still considerations of utility and nothing more).
- It suggests that justice is a branch of utility, not something opposed to
it.
- chapter 5, paragraphs 26–38
- 5.26–31: the ambiguity of justice
- Up to this point in the chapter, Mill has been concerned to “demystify”
(again, not his word) justice—to show that this concept is not specially
implanted in us by nature, but is a perfectly explicable combination of other
perfectly natural ideas and sentiments. Here Mill stops pushing this line, and
goes off on another: that of showing that even if it were not possible to
demystify justice in the way he thinks he’s done, justice still wouldn't be
worth taking seriously as a rival or superior principle to that of utility,
because what it requires in regard to specific issues is so unclear (5.26–27).
- Here are Mill’s examples:
- 5.28: Is punishment just (1) when it’s for the good of the punished, (2)
when it’s for the good of others, or (3) never?
- 5.29: Assuming that some punishment is just, is it just (1) when it’s “an
eye for an eye,“ (2) when it’s proportional to the “moral guilt” of the person
being punished, or (3) when it’s just enough to provide for deterrence?
- 5.30: Are wages just when they are (1) proportional to talent or skill or
productivity or (2) inversely proportional to these?
- 5.31: Is taxation just (1) when it’s proportional to means (a “flat” tax),
(2) when it’s graduated or progressive, or (3) when everyone is charged the
same amount, regardless of means?
- Recall that earlier in this chapter, Mill had two two projects that he was
working on concurrently: (1) demystifying justice and (2) showing that justice
is not really in conflict with utility. The second project persists into this
part of the chapter, even though the first project has been replaced with the
one we’ve just been considering. There are several points in these paragraphs
where Mill throws in, almost as an aside, that when the dictates of justice
are uncertain, utility is invoked to settle matters. See, for example, the
following:
- 5.28.49–51
- 5.30.24–25
- 5.31.29–30
- 5.32–34: the pre-eminence of justice
- Having concluded not only his demystification of justice but also his
attack on its adequacy as a criterion for settling practical issues, Mill is
concerned to give the concept of justice its due, and to admit that there is
still something special about justice. (He doesn’t want to appear to have
overplayed his hand.) So he says that justice is not just any old part of
(utilitarian) morality, but the most important part: the rules of justice are
the ones that we most urgently need for others to follow, and thus are the
ones that we are most interested in getting others to follow. These include
rules forbidding most kinds of harms to others, including the disappointment
of others’ reasonable expectations.
- Throughout all this Mill maintains, of course, that justice is part of
utility, not separate from it (5.32.8–10).
- 5.34–36: the maxims of justice
- Here Mill is concerned to tie up some loose ends: to explain how certain
things, not yet discussed by him in what we might call his “demystifying
reconstruction” of justice, yet commonly associated with that concept, may
still be associated with that concept even within the new way of thinking
about justice with which he has provided us.
- examples:
- 5.35: Certain rules of courts of law, such as holding people responsible
only for those things they do voluntarily, serve to prevent courts from
punishing people (which obviously harms them) who ought not to be punished.
- 5.36: Treating equals equally is not only a means to what has already been
described as acting justly, but is implicit in the principle of utility
itself.
- 5.37–38: closing paragraphs
- 5.37: Mill notes that when considerations of expediency are serious
enough, what would ordinarily be considered just is considered wrong, and
something else is considered just; this tends to reinforce the thought that
justice pertains to utility as it appears in the most important kinds of
cases, rather than being something distinct from utility.
- 5.38: Mill claims to have answered the justice objection, by demystifying
it and showing that it pertains to the kinds cases that are most serious from
the point of view of utility.
- Urmson, Mabbott, and Brown
- Urmson, “On the Interpretation of the Moral Philosophy of J. S. Mill”
- a clarificatory note about the second paragraph of Urmson’s paper (last
paragraph of the paper’s introduction): When Urmson says that Mill’s two tasks
in Utilitarianism are (1) “to state the place of the conception of a
summum bonum in ethics” and (2) “to give an account of the nature of this
ultimate end,” he is referring to the following two tasks: (1) arguing that
rightness and wrongness depend on consequences, or good and bad states of
affairs (‘summum bonum’ is Latin for ‘highest good’) and (2) arguing
for a certain conception of the good (getting into Mill’s doctrine of the
higher and lower pleasures, etc.).
- The first “mistaken” interpretation of Mill that Urmson discusses—the
interpretation of Mill as an ethical naturalist—is not our concern.
- Our concern is the other “mistaken” interpretation of Mill that Urmson
discusses—that “Mill holds that an action, a particular action, is right if it
promotes the ultimate end better than any alternative, and otherwise it is
wrong” (p. 34).
- There are two things that are noteworthy about the view that Urmson
attributes to Mill.
- First, on this view, a particular action is justified not by reference to
the principle of utility, but by reference to some moral rules different in
content from the principle of utility. Since the moral rules Urmson has in
mind may not be entirely consistent with the principle of utility, right acts
could (on this view) occasionally violate the principle of utility.
- Second, on this view, there are certain actions for which the question of
right or wrong just does not arise.
- Mabbott, “Interpretations of Mill’s ‘Utilitarianism’ ”
- Mabbott mentions two ways in which Urmson’s interpretation differs from
the orthodox one.
- The first is the first of the two noteworthy things mentioned above, in
connection with Urmson.
- The second is that on the orthodox interpretation (but not on Urmson’s),
rightness and wrongness are determined by actual, not hypothetical
consequences. But note that this does not represent Mill’s view entirely
accurately, because of the
weight he places on intended (as opposed to actual) consequences.
- Mabbott also mentions a passage that supports Urmson’s interpretation, but
which Urmson inexplicably neglects (p. 115).
- Mabbott mentions several difficulties for Urmson’s interpretation:
- It is unclear how an agent is supposed to resolve conflicts between rules
(p. 116).
- Mill allows people to break the rule against lying when they have to do so
in order to avert a great evil. Mabbott suggests that the only solution to this
difficulty seems to be to think of the principle of utility not only as the
“first principle,” but also as a “secondary principle”—which would be very
strange (117).
- Mill calls the secondary rules “corollaries,” and surely would not advise
sticking to secondary rules even when they clearly do not serve their intended
purpose (p. 117).
- When Mill explains why telling lies is morally required, he does so in
terms of the consequences of telling a particular lie, rather than in terms of
what bad things would happen if there were no rule against lying. Mabbott goes on to
spend a page’s worth of text criticizing this kind of argument. This is quite
odd, since presumably Mabbott’s point in citing what Mill says about telling
lies is just that Mill believed that each act is to be evaluated on its own
merits, rather than by reference to rules. The fact that Mill’s argument
unambiguously supports this interpretation would seem to moot the question of the quality
of his argument. (Of course, if the nature of Mill’s argument were unclear,
then we might inquire into its quality on the ground that we should not
attribute anything too stupid to Mill; but the nature of Mill’s argument is
quite clear, and the argument, even if dubious, is surely not too stupid to
attribute to Mill or any other top-drawer philosopher.)
- Brown, “Mill’s Act-Utilitarianism”
- Brown has a relatively large amount to say about what Baker had said
previously. This does not concern us, except for one bit at the end of Brown’s
discussion of Baker, where Brown says that for Mill, “It becomes especially relevant to
consider the consequences of people’s generally doing the same, but the
relevance of this is determined not by moral principle but by the conditions
for establishing causal judgments” (pp. 67–68). In other words, the relevance
of the question “What if everyone did the same?” is not that this is an
intrinsically apt moral question, but that this question is what we
need to think about in order to understand what the (causal) consequences of this
particular act are likely to be.
- The real interest of Brown’s paper is his provision of two interesting
passages from other texts of Mill:
- the passage in his essay on Whewell in which he says that there are some
actions whose consequences can be ascertained only by considering the
“classes” to which they belong (p. 68)
- the passage in his letter to John Venn in which he says that “the right
way of testing actions by their consequences, is to test them by the natural
consequences of the particular action, and not by those which would follow if
every one did the same” (p. 68)