John Stuart Mill

Notice there is no “s” at the end of his name; he is not a cereal.

Mill: starts with speculation

• Why has there been no agreement about the foundation of ethics, even though it’s been discussed for years?• E.g.• Aristotle: Golden Mean• Kant: Categorical Imperative Test• Hobbes: human-made contract that aims at peace• Plato: harmony in soul and stateNone of these seems generally acceptable; but without a solid foundation we cannot be sure of any of our obligations.

** normative ethics justified by theoretical ethics

Mill• Hmm says Mill, despite the uncertainty among

philosophers about the ultimate principle, there is wide spread agreement about what duties we actually have (generally speaking).• Help people in need• don’t lie• keep promises

There must be a guiding hand at play; one that is at work in all of these theories that came before

This guiding hand is the principle of utility (greatest happiness principle)

Utility/Consequences

Despite their statement otherwise, all philosophers (says Mill) are really concerned with utility, happiness, consequences.

They all believe it, but they all went astray,

e.g., Kant: highest good is the good will; is rationalism led him astray. He was confused about what happiness is and that is why he rejected it (too lazy to do anything example) and he was confused about consequences. (262)

Utility/Consequences• e.g., Aristotle: practiced teleology so was concerned

with consequences. Highest good is happiness but he, too, was confused about what happiness is; he rejected pleasure as being what happiness is–

• Plato; highest good is well-being/contentment. But he was misguided because he focused within and morality should focus without–

• Hobbes: highest good is one’s own happiness and we get that by having a solidly run society aimed at peace. Consequentialist; confused about happiness and human nature.

Mill; epistemology (like Hume)• FOUNDATIONALISM

• THE GIVEN IS UTILITARIANISM OR THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY

• So, Mill must• 1. explain and clarify the principle of utility and defend it against

objections that might have been made by these previous philosophers and that were made against Bentham’s version. (3 ways to handle criticisms; reject criticism, accept criticism and change view to accommodate it, accept criticism and give up view.)

• 2. provide an argument for his theoretical claim that utility is the foundation of duties.

Mill (NO S)• Like Bentham (empiricist); morality should be

grounded in empirical *(observable) fact.• We must observe what human beings are

ultimately motivated by and take this into account in our moral view.

• VALUE JUDGMENTS ARE PRIOR TO MORAL JUDGMENTS; FIND OUT WHAT PEOPLE VALUE AND YOU HAVE FOUND THE FOUNDATION OF MORALITY (WHAT GROUNDS MORALITY)

Mill (NO S)• What is right? What is wrong?• What is the highest good (summum bonum)• what is the foundation of morality?

For Mill, these questions are asking the same thing. The highest good is whatever people seek as an end (ultimate end). For human beings it is happiness because it is an observable fact that we seek happiness which is seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.We desire happiness as an end. (hedonism)All else is only a means to an end.

Mill (no S)• So actions are right in proportion as they tend to

promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness; by happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain, by unhappiness pain and the privation of pleasure. (264)

• hedonism part

• So: • What is happiness exactly? Pleasure sure but what is

pleasure?• Whose happiness counts? Mine, yours, future

generations, animals?

Considerations of objections

Mill establishes his view of utilitarianism (molds it, shapes it) by considering objections that might be or have been made against the view.

we will consider 5 objectionsThrough these he adds three important aspects to happiness that separate him from Bentham

1. stoic element2. regard for others3. mental cultivation

And otherwise makes his view clearer

Objection 1 (264): Pig Objection

Objection: the pleasure principle turns people into pigs; a doctrine worthy of swines.

Think: who might have made such a criticism?

Kant:Aristotle:Plato:

Objection 1: response

It is those who make this criticism that degrade humanity, for they speak as if human beings are capable of pleasures only swine are capable of– but we are capable of much more.

• adds qualitative differences to Bentham’s quantitative (265)

• Pushpin versus poetry• mental cultivation: any mind to which the

fountains of knowledge have been opened is capable of happiness.

Objection 1 response• competent judges (266)• better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a pig

satisfied and if a person believes otherwise it is because he hasn’t truly experienced the other side. (265)

• it takes more for a human being to be happy; higher pleasures

Competent judges: IssuesAnalogy to Divine Command Theory (Ethyphro Question)

1. Is what is right, right because Gd commands it? Or Does Gd command it because it is right?

2. is what is preferable, preferable because the competent judges say so? Or do the competent judges prefer because it is preferable?

Constitutive Versus Evidentiary/ objective versus relative

This will be important later when he talks about proof

Competent Judges

People who don’t prefer higher quality pleasures haven’t practiced mental cultivation or haven’t been introduced to both sides.OrDon’t have timeGet addicted(266)

Objection2: utilitarianism is selfish• (271) the happiness that which forms the

standard of the utilitarian doctrine is not the agent’s own, but happiness of everyone.

• To do as one would do another; love your neighbor like yourself (compare to Kant)

• What about peoples’ propensity to selfishness? Education/socilization

• Adds: due regard for the interests of others

Objection 3: happiness can’t be the purpose of human life and action

Kant: we have no idea how to be happy let alone how to make others’ happy. If the end of moral action was to create happiness, we would have been given the constitution to obtain it. (267)

Mill: stoic element

Objection 4: this standard is too highWe cannot expect people to always be thinking of the happiness of everyone each time they act (271)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC4FnfNKwUo

Answer: separate motive from rule of action (opposite of Kant)

A standard of morals tells us what our duties are; but no system of ethics should require that we do things from a certain motive. e.g., tattoo case; drowning case; dog case

Objection 5: no time to calculate

There is no time to calculate the consequences of each choice every time we are faced with a decision. (275)

Rules of thumb, experience and experience of others

Rule vs. Act Utilitarianism

John Stuart Mill“Proof” for the principle of utility

Review• mental cultivation gets added due to pig criticism• stoic element gets added due to criticism that we

cannot be or don’t know how to be happy.• due regard for the interests of others gets added

by the criticism that utilitarianism is selfish

Utilitarianism: do that act which among your choices results in the greatest good (happiness/pleasure) for the greatest amount of people.

Two parts to this principle• 1. hedonism: pleasure and only pleasure

(happiness) is intrinsically good (good as an end)

• 2. non-egoism/universal part: everyone’s happiness counts

Can there be a REAL proof?• Strictly speaking no.

Remember the structure:

Duties:

Foundation/given: principle of utility

** THE FOUNDATION IS THE GIVEN: NOTHING UNDER SO SUPPORT IT.

“proof”• this is why we put “proof” in quotes– it is not a

genuine proof. Rather Mill thinks he is giving us good reasons to believe that this is the foundation of morality.

• Like our sense experience gives us good reason to believe that we see red. (Hume)

“proof”Three parts to the argument:

1. Factual claim: people do, in fact, desire happiness (go for pleasure/avoid pain).

2. hedonism: Happiness is desirable for persons.(move from is to ought: hard to do)

3. Happiness is desirable for the aggregate of persons.

From hedonism thedonism.

1. Factual claim• People do, in fact, seek their own happiness; they are

moved to gain pleasure and avoid pain.

• Epistemology: empiricism• all knowledge, including moral knowledge, is to be

grounded in empirical fact.• it is obvious based on observation that this is a

correct assessment of what people desire.

So fact: each person, insofar as they are rational, desires his/her own happiness

criticism of factual claimThere are other ends: people do, in fact, desire things as ends other than happiness.

For example: friendship

Mill’s response: happiness is not linear, it is circular

With experience, these other goods become part of the end of happiness/pleasure.  Thus, it feels like we desire them for their own sake—they become so as they become part of our very understanding of happiness.

 In this sense, the relationship between these other goods and happiness is constitutive.

 Obtaining knowledge is good because it leads to happiness has a different picture.

2. The move from is to ought• Mill must argue for the move from the FACT that

people desire happiness to the claim that happiness is desirable. (intrinsically desirable)

• move from fact to hedonism.

• uses an analogical argument

2. analogy

Analogy to the GIVEN in foundationalist theories of knowledge (Hume)

The only proof that something is visible is that I see it.Likewise, the only proof that something is desirable is that people desire it.

X is desired/X is desirableX is visible/X is seen

analogy• weakness of analogy; only as strong as the similarities

• could criticize: • A. sight and desire are not the same. Visible means

able to be seen. Desirable does not mean can be or able to be desired; it means good if it were desired.

• e.g., I desire heroine, therefore heroine is desirable

• e.g., a strong constitution is desirable, that doesn’t mean that people desire it. We mean it would be good if people desire it.

Argument for Hedonism: ought from is • this shows it is hard to move from is to ought

• Mill wants to make this move: x is desired so x is desirable but it hardly follows from the fact that people are motivated to do X that it is good that they do so or that they ought to do so

Criticism: response

Mill would argue this is not intended to be a proof but rather give us good reasons to believe the claims

Provide considerations that incline the intellect toward accepting the principle or seeing its merit

We could argue that even though we are, in fact, ultimately motivated by happiness, we ought to pursue other goods. But that would be to say we would never to motivated to pursue those goods. So we have no chance of being moral. (ought implies can) not quite what Plato said– we can change and grow

Step 3: move from hedonism to universalismFrom: happiness is desirable for each person To: the general happiness is desirable for the aggregate of persons

This move is made by appeal to discrimination

Equal Protection under the Law: NO DISCRIMINATION WITHOUT LEGITIMATE DIFFERENCES

CRITICISM OF THIS THIRD MOVE

• do we NEVER have reason to put ’s happiness above any other person’s?

• is there ever any legitimate difference? Rawls (a Kantian) says yes.

(although so might a utilitarian: consider motive claim) our natural motives to put our own children’s happiness above others results in the greatest good if everyone else acts on their natural motives too.