AS Epitomes
J S Mill, Utilitarianism
Abstract
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Contents Updated: Wednesday, 20 February, 2008
Preamble
As a system of ethics setting up as a rule of conduct the best interests either of the individual or of the community, Utilitarianism had its beginnings in the Hedonist schools of the Cyrenaics and Epicureans, and until the eighteenth century its aim was held to be the acquisition of pleasure. The system of utility was first formulated by Jeremy Bentham, who defined “utility” as the property of an object “which tends to produce pleasure, good or happiness, or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness”. So, the greatest happiness of the greatest number was the object to be aimed for. Although his definition allows for negative pleasure, unhappiness, his theories otherwise take no account of the quality of pleasure, a defect remedied by John Stuart Mill who introduced the view that certain pleasures possess an intrinsic value which renders them superior to others. Thus Mill was not the founder of the creed of Utilitarianism, but he invented the name and did much to formulate, define and defend its tenets. His essay on Utilitarianism, published in Fraser’s Magazine in 1861 and in book form two years later, did much to clear away prejudice and misconception.
Its Meaning
Utility, or the greatest happiness principle, as the foundation of morals holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, and wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. The idea excites in many minds inveterate dislike. They designate as only worthy of swine the doctrine that life has no other aim and end than pleasure. But there are other pleasures than the pleasures of swine. Human beings have faculties other than the animal appetites, and it is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others.
If I am asked what pleasures are more desirable and more valuable, I fall back on the verdict of experience. If, of two pleasures, one be invariably preferred by all those capable of enjoying both, that one is the more desirable. Few human beings would resign human for bestial pleasures. No person would prefer stupidity to intelligence, or selfishness and baseness to feeling and conscience. A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is probably more liable to pain than one of inferior type, yet he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence. Whoever supposes this preference involves a sacrifice of happiness confounds happiness and satisfaction. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the pig thinks otherwise, it is because they have no experience of the better part.
It may be objected that many who are capable of both higher and lower pleasures sometimes choose the lower, but this is not really choice, it is infirmity of character. It may be questioned whether anyone who has remained susceptible to two classes of pleasures ever knowingly calmly preferred the lower, though many in all ages have broken down in an attempt to combine high and low. On a question which is the more desirable of two pleasures, or of two ways of living, the judgement of those who know both must be admitted final, for there is no other tribunal. What is there to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and judgement of the experienced? When, then, the duly experienced declare that pleasures derived from the higher faculties are preferable in kind to those of which animal nature is susceptible, there is none to gainsay.
According to the greatest happiness principle, the ultimate end with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable, is an existence as exempt as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments both in quantity and quality. The test of quality, again, and the rule for measuring it against quantity, must be the preference felt by those with experience and best able to compare. This, being the end of human action, is necessarily also the standard of morality, which may accordingly be defined as the rules for human conduct which will, so far as possible, secure to mankind and to the sentient creation such an existence as we have described.
Certain critics bring forward the objection that happiness is impossible. But moderate happiness is not impossible. The main constituents of happiness seem to be two—tranquillity and excitement. With tranquillity many find that they can be content with little excitement, and with much excitement many can reconcile themselves to considerable pain.
When people who are tolerably fortunate in their outward lot find life unhappy, it usually is because they lack altruism or are deficient in mental cultivation. Those who cherish a fellow feeling for others will always retain a pleasurable interest in life, and a cultivated mind finds inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it—nature, art, poetry, history, the past, present and future of mankind.
Nor need any lack the private and public affections and the degree of mental culture requisite for happiness. Everyone in a free, well governed country with a moderate amount of moral and intellectual capacity is capable of happiness, provided he escape indigence, disease and the sorrows inflicted by death and by the faults of others. Poverty and disease, moreover, are conquerable, and every intelligent and generous mind will find happiness in playing a part in their conquest.
Only in a very imperfect world can self sacrifice serve the happiness of others, yet in this imperfect world I confess that self sacrifice is the highest virtue. The utilitarian morality does recognize that self sacrifice for the good of others is good, for the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct is not the agent’s own happiness, but the happiness of all. The agent must be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. To do as one would be done by, and to love one’s neighbours as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.
It is often affirmed that utilitarians look too much at the effects of actions and too little at the moral qualities that produce them, but this error is not inherent in utilitarianism, it is merely a necessary consequence of the difficulty of seeing the motives at the back of conduct.
Utilitarianism is sometimes called godless. This criticism need not be discussed, since whatever aid religion, natural or revealed, can afford to ethical investigation is quite open to the utilitarian. It is also sometimes objected that it is the gospel of expediency, but the expedient, as conceived by utilitarianism, is certainly not opposed to the right.
Again, it is objected that there is not time previous to action to calculate the effects of conduct on the general happiness. The answer is that there has been ample time, namely, the whole past experience of the race. During all time mankind have been learning the tendencies of actions. The ordinary rules of morality indicate such tendencies, and others can be gradually formulated. Finally, it is said that utilitarianism gives scope for casuistry, and that a utilitarian, when tempted, will see more utility in the breach of a rule than in its observance. But every creed allows the operation of personal equation, and no creed can prevent self deception and dishonest casuistry.
Utility and Justice
The idea of justice supposes two things—a rule of conduct and a sentiment which sanctions the rule. The first must be supposed common to all mankind and intended for their good. The other—the sentiment—is a desire that punishment may be suffered by, those who infringe the rule. There is involved, in addition, the conception of some definite person who suffers by the infringement, whose rights are violated by it. And the sentiment of justice appears to me to be the animal desire to repel or retaliate a hurt or damage to oneself, or to those with whom one sympathises, widened so as to include all persons by the human capacity of enlarged sympathy and the human conception of intelligent selfinterest. From the latter elements the feeling derives its morality, from the former its peculiar impressiveness and energy of self assertion.
When we call anything a person’s right, we mean that he has a valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of it, either by the force of law or by that of education and opinion. To have a right is to have something which society ought to defend me in the possession of. If I am asked why it ought, I can give no other reason than general utility. If that expression does not seem to convey a sufficient feeling of the strength of the obligation, nor to account for the peculiar energy of the feeling, it is because there goes to the composition of the sentiment, not a rational onlv, but also an animal element—the thirst for retaliation, and this thirst derives its intensity, as well as its moral justification, from the extraordinarily important and impressive kind of utility which is concerned.
The utility concerned is security, and on it depends the whole value of all and every good, beyond the passing moment, since nothing but the gratification of the instant would be of anv worth to us ii we could be deprived of everything the next instant by whoever was momentarily stronger than ourselves. The feelings concerned are indeed so powerful, and we count so positively on fmding a responsive feeling in others—all heing alike, interested—that ought and should grow into must, and recognized indispensability becomes a moral necessity.
If the preceding analysis, or something resembling it, be not the correct account of the notion of justice, if justice be totally independent of utility and be a standard per se, which the mind can recognize by simple introspection of itself, it is hard to understand why that internal oracle is so ambiguous, and why so many things appear either just or unjust according to the light in which they are regarded.
Is, then, the difference between the just and the expedient merely imaginary? By no means. While I dispute the pretensions of any theory which sets up an imaginary standard of justice not grounded on utility, I account the justice which is grounded on utility to be the chief part, and incomparably the most sacred and binding part, of all morality, since it concerns the essentials of human wellbeing more nearly than any other rule for the guidance of life. The moral rules known collectively as justice, which forbid mankind to hurt one another or interfere with one another’s freedom, are more vital to human beings than maxims which merely point out the best way of managing some department of human affairs. And the same powerful motives which command the observance of these primary moralities enjoin the punishment of those who violate them, and as impu1ses of self defence, of defence of others, and of vengeance are all called forth against such persons, retribution becomes closely connected with the sentiment of justice.
Justice is involved in the very meaning of utility or the greatest happiness principle. That principle is a mere form of words unless one person’s happiness, supposed equal in degree—with the proper allowance made for kind—is counted for exactly as much as another’s. All persons are deemed to have a right to equality of treatment except when some recognized social expediency requires the reverse, and all social inequalities which are inexpedient are unjust.
The considerations which have now been adduced resolve, I conceive, the only real difficulty in the utilitarian theory of morals. It has always been evident that all cases of justice are also cases of expediency. The difference is in the peculiar sentiment which attaches to the former, and if this difference has been sufficiently accounted for, if there is no necessity to assume for it any peculiarity of origin, if it is simply the natural feeling of resentment moralised by being made coextensive with the demands of social good, and if this feeling not only does, hut ought to, exist in all classes of the cases to which the idea of justice corresponds, that idea no longer presents itself as a stumblingblock to the utilitarian ethics. Justice remains the appropriate name for certain social utilities which are vastly more important, and therefore more absolute and imperative, than any others are as a class, and which therefore ought to be, and naturally are, guarded by a sentiment distinguished by the definite nature of its commands and by the stern character of its sanctions.
The Individual And The State
The principle by which the propriety or impropriety of government interference is customarily tested 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. 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. The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. In the part which merely concerns himself, over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is, of right, sovereign. To justify compulsion and not mere entreaties, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else.
It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury.
As soon as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion—a period long since reached in all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves—compulsion, either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no longer admissible as a means to their own good, and justifiable only for the security of others.
Utility is the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions, but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of a man as a progressive being. If anyone does an act hurtful to others, there is a prima facie case for punishing him by law, or, where legal penalties are not safely applicable, by general disapprobation.
There are also many positive acts for the benefit of others which he may rightfully be compelled to perform, such as to give evidence in a court of justice, to bear his fair share in the common defence, or in any other joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which he enjoys the protection, and to perform certain acts of individual beneficence, such as saving a fellow creature’s life, or interposing to protect the defenceless against ill usage, things which, whenever it is obviously a man’s duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to society for not doing.
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. The latter case requires a much more cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make anyone answerable for doing evil to others is the rule. To make him answerable for not preventing evil is, comparatively, the exception. Yet there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to justify that exception. In all things which regard the external relations of the individual, he is de jure amenable to those whose interests are concerned, and, if need be, to society as their protector.
There are often good reasons for not holding him to the responsibility, but these reasons must arise from the special expediencies of the case, either because it is a kind of case in which he is on the whole likely to act better, when left to his own discretion, than when controlled in any way in which society have it in their power to control him, or because the attempt to exercise control would produce other evils, greater than those which it would prevent. When such reasons as these preclude the enforcement of responsibility, the conscience of the agent himself should step into the vacant judgment seat and protect those interests of others which have no external protection, judging himself all the more rigidly because the case does not admit of his being made accountable to the judgment of his fellow creatures.
Constituents of Liberty
This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness, demanding liberty of conscience in the most comprehensive sense, liberty of thought and feeling, absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other people, but, being almost of as much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it.
Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits, of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character, of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow without impediment from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals, freedom to unite for any purpose not involving harm to others, the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived.
No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government, and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
Though this doctrine is anything but new, and, to some persons, may have the air of a truism, there is no doctrine which stands more directly opposed to the general tendency of existing opinion and practice. Society has expended fully as much effort in the attempt (according to its lights) to compel people to conform to its notions of personal as of social excellence.
The ancient commonwealths thought themselves entitled to practise, and the ancient philosophers countenanced, the regulation of every part of private conduct by public authority, on the ground that the state had a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental discipline of everyone of its citizens, a mode of thinking which may have been admissible in small republics surrounded by powerful enemies, in constant peril of being subverted by foreign attack or internal commotion, and to which even a short interval of relaxed energy and self command might so easily be fatal that they could not afford to wait for the salutary permanent effects of freedom.
In the modern world, the engines of moral repression have been wielded more strenuously against divergence from the reigning opinion in self regarding than even in social matters. Religion, the most powerful of the elements which have entered into the formation of moral feeling, having almost always been governed either by the ambition of a hierarchy, seeking control over every department of human conduct, or by the spirit of Puritanism. And some of those modern reformers who have placed themselves in strongest opposition to the religions of the past have been no way behind either churches or sects in their assertion of the right of spiritual domination. M Comte in particular, aims at establishing—though by moral more than by legal appliances—a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers.
Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers, there is also in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation. And as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the world is to strengthen society and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and more formidable.
The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow citizens, to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power, and as the power is not declining but growing, unless a strong barrier of moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must expect, in the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.
The Ultimate Sanction
Whence does the principle of utility derive its binding force? Why am I bound to promote the general happiness? If my own happiness lies elsewhere, why may I not prefer that?
We can give the principle of utility all the external and internal sanctions which belong to any other system of morals, any hope of the favour and any fear of the displeasure of our fellow creatures, or of the ruler of the Universe, together with any sympathy and any affection we feel for our fellow creatures, and any love and any awe we feel towards Him inclining us to do His will. As our personal ultimate sanction, it has the pain, more or less intense, attendant on violation of duty, which in properly cultivated moral natures rises into shrinking from it as an impossibility, and this sanction is strengthened by collateral associations derived from sympathy, from love, from fear, from religious feelings, etc. The ultimate sanction, therefore, of utilitarianism is the conscientious and social feelings of mankind.
The foundation of utilitarian morality is the social instinct of mankind, and if this instinct were developed by religion, by education, by example, I think that no one would need to feel any misgiving about the sufficiency of the ultimate sanction of the happiness morality. The social feeling is in most individuals much weaker than the selfish feeling, and may be wanting altogether, but to those who have it, it possesses all the characters of a natural feeling, and makes the mind work with and not against the outward motives to care for others afforded by what I have called the external sanctions.
Of what sort of proof is the principle of utility susceptible? The sole evidence that anything is desirable is that people do actually desire it, and people do actually desire happiness. But people desire other things besides happiness. They desire virtue, for instance, and hence the opponents of utilitarianism maintain that there are other ends of human action besides happiness, and that happiness is not the standard of conduct.
To this utilitarianism replies that there is no original desire for virtue save through its conduciveness to pleasure and especially through its protection from pain. But through the association thus formed it may be felt a good in itself, and desired as such with as much intensity as any other good, and with this difference between it and the love of money, of power, or of fame, that all of these may render the individual noxious to the other members of the society to which he belongs, whereas there is nothing which makes him so much a blessing to them as the cultivation of the disinterested love of virtue. And, consequently, the utilitarian standard, while it tolerates and approves those other acquired desires up to a certain point, enjoins the cultivation of the love of virtue up to the greatest strength possible, as being, above all things, important to the general happiness.
It results, then, from the preceding considerations that there is in reality nothing desired except happiness. Those who desire virtue for its own sake desire it either because the consciousness of it is a pleasure or because the consciousness of being without it is a pain, or for both reasons together. Whatever is desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to happiness, is desired as itself a part of happiness, and is not desired for itself until it has become so. Briefly, nothing is a good to human beings but in so far as it is either pleasurable or a means of attaining pleasure or averting pain.
