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Mill’s act-utilitarian interpreters on Utilitarianism chapter V paragraph 14

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Dale E. Miller Open the ORCID record for Dale E. Miller [Opens in a new window]
Dale E. Miller*
Affiliation:
Philosophy and Religious Studies, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA
*
E-mail: demiller@odu.edu
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Abstract

In the fourteenth paragraph of the fifth chapter of Utilitarianism, J. S. Mill writes that ‘We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow-creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience.’ I criticize the attempts of three commentators who have recently presented act-utilitarian readings of Mill – Roger Crisp, David Brink, and Piers Norris Turner – to accommodate this passage.

Keywords

J. S. Millact utilitarianismrule utilitarianismsanction utilitarianismblameguilt
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 47 , Issue 5 , 2017 , pp. 674 - 693
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017

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