Mill / Lecture 10
.doc
The Nature of Moral Values – Lectures Week 8
Utilitarianism
The two classical sources of utilitarian moral philosophy are Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). We will first briefly examine the outlines of Bentham’s utilitarianism before turning to an examination of Mill’s more complex and refined version.
Bentham held that judgments of right or wrong, when they are meaningful at all and not merely expressions of individual sentiment, must appeal to the “principle of utility.” This is how he sums up the principle:
By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves, or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness.
(Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Ch. 1)
Bentham thus describes a way of judging the moral character of acts in terms of their potential to increase general happiness, but how does he conceive of happiness?
Like Epicurus (see Lecture Five), Bentham has a robustly hedonistic account of happiness. One condition is happier than another to the extent that it involves a greater preponderance of pleasure over pain. He also proposed a way of calculating this preponderance: a “hedonic calculus.” Bentham proposed that one might measure pleasures along seven dimensions, each one of which is assigned a numerical measure (positive for pleasure, negative for pain):
intensity
duration
certainty or uncertainty
propinquity or remoteness (whether the sensation is ready to hand or a long-term effect)
fecundity (how likely it is that the sensation will yield further sensations of the same kind)
purity (how likely it is that the sensation will be followed by sensations of the opposite kind)
extent (how much the sensation is shared)
The idea is that the sum of each such measurement would correlate with expected balance of pleasure and pain consequent upon a proposed action. Of course this is a very difficult calculation to make in practice, and normally we can only expect a fast and dirty approximation to it; however, according to Bentham, it represents the rational benchmark for judgments of good and bad consequence.
There are many ways of criticising Bentham’s proposal for a hedonic calculus. First, it is unlikely that each dimension is measurable in the way that, say, duration or fecundity are measurable. Second, there is no obvious way of establishing a common measure between the various dimensions. How to measure the relative contributions of propinquity or certainty or duration? Is a mild but long lasting pleasure greater than a brief but intense one?
Now it is obvious that Bentham’s hedonic calculus is very unwieldy, even if it is coherent. How are we supposed to use the calculus in day to day settings? First, we haven’t the time. Second, we haven’t the knowledge. The utilitarian answer is that, generally, we aren’t supposed to use it. Bentham writes “It is not to be expected that this process [the hedonic calculus] should be strictly pursued previously to every moral judgment.” (Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, Chapter IV, Section VI) So, the principle of utility defines what we ought to do, but we generally can’t use it to decide what to do. But how does this makes sense? We can distinguish between a standard of right action and a moral decision procedure. For most of us, most of the time, the principle of utility cannot be used as a decision procedure. However, it operates as a standard of right action according to utilitarians. Say we decide how to act by consulting our intuitions about what is right. This is fine, says the utilitarian, provided that our intuitions about what is right are the best guide we have available to maximized utility. If it isn’t a good guide, the principle of utility will tell us this. And then we are obliged to find better short-cut methods of determining which action will bring about the best consequences. Let us now look at how the theory of utilitarianism was developed by that other great classical utilitarian – John Stuart Mill.
John Stuart Mill’s two most important contributions to philosophical ethics are Utilitarianism and On Liberty. Utilitarianism is a defense of the position against the many criticisms to which it had been subjected since Bentham and other early utilitarians – including John Stuart’s father, James Mill – first articulated the position. In the process of defending classical utilitarianism, Mill works out an important and interesting modification of the theory. He states the principle of utility in much the way Bentham had:
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals Utility or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in the proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to promote the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.
(J S Mill Utilitarianism)
This is to be an impartial standard. No person’s happiness counts for more than anyone else’s. An action is right or wrong depending on how it alters the happiness of all affected by it. Mill also makes the moral character of actions independent of the motives or will that underlies them. If a person saves a drowning man, says, Mill, it is a right action whether or not the person did it from noble motives. Motives and intentions only have an indirect influence on consequences of an action.
Unlike Bentham, who thought that the only morally relevant distinctions between kinds of pleasures were all quantitative, Mill draws a qualitative distinction between higher and lower pleasures. Higher pleasures are not greater, or more intense, or more stable, reliable and long-lasting than lower pleasures (these latter three aspects being Epicurus’s reasons for giving pleasures of the mind a preference over pleasures of the body). Higher pleasures are intrinsically superior to lower pleasures. What this means is that higher pleasures are those that would be preferred by any competent judge; and a competent judge is someone who, without being influenced by a moralistic preference for one sought of thing over another, has experience of both kinds of pleasures. This is how Mill puts matters:
If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.
(Mill Utilitarianism)
Happiness is a matter of having greater and superior pleasures. And these turn out to be, largely, the pleasures of the mind. Happiness is not, then, closely correlated with contentedness. On Mill’s account, the happier of two people will quite likely be the less content and the less satisfied with their life:
Whoever supposes that this preference [for higher pleasures] takes place at a sacrifice of happiness – that the superior being, in anything like equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior – confounds the two very different ideas of happiness and content. It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. … It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.
(Mill, Utilitarianism)
Mill’s version of utilitarianism makes judgments of right action even harder to come by than Bentham’s version. But he also insists upon the principle as the standard of rightness, not a decision procedure. He writes: “it is a misapprehension of the utilitarian mode of thought to conceive it as implying that people should fix their minds upon so wide a generality as the world, or society at large.” (Utilitarianism, Chapter II) Mill thinks that the commonsense or traditional rules of morality: keep promises, respect basic rights, etc. have the effect of maximizing utility over the long haul and it is therefore these principles – Mill calls them “secondary principles” that we should consult when deciding how to act.
Classical Utilitarianism has had many, many critics over the centuries. And it has been modified and elaborated in many ways as a result. Today, there is a bewildering variety of forms of utilitarianism, including objective and subjective versions (do actual consequences count or only foreseeable ones?); aggregative and pluralistic versions (is there one basis for good consequences, e.g. happiness, or preference satisfaction, or are there many bases for judging a consequence good or bad, e.g. happiness, knowledge, friendship, beauty, etc.?). There is also an important distinction between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarians hold that each action is right only if it maximizes good consequences. Rule utilitarians hold that an action is right only if it falls under the right kind of rule. The right kinds of rules are determined by their consequences, i.e. the consequences of the rule if they were generally complied with. There is considerable scholarly dispute over whether Mill is an act utilitarian or a rule utilitarian, or perhaps neither. Mill himself did not use these terms or make clear distinctions between these different kinds of utilitarianism. His text is not completely clear on the issue, thus the room for scholarly debate.
Let us turn from a discussion of utilitarianism to Mill’s views on freedom and autonomy, or as Mill calls it, “liberty.” What are Mill’s views about liberty? His essay On Liberty is one of the great statements of the liberal tradition, which emphasizes the rights and autonomy of individuals over the interests of the state or the community in general. Mill is concerned to protect individuals from coercive state regulation and control and from the tyranny of the majority in public opinion. The basic principle that Mill appeals to is now come to be called the “Harm Principle.” Here is Mill’s statement of it:
The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. To justify that, the conduct form which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part of which merely governs himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. (On Liberty 223-4)
Mill is introducing a distinction between the private sphere of our lives and the public sphere. The private sphere includes “That portion of a person’s life and conduct which affects only himself, or if it also affects others, only through their free, voluntary, and undeceived consent and participation.” (On Liberty 225). The private sphere should be completely free from government or community interference. Thus we should have freedom of association, freedom of expression and thought, ambition, taste, life-style. In the public sphere, we should only have our freedoms restricted to avoid harm to others.
Mill emphasizes the significance of freedom of thought and expression. Censorship is a considerable evil. He writes “If all of mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person was of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing the one person that he if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” (On Liberty 229) Here is his justification:
…the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opion, still more those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. (On Liberty 229)
This is a utilitarian style of defense. Note that the value of freedom of expression is in the good that it does, not in the intrinsic worth or moral significance of freedom itself.
Is Mill’s Harm Principle compatible with utilitarianism? We have seen above Mill’s utilitarian justification of it when concerned with freedom of thought and expression. It is a contentious issue whether this justification succeeds. What about the general application of the Harm Principle? The main effect of the principle is to rule out the permissibility of paternalistic laws or regulations. But might not general happiness be often promoted by such laws? Mill’s response is to suggest that the damage done by paternalistic laws exceeds any possible benefit. We need to consult secondary principles because we cannot apply the utility principle directly (see discussion in paragraphs 5 and 7 above). In public life, we need to follow principles that are clear, easy to follow, not easily fudged and not open to abuse. Mill holds that the Harm Principle is the best of all available such principles, from a utilitarian point of view. When governing bodies decide what is in the interests of individuals, they are apt to misjudge the matter. People are generally the best, most reliable judges of their own good. Or governing bodies may substitute their own political interests for individual interest. For example, taxes on cigarettes may be advanced as paternalistic regulation (in essence we are fining people for smoking). However, someone might argue that the taxes are really a revenue measure. If so, then the Harm Principle may have been violated on no good utilitarian grounds. To avoid these ever present possibilities, it is important that the Harm Principle operate as an exceptionless principle. Or so Mill thinks.