Utilitarianism

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Utilitarianism

• Philosophy 1
• Spring, 2002
• G. J. Mattey

2
John Stuart Mill

• Born 1806
• Son of philosopher James Mill
• Learned Greek and Latin as a child
• Administrator in East India Company
• Member of Parliament
• Died 1873

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Mills Contributions

• Defended phenomenalism, the view that physical
  objects are permanent possibilities of
  sensation
• Developed Mills methods for inductive
  reasoning
• Applied scientific method to social sciences
• Refined and defended the principle of utility
• Defended a strong libertarian principle
• Argued for the equality of women
• Promoted environment, population control

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The Method of Ethics

• No progress has resulted from all the work in
  philosophy directed toward finding the nature of
  the good
• A problem is that we ought to know what right and
  wrong are before we can tell whether an action is
  right or wrong
• But this is the reverse of scientific procedure,
  which begins with the particular and works toward
  general principles

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Moral Sense

• Some recent philosophers have postulated the
  existence of a moral sense or intuition
• But a moral sense is not supposed to detect
  particular cases of right and wrong action, only
  general principles
• So if there is a moral sense, ethics still
  proceeds differently from the sciences
• Moreover, the intuitive school of ethics has
  never produced an adequate set of moral principles

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A Priori Ethics

• Some recent philosophers have held that the
  general principles of morality are discovered a
  priori
• Most do not provide a single moral principle
• Kant did produce one the categorical imperative
• But he could not successfully deduce actual
  duties from that principle
• There is no logical contradiction in thinking a
  bad maxim as universal, only consequences no one
  would choose to incur

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The Greatest Happiness Principle

• Actions are right in proportion to their tendency
  to produce happiness
• We cannot prove that happiness is the ultimate
  end of human action
• But we can provide rational grounds for accepting
  that happiness is such an end
• Mill begins with examples designed to clear up
  misconceptions

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Utility

• Utility is pleasure and absence of pain
• It is not what is merely useful
• Pleasure and the absence of pain is happiness
• Human pleasure is not that of a swine, so the end
  of human action is not the pleasure of a swine
• Human pleasure includes pleasures of
• The intellect
• Feelings and imagination
• Moral sentiments

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A Hierarchy of Pleasures

• Some of these pleasures are higher than others
• The difference is in quality
• It is measured in terms of preferences of all or
  nearly all people
• Some pleasures are so preferred that a
  considerable amount of discomfort is tolerated
  for their sake
• Those of the higher faculties are preferred in
  this way by the competent, from their sense of
  dignity

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The Base Life

• It is better to be a human being dissatisfied
  than a pig satisfied
• People do sink into a base life, but this is
  because they have lost their higher capacities
• These are difficult to establish and easily
  wither away
• Many distractions can drag us down
• The preference for higher pleasures by at least
  the majority is good reason to think they are
  better

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The Possibility of Happiness

• The greatest happiness principle makes the
  ultimate end happiness, extended as much as
  possible to all humans or sentient creatures
• Is happiness possible in human beings?
• Mitigation of pain at least is possible
• Happiness is not a life of rapture, but a varied
  life of pleasures mixed with few pains
• If not for the present wretched education and
  wretched social institutions, this would be
  attainable by all

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Two Chief Forms of Happiness

• Most people have been satisfied by less than a
  moderate share of happiness
• This is due to the fact that happiness has two
  forms
• Tranquility
• Excitement
• Those with plenty of one can tolerate a large
  deficiency in the other
• The two are complementary to each other

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Conditions for Happiness

• The greatest impediment to happiness is
  selfishness
• The greatest aid to happiness is cultivation
• Mental culture ought to be available to everyone
  living in a civilized country
• Most of the great evils in the world can be
  eliminated
• Poverty, by society and charity
• Disease, by education and sanitation

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Nobility

• It is argued that it is moral to give up
  happiness and behave nobly
• But noble action concerns the happiness or
  requirements for the happiness of others
• The noble person who has some other ends may
  be an inspiring proof of what men can do, but
  assuredly not an example of what they should.

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The Golden Rule

• The rule, to do as you would be done by is a
  utilitarian rule
• It expresses that the happiness of the whole of
  humanity is paramount
• Utility would influence social institutions to
  promote happiness
• And it would influence education to do so as well

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Too High a Standard?

• It has been objection that maximizing happiness
  is too high a standard for action
• But ethics does not require that acting according
  to its standard should be ones sole motivation
• Utilitarians have always held that the motive of
  an action is not the basis of its morality,
  though it reveals the moral worth of the agent
• Private utility, not universal utility, motivates
  most actions

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Applying Standards

• Utilitarianism seems to deem the coldly
  calculating person most estimable
• But there is no necessary connection between
  virtues of character and goodness of action
• All systems of morality have the problem that
  they seem to promote extreme behavior
• It is better to err on the side of utility than
  the side of disutility

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Godless?

• Utilitarianism is charged with being a godless
  ethics
• But it promotes happiness, which presumably is
  Gods end for humans as well
• Strict versions of divine law are a matter of
  interpretation of Gods will
• The utilitarian can interpret it as favoring
  happiness

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Calculation

• There is not enough time to calculate the effects
  on happiness of all our actions
• But the whole history of humanity has made the
  calculations for us
• When one considers murder or theft, this is not
  the first time it has occurred to someone
• The beliefs which have come down through history
  are the rules of morality for the masses, subject
  to refinement by philosophers

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Conflicting Considerations

• A final charge is that utilitarians can do what
  they please in the name of utility
• But every system of morality allows for
  exceptions due to conflicting obligations
• These are the real difficulties in ethics
• Utility can be invoked to resolve conflict
• There is no way to do so in other systems

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The Sources of Obligation

• The question, What is the source of obligation?
  is common to all moral theories
• Only conventional morality escapes it, due to its
  familiarity
• For utilitarianism, it is a question as to why
  happiness should be promoted
• The question would not arise if people became
  accustomed to promoting happiness

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Sanctions

• Utilitarianism has the same external sanctions as
  do other theories
• Hope of favor and fear of displasure
• Of fellow humans
• Of God
• Internal sanctions are those of conscience, which
  are very complex
• Conscience is a subjective feeling in our minds
• For utilitarians, this is a feeling for humanity
• Even for Kant, there is only a feeling of duty

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Society

• Moral feelings may be innate or acquired
• There is no objection to a feeling for humanity
  being innate
• Mill believes the feeling for humanity is
  acquired, through development of our natural
  feelings
• This is based on society among equals, which
  promotes the utilitarian principle
• Social people pay regard to others of course
• The moral feeling is strengthened with the
  advance of political improvement

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Proof of the Principle of Utility

• The only way to prove that happiness is the
  ultimate end of human actions is to note that it
  is what people actually do desire
• This is compatible with the desire for virtue,
  which is part of happiness
• The same holds for money, power, fame
• Each contributes to happiness, which is not an
  abstract idea but a concrete whole
• Virtue is higher, since it is never obnoxious

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Justice

• People think our feeling of justice indicates
  that it is objectively real
• We get a conception of what we feel to be just by
  considering its many applications to
• Liberty
• Moral right of possession
• Desert
• Good faith
• Impartiality
• Equality
• What do they have in common?

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Justice Defined

• Justice is commonly confused with ordinary
  morality
• Its distinctive feature is that it involves a
  claim from someone as a moral right
• We can only make this claim on someone who has a
  perfect duty to perform or not to perform an act
• So, it is not unjust not to be beneficent

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Rule and Sanction

• The rule of justice is intended for the good of
  humanity
• It is more vital to human well-being than any
  other principle of action
• The feeling of justice is the sentiment that
  sanctions the rule a desire for punishment of
  those who violate it
• It arises from the impulse of self-defense and
  the feeling of sympathy