J. S. Mill's conception of utility

Utilitas

Volumn 22, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 52-69

  Saunders, Ben ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 79956357903     PISSN: 09538208     EISSN: 17416183     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0953820809990380     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. Tensions between 'Benthamite' and 'Aristotelian' influences are noted by Andrew Levine, Engaging Political Philosophy: From Hobbes to Rawls (Malden, Mass., 2002), pp. 142-3;
2. Stephen Darwall, Philosophical Ethics (Oxford, 1998), p. 118.
3. A. J. Ayer, 'The Principle of Utility', Philosophical Essays (London, 1954), pp. 264-7.
4. J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, ed. Roger Crisp (Oxford, 1998), II.2.4-5. References to Utilitarianism are by chapter, paragraph and line numbers.
5. Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles ofMorals and Legislation [IPML], ed. J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (Oxford, 1996), V.1, p. 42.
6. Bentham, IPML, VI.1, p. 51.
7. Bentham, IPML, III.2, p. 34.
8. Bentham, IPML, IV.6, p. 39.
9. J. S. Mill, 'Bentham', The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed. J. M. Robson (Toronto, various dates), X.113. All references to Mill's works, other than Utilitarianism, are by chapter and paragraph (where relevant) and to the volume and page number of this edition.
10. Roger Crisp, Mill on Utilitarianism (London, 1997), p. 21.
11. Plato, Republic, trans. G. M. A. Grube, rev. C. D. C. Reeve (Indianapolis, 1992), 327b.
12. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T. Irwin (Indianapolis, 1985), 1153a9-11.
13. This is noted by Crisp, Mill on Utilitarianism, p. 26.
14. See GeraintWilliams, 'The Greek Origins of J. S. Mill's Happiness', Utilitas 8 (1996);
15. Jonathan Riley, 'Millian Qualitative Superiorities and Utilitarianism, Part I', Utilitas 20 (2008), pp. 271-5.
16. Mill, Utilitarianism, e.g. II.4, 8 and 12, and IV.5 and 10-11.
17. Crisp, Mill on Utilitarianism, p. 27.
18. E.g. David Brink, 'Mill's Deliberative Utilitarianism', Philosophy & Public Affairs 21 (1992), pp. 72-8 (though he restricts hedonism to mental state accounts of pleasure);
19. John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass., 2007), p. 259;
20. Levine, Engaging Political Philosophy, pp. 141-2.
21. Mill, Utilitarianism, II.2.6-7.
22. Mill, Utilitarianism, IV.5.19-25.
23. Mill, Utilitarianism, II.8.11-12 insists that 'Neither pains nor pleasures are homogeneous'. Of course, it is possible that pleasurable mental states might be heterogeneous, for instance if they shared some quality that made them pleasant but others that distinguished them. Nonetheless, one could suppose (falsely I believe) that there is some particular mental state common to all activities we call pleasant. It seems more obvious that pleasurable activities differ in kind.
24. Mill, Utilitarianism, IV.8.6.
25. Of course, a certain mental state may also be necessary. Reading or punting could hardly be classed as a pleasure if one did not enjoy it. Cf. Brink, 'Deliberative Utilitarianism', pp. 74-6.
26. Rawls, Lectures, p. 261.
27. Cf. Mill, 'Bentham', Collected Works, X.113.
28. J. S. Mill, Autobiography, V, Collected Works, I.149-57.
29. Mill, Utilitarianism, II.3.5.
30. Mill, Utilitarianism, II.1; compare IV.5-8. 'Fine' or 'noble' often translate the Greek kalon, which combined both moral and aesthetic ideals.
31. Rawls's lectures date from 1994, so do not reflect recent scholarship. Nor should his undergraduate lectures be taken as his final thoughts on these topics. Nonetheless, on this point they seem clearly wrong, and it is a mistake often made by undergraduates. I also reject the claim of Jonathan Riley, 'Is Qualitative Hedonism Inconsistent?', Utilitas 11 (1999), p. 355 that there are two or more discrete classes of pleasure.
32. David Hume, 'Of the Standard of Taste', Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, ed. E. F. Miller (Indianapolis, 1985), pp. 230-1.
33. Hume, 'Standard of Taste', p. 229.
34. Mill, Utilitarianism, II.6.1-2.
35. Mill, Utilitarianism, II.5.5-6.
36. Mill, Utilitarianism, II.7.4.
37. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. edn. (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), pp. 74-5.
38. Rawls, Theory, p. 374. Rawls only calls the principle Aristotelian, rather than Aristotle's, but his footnote also acknowledges how close Mill comes to expressing the same idea.
39. F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1927), p. 119. It may be reasonable to suppose that you need some exchange rate to adjudicate between quantity and quality, but it is unreasonable to assume that must be quantity, since this neglects quality altogether.
40. E. F. Carritt, The Theory of Morals (London, 1928), p. 21.
41. Carritt, Theory, p. 43.
42. E.g. C. D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory (London, 1930), p. 232;
43. Riley, 'Is Qualitative Hedonism Inconsistent?', p. 354.
44. Cf. Guy Fletcher, 'The Consistency of Qualitative Hedonism and the Value of (at Least Some) Malicious Pleasures', Utilitas 20 (2008), pp. 465-6.
45. Mill, Utilitarianism, II.4.28-30.
46. Bentham, IMPL, VI.11, p. 55 and XIV.22, p. 171.
47. Ayer, 'The Principle of Utility', p. 252;
48. cf. Bradley, Ethical Studies, pp. 118-19 '[S]ince the moral "higher" is here, as we see, the more pleasurable or the means to the more pleasurable, we come in the end to the amount, the quantity of pleasure without distinction of kind or quality; and having already seen that such an end is not a moral end, we get nothing from the phrases "higher" and "lower" unless it be confusion'.
49. The view that superiority in quality amounts to an infinite (or indefinite) superiority in quantity is defended by Jonathan Riley, 'On Quantities and Qualities of Pleasure', Utilitas 5 (1993), pp. 291-5;
50. 'Is Qualitative Hedonism Inconsistent?', pp. 347-51;
51. 'Qualitative Superiorities, I, 269-71. This also has obvious implications for the tradeoff between higher and lower pleasures.
52. Geoffrey Scarre, 'Donner and Riley on Qualitative Hedonism', Utilitas 9 (1997), pp. 354-5.
53. After T. M. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), pp. 95-100.
54. E.g. Thomas Nagel, 'Aristotle on Eudaimonia', Phronesis 17 (1972);
55. J. L. Ackrill, 'Aristotle on Eudaimonia', Proceedings of the British Academy 60 (1974).
56. Riley, 'On Qualities and Quantities', pp. 295-6
57. and 'Qualitative Superiorities, I', p. 269;
58. J. S. Mill, On Liberty, III.1
59. Collected Works, XVIII.261.
60. Jesper Ryberg, 'Higher and Lower Pleasures - Doubts on Justification', Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 5 (2002);
61. Wlodek Rabinowicz, 'Ryberg's Doubts About Higher and Lower Pleasures - Put to Rest?', Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (2003);
62. Gustaf Arrhenius and Wlodek Rabinowicz, 'Millian Superiorities', Utilitas 17 (2005).
63. Scarre, 'Donner and Riley', pp. 355-9;
64. Ryberg, 'Doubts on Justification'.
65. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford, 1974), pp. 42-5.
66. Such a response is suggested by Darwall, Philosophical Ethics, pp. 116-18, though he suggests that because Mill values objects rather than mental states his doctrine is hedonism in name only.
67. Mill, On Liberty, II.3-20
68. Mill, On Liberty, II.8, Collected Works, XVIII.232.