University of Kansas, Fall 2003
Philosophy 672: History of Ethics
Ben Eggleston—eggleston@ku.edu

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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  1. biographical sketch
    1. John Stuart Mill was born in England in 1806 and received an exceptionally rigorous education from his father, James Mill. After a depression in his early twenties (which he says the work of Coleridge and Wordsworth helped him to escape), he embarked on a career that would include commercial success and also literary fame as one of the best essayists of the nineteenth century.
    2. He published On Liberty in 1859, and Utilitarianism in 1861. He was elected to Parliament in 1865, but his attempt in 1867 to give women the right to vote was defeated, and Mill lost his seat in 1868. He died in France in 1873.
  2. Mill’s targets in Utilitarianism
    1. To be sure, Mill is aware of deontological theories and virtue-ethical theories, and is trying to present a theory that will outdo these.
    2. But Mill has another, more immediate, target and that is the approach to ethics sometimes known as intuitionism. The core idea of this approach is that you don’t need an elaborate theory (or any theory at all!) in order to reach correct moral judgments; on the contrary, ordinary people can reach correct moral judgments by just getting the facts of particular cases in view and then thinking in a focused and dispassionate way about the moral features of those cases; and many intuitionists also maintain that ordinary people can come up with correct moral rules, such as perhaps “Never break a promise except in an emergency,” in the same way—that is, with just some sincere reflection on the merits of the rule. So whether it’s a matter of particular cases or general principles, the intuitionist approach is basically, “Trust your conscience.” This approach is Mill’s most immediate target as he explains and argues for his utilitarianism.
    3. If you’ve read On Liberty, or are otherwise familiar with the view Mill expresses there, then you can connect this aim of Mill’s (just described) with his awareness of, and antipathy towards, the tyranny of the majority. Mill felt that English society in the middle of the nineteenth century was dominated by strict customs (this was the Victorian era, after all), and that the widespread use of intuitionism as an approach to ethics was part of the cause of this, because it made majorities feel perfectly entitled to impose their view on minorities. The more people who would see morality in utilitarian terms rather than intuitionist terms, Mill thought, the better it would be for individual liberty and social progress.
  3. chapter 1: “General Remarks”
    1. possible test questions
      1. (20 points:) Mill discusses two approaches to developing theories of morality: intuitionism and inductivism. Which of these does he advocate, and what are his two chief distinct (although Mill does not distinguish them very clearly himself) complaints about the other approach?
      2. (10 points:) Mill neither thoroughly defends nor thoroughly condemns common-sense morality. What relationship does Mill perceive there to be between common-sense morality and utilitarianism that makes Mill have some appreciation for common-sense morality, and in what way(s) does Mill regard common-sense morality as deficient or in need of utilitarian correction?
      3. (10 points:) What is Mill’s objection to Kant’s moral theory?
      4. (10 points:) How rigorous a proof does Mill think it’s possible to provide in defense of utilitarianism? (Note that this question is not about the content of Mill’s proof, but is about what sort of proof Mill thinks is even possible in regard to theories of final ends, such as utilitarianism, and what sort of proof(s) Mill regards rival theorists as having given for their theories.)
    2. 1.1: some laments about the lack of progress in moral philosophy
      1. Mill mentions the “summum bonum.” This means “highest good.”
      2. 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 claims 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.
    3. 1.2: distinction between arts, such as ethics and politics, and sciences
      1. the importance of “first principles” in the former while being practically afterthoughts in the latter
      2. 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.)
    4. 1.3: the intuitive school vs. the inductive school
      1. To understand this conflict, it helps to think in terms of three levels of moral judgments or principles.
        1. judgments about particular cases (e.g., “It was wrong of our representative to vote for that bill”)
        2. moral rules pertaining to certain classes of cases, underwriting judgments about particular cases (e.g., “It is wrong to lie,” or “It is wrong to steal,” or “It is wrong to vote against your constituents’ interests”)
        3. a “first principle” underwriting all moral rules and, when conflicts among them arise, specifying which shall take precedence (e.g., the categorical imperative, or “You always ought to do whatever will promote happiness the most”)
      2. 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.
      3. 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.
      4. 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.
    5. 1.4: the tacit influence of utilitarianism
      1. 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.
      2. He also takes a shot at Kant, claiming that the first of the two kinds of contradiction mentioned by Kant (in his remarks on the application of the categorical imperative to particular cases) never arises, and that the second kind of contradiction arises, when it does, because of the use of utilitarian considerations.
    6. 1.5: of what sort of proof we can expect
      1. 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 instrumental to 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.
      2. 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.”
    7. 1.6: most of Mill’s efforts to be devoted to explaining utilitarianism
      1. Mill will devote less effort to providing proof that the utilitarian principle is correct.
      2. His guiding assumption is that the main reason for opposition to the utilitarian principle is misunderstanding of it.
  4. chapter 2: “What Utilitarianism Is,” paragraphs 1–18
    1. possible test questions
      1. (10 points:) What does Mill say are the two replies that utilitarians can give in order to answer the “doctrine worthy only of swine” objection?
      2. (20 points:) What is Mill’s doctrine of the higher and lower pleasures, and what is the standard objection to this doctrine?
    2. 2.1–2: the core idea of utilitarianism
      1. What makes actions right is their contribution to happiness (and the elimination of unhappiness).
      2. Happiness is to be understood in terms of pleasure.
    3. 2.3–9: the “doctrine worthy only of swine” objection and Mill’s reply
      1. 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).
      2. In response, Mill says that there are two distinct replies available to the utilitarian, each sufficient by itself (2.4).
        1. 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.)
        2. 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.
      3. Mill’s discussion of pleasures’ differing in quality is one of the most problematic passages in the whole book.
        1. First, it is unclear what Mill thinks makes one pleasure “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.
        2. 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.
          1. 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.
          2. 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).
        3. 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 the plausibility of a purely quantitative hedonism, 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 in connection with Mill’s (and other hedonists’) purely experience-based conception of happiness.
    4. 2.10: Mill’s consequentialism
      1. Mill says that whatever is “the end of human action” “is necessarily also the standard of morality.”
      2. 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.
    5. 2.11–18: some more objections and replies
      1. 2.11: two objections
        1. Happiness is unattainable.
        2. Happiness can be renounced, and must be, in order to be virtuous.
      2. 2.12–14: reply to the unattainability objection
        1. If happiness were unattainable, then we’d have all the more reason to lessen unhappiness, as utilitarianism also recommends.
        2. But happiness is attainable, to many people now; and it can be made attainable to more people in the future, through favorable social developments.
      3. 2.15–18: reply to the renunciation objection
        1. 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.
        2. 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.
        3. 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.
  5. chapter 2, paragraphs 19–25
    1. possible test questions
      1. (10 points:) How, according to Mill, can someone act rightly from a bad motive?
      2. (10 points:) How does Mill distinguish good motives from bad ones? What, according to Mill, is the moral significance of the motive from which someone acts?
      3. (20 points:) How does Mill respond to the objection that employing the utilitarianism principle as one’s everyday decision procedure would be impractical?
    2. 2.19: the demandingness objection and Mill’s reply
      1. 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.
      2. Mill’s reply has two parts:
        1. 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.
        2. 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.
    3. 2.20–21: the coldness objection and Mill’s reply
      1. 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.
      2. 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.
    4. 2.22: the godlessness objection and Mill’s reply
      1. It may be objected that utilitarianism is “a godless doctrine.”
      2. In reply, Mill considers several interpretations of this accusation.
        1. 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.
        2. 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.
        3. 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.
    5. 2.23: the expediency objection and Mill’s reply
      1. It may be objected that utilitarianism favors “expediency” over “principle.”
      2. 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.
    6. 2.24: the shortage-of-time objection and Mill’s reply
      1. It may be objected that utilitarianism demands calculations more complex than time normally allows.
      2. 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:
        1. 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.
        2. 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.
        3. 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).
    7. 2.25: the temptation objection and Mill’s reply
      1. It maybe objected that utilitarianism, by involving complex calculations, affords scope for individuals to give unjustified priority to themselves over others.
      2. 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.)
  6. chapter 3: “Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of Utility”
    1. possible test questions
      1. (20 points:) What is the difference between the tasks in which Mill is engaged in chapters 3 and 4, respectively?
      2. (10 points:) Why, according to Mill, does it not matter (for his purposes in chapter 3) whether the internal sanction is an innate faculty or an acquired one?
    2. 3.1–2: raising the question of how people might be motivated to comply with the principle of utility, or to come to regard it as binding
      1. 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.
      2. 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.
      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. 3.3–11: external and internal sanctions
      1. 3.3: external sanctions
        1. social: “hope of favour and fear of displeasure from our fellow creatures” as well as sympathy or affection for them
        2. religious: likewise, mutatis mutandis, towards God
      2. 3.4–11: the internal sanction
        1. 3.4–6: its nature and operation
          1. 3.4: The internal sanction is, in a word, conscience.
          2. 3.5: Surely this sanction can operate in support of utilitarianism as much as in support of any other moral theory.
          3. 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.
        2. 3.7–8: its origin
          1. 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 one thing that is morally important.)
          2. 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. 3.9–11: its potential
          1. The sentiments utilitarianism needs for its support are perfectly natural, being grounded in the social feelings that humans naturally have.
          2. And they are bound to be strengthened as society progresses and all individuals’ interests are brought into greater harmony.
  7. chapter 4: “Of What Sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible”
    1. possible test questions
      1. (20 points:) What are the two most commonly cited problems with Mill’s “proof” of the principle of utility?
      2. (10 points:) How does Mill reply to the claim that not only happiness, but also things such as virtue, are desirable?
    2. 4.1–3: proof that the general happiness is desirable
      1. 4.1–2: on the connection between morality and desirability
        1. 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.
        2. 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.
        3. See paragraph 4.9 for another statement of Mill’s overall strategy
      2. 4.3.1–5: the most notorious lines in the book
        1. Mill’s argument
          1. The only proof that something is visible is that people actually see it.
          2. The only proof that something is audible is that people actually hear it.
          3. Similarly, the only proof that something is desirable is that people actually desire it.
          4. People desire happiness.
          5. Therefore, by 3 and 4, happiness is desirable. (It remains to be shown that only happiness is desirable, but this is a start.)
        2. the problem
          1. 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’.
          2. 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.
          3. 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.
        3. a possible solution
          1. 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.
          2. 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.
      3. 4.3.12–13: the second most notorious lines in the book
        1. Mill’s argument
          1. Each person’s happiness is a good (desirable, in the prescriptive sense) to that person.
          2. Therefore, the general happiness is a good to the aggregate of all persons.
        2. the problem
          1. Mill’s argument exemplifies what is known as the fallacy of 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.
          2. Here the property would be that of one’s own happiness being a good to one.
        3. a possible solution
          1. 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.
          2. 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.
    3. 4.4–12: proof that only happiness is desirable (i.e., ultimately desirable)
      1. 4.4–8: Mill admits the objection that certain things not obviously identical with happiness (e.g., virtue) are desired (by many people, at least) apparently for their own sake, as not as means to happiness.
        1. 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.
        2. 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’).
        3. 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 happens, 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 as something other than happiness.
      2. 4.10: verifying this response
        1. The only way to see whether this is right is to reflect on experience, both by observation of others and by self-observation.
        2. And we find that people aim only at things they find pleasant, and avoid only things they find painful.
      3. 4.11: desire vs. will and habit
        1. 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.)
        2. 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:
          1. 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
          2. praising habits as important means to overall happiness, since deliberation from scratch every time isn’t as reliable as virtuous habits are
  8. chapter 5: “On the Connexion between Justice and Utility,” paragraphs 1–25
    1. possible test questions
      1. (20 points:) In chapter 5, Mill replies to the justice-related objection to utilitarianism. What three distinct tasks constitute pretty much all of Mill’s reply to this objection?
      2. (10 points:) What, according to Mill, makes an act one of wrongdoing and not just inexpediency, and what further condition does Mill say must be satisfied in order for an act of wrongdoing to be one of injustice?
      3. (10 points:) How, according to Mill, does a rule of morality get the status of a rule of justice instead of being a non-justice-related rule of morality?
    2. 5.1–2: aim of the chapter: to answer the justice objection
      1. the justice objection
        1. 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.
        2. The latter (the objection continues) must take precedence because it is so much more important than (mere) expediency.
      2. Mill’s reply: presaging the first two of his three tasks
        1. 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.
        2. 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.
    3. 5.3–10: what the concept of justice covers
      1. the motivation behind this inquiry
        1. Mill begins his demystification of the notion of justice by examining the particular cases that we regard as cases of justice or injustice.
        2. 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.
      2. Mill’s catalogue of paradigm cases of injustice
        1. violating legal rights (5.5)
        2. violating moral rights (5.6)
        3. denying someone what he or she deserves (5.7)
        4. breaking faith (breaking promises, disappointing expectations) (5.8)
        5. failing to be impartial (5.9)
        6. not respecting the value of equality (5.10)
      3. the two tasks
        1. 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.
        2. See, for example, the following lines:
          1. 5.6.8–21
          2. 5.10.3–22
    4. 5.11–15: what the concept of justice turns out to be
      1. the etymology of the word
        1. 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).
        2. For a while, 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).
        3. 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).
      2. punishment and wrongness
        1. Having said this (that we would like for all acts of injustice to be punished in some way), Mill immediately confesses to having painted with too broad a brush.
        2. 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).
      3. assignable persons and injustice
        1. So what distinguishes cases of injustice from other cases of wrongdoing?
        2. The existence of “some assignable person who is wronged” (5.15.23).
    5. 5.16–23: on the special feeling of urgency which attaches to the idea of justice
      1. nearly completing the first task mentioned above
        1. Recall this task (mentioned 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).
        2. Mill repeats that the ingredients in the idea of injustice 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).
        3. 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.
      2. continuing to work on the second task mentioned above
        1. Interspersed among these comments, which have to do with the first task, are comments which have to do with the second task: that of showing the close relation between justice and utility.
        2. 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.
        3. 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.
    6. 5.24–25: reinforcement of the foregoing account, by consideration of the concept of a right
      1. 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.)
      2. Mill claims that whether or not someone has a right to something is determined by considerations of utility. This claim helps to complete each of the two tasks mentioned above, in connection with 5.1–2:
        1. 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).
        2. It suggests that justice is a branch of utility, not something opposed to it.
  9. chapter 5, paragraphs 26–38
    1. possible test questions
      1. (10 points:) What are two of the questions that Mill mentions as examples of ones to which the idea of justice applies ambiguously? For each of the two questions you mention, give at least two of the conflicting answers that may be said to be provided by the idea of justice.
      2. (20 points:) Does Mill regard justice as a supremely important part of morality, a moderately important part, or an unimportant part? Explain.
    2. 5.26–31: the ambiguity of justice
      1. Mill’s aim in these paragraphs
        1. 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.
        2. 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).
      2. Mill’s examples
        1. 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?
        2. 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?
        3. 5.30: Are wages just when they are (1) proportional to talent or skill or productivity or (2) inversely proportional to these?
        4. 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?
      3. continuing to work on the second task mentioned above
        1. 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.
        2. 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.
        3. 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:
          1. 5.28.49–51
          2. 5.30.24–25
          3. 5.31.29–30
    3. 5.32–34: the pre-eminence of justice
      1. 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.)
      2. 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.
      3. Throughout all this Mill maintains, of course, that justice is part of utility, not separate from it (5.32.8–10).
    4. 5.35–36: the maxims of justice
      1. Mill’s aim in these paragraphs
        1. Here Mill is concerned to tie up some loose ends.
        2. He wants 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.
      2. examples
        1. 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.
        2. 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. 5.37–38: closing paragraphs
      1. 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.
      2. 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.
  10. Urmson, Mabbott, and Brown
    1. possible test questions
      1. (20 points:) What is the strongest evidence in favor of the view that Mill is a rule utilitarian?
      2. (10 points:) What is the strongest evidence in favor of the view that Mill is an act utilitarian?
    2. Urmson, “On the Interpretation of the Moral Philosophy of J. S. Mill”
      1. a clarificatory note about the second paragraph of Urmson’s paper (last paragraph of the paper’s introduction)
        1. 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.
        2. One of these is the task of arguing that rightness and wrongness depend on consequences, or good and bad states of affairs (‘summum bonum’ is Latin for ‘highest good’). The second of these is the task of arguing for a certain conception of the good (getting into Mill’s doctrine of the higher and lower pleasures, etc.).
      2. our concern
        1. The first “mistaken” interpretation of Mill that Urmson discusses—the interpretation of Mill as an ethical naturalist—is not our concern.
        2. 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).
      3. two noteworthy things about the view that Urmson attributes to Mill
        1. 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.
        2. Second, on this view, there are certain actions for which the question of right or wrong just does not arise.
    3. Mabbott, “Interpretations of Mill’s ‘Utilitarianism’ ”
      1. two ways in which Urmson’s interpretation differs from the orthodox one
        1. The first is the first of the two noteworthy things mentioned above, in connection with Urmson.
        2. 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.
      2. another rule-utilitarian passage
        1. Mabbott mentions another passage that supports Urmson’s interpretation (p. 115).
        2. It is one that Urmson inexplicably neglects.
      3. several difficulties for Urmson’s interpretation
        1. It is unclear how an agent is supposed to resolve conflicts between rules (p. 116).
        2. 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—the only solution consistent with the rule-utilitarian interpretation of Mill, that is—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).
        3. 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).
        4. 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.)
    4. Brown, “Mill’s Act-Utilitarianism”
      1. remarks on Baker
        1. 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).
        2. 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.
      2. provision of two interesting passages from other texts by Mill
        1. 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)
        2. 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)