Reading
Excerpted by Christopher Lay
Los Angeles Pierce College
Department of History, Philosophy, and Sociology
Chapter 2: "What Utilitarianism Is," from
Mill's Utilitarianism, as found at: www.utilitarianism.com/mill2.htm
"The creed which
accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness
Principle, holds that 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. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the
theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes
in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is left an open
question. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life
on which this theory of morality is grounded- namely, that pleasure, and
freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all
desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any other
scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as
means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain."
"Now,
such a theory of life excites in many minds, and among them in some of the most
estimable in feeling and purpose, inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has
(as they express it) no higher end than pleasure- no better and nobler object
of desire and pursuit- they designate as utterly mean and grovelling;
as a doctrine worthy only of swine, to whom the followers of Epicurus were, at
a very early period, contemptuously likened; and modern holders of the doctrine
are occasionally made the subject of equally polite comparisons by its German,
French, and English assailants."
"When
thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it is not they, but
their accusers, who represent human nature in a degrading light; since the
accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of
which swine are capable. If this supposition were true, the charge could not be
gainsaid, but would then be no longer an imputation; for if the sources of
pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the rule of life
which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other. The
comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading,
precisely because a beast's pleasures do not satisfy a human being's
conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the
animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything
as happiness which does not include their gratification. I do not, indeed,
consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out
their scheme of consequences from the utilitarian principle. To do this in any
sufficient manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian elements require to be
included. But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign
to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral
sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation.
It must be admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed
the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater
permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc., of the
former- that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their
intrinsic nature. And on all these points utilitarians
have fully proved their case; but they might have taken the other, and, as it
may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible
with the principle of utility to recognise the fact,
that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others.
It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered
as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend
on quantity alone."
"If
I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes
one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a 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. If one of the two is, by those who are
competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they
prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of
discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure
which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the
preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to
render it, in comparison, of small account."
"From
this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there can be no appeal.
On a question which is the best worth having of two pleasures, or which of two
modes of existence is the most grateful to the feelings, apart from its moral
attributes and from its consequences, the judgment of those who are qualified
by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must
be admitted as final. And there needs be the less
hesitation to accept this judgment respecting the quality of pleasures, since
there is no other tribunal to be referred to even on the question of quantity.
What means are there of determining which is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of two pleasurable sensations, except the general
suffrage of those who are familiar with both? Neither pains nor pleasures are
homogeneous, and pain is always heterogeneous with pleasure. What is there to
decide whether a particular pleasure is worth purchasing at the cost of a
particular pain, except the feelings and judgment of the experienced? When,
therefore, those feelings and judgment declare the pleasures derived from the
higher faculties to be preferable in kind, apart from the question of
intensity, to those of which the animal nature, disjoined from the higher
faculties, is suspectible, they are entitled on this
subject to the same regard."
"But
to speak only of actions done from the motive of duty, and in direct obedience
to principle: 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. The great majority of good
actions are intended not for the benefit of the world, but for that of
individuals, of which the good of the world is made up; and the thoughts of the
most virtuous man need not on these occasions travel beyond the particular
persons concerned, except so far as is necessary to assure himself that in
benefiting them he is not violating the rights, that is, the legitimate and authorised expectations, of any one else. The
multiplication of happiness is, according to the utilitarian ethics, the object
of virtue: the occasions on which any person (except one in a thousand) has it
in his power to do this on an extended scale, in other words to be a public
benefactor, are but exceptional; and on these occasions alone is he called on
to consider public utility; in every other case, private utility, the interest
or happiness of some few persons, is all he has to attend to. Those alone the
influence of whose actions extends to society in general, need concern
themselves habitually about large an object. In the case of abstinences indeed-
of things which people forbear to do from moral considerations, though the
consequences in the particular case might be beneficial- it would be unworthy
of an intelligent agent not to be consciously aware that the action is of a
class which, if practised generally, would be
generally injurious, and that this is the ground of the obligation to abstain
from it. The amount of regard for the public interest implied in this
recognition, is no greater than is demanded by every system of morals, for they
all enjoin to abstain from whatever is manifestly pernicious to society."
"It
is truly a whimsical supposition that, if mankind were agreed in considering
utility to be the test of morality, they would remain without any agreement as
to what is useful, and would take no measures for having their notions on the
subject taught to the young, and enforced by law and opinion. There is no
difficulty in proving any ethical standard whatever to work ill, if we suppose
universal idiocy to be conjoined with it; but on any hypothesis short of that,
mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of
some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are
the rules of morality for the multitude, and for the philosopher until he has
succeeded in finding better. That philosophers might easily do this, even now,
on many subjects; that the received code of ethics is by no means of divine
right; and that mankind have still much to learn as to the effects of actions
on the general happiness, I admit, or rather, earnestly maintain. The
corollaries from the principle of utility, like the precepts of every practical
art, admit of indefinite improvement, and, in a progressive state of the human
mind, their improvement is perpetually going on."
"But to consider the rules of morality as improvable, is one thing; to pass over the intermediate generalisations entirely, and endeavour to test each individual action directly by the first principle, is another. It is a strange notion that the acknowledgment of a first principle is inconsistent with the admission of secondary ones. To inform a traveller respecting the place of his. ultimate destination, is not to forbid the use of landmarks and direction-posts on the way. The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality, does not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons going thither should not be advised to take one direction rather than another. Men really ought to leave off talking a kind of nonsense on this subject, which they would neither talk nor listen to on other matters of practical concernment. Nobody argues that the art of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it ready calculated; and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong, as well as on many of the far more difficult questions of wise and foolish. And this, as long as foresight is a human quality, it is to be presumed they will continue to do. Whatever we adopt as the fundamental principle of morality, we require subordinate principles to apply it by; the impossibility of doing without them, being common to all systems, can afford no argument against any one in particular; but gravely to argue as if no such secondary principles could be had, and as if mankind had remained till now, and always must remain, without drawing any general conclusions from the experience of human life, is as high a pitch, I think, as absurdity has ever reached in philosophical controversy."