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J. S. Mill's Conception of Utility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2010

BEN SAUNDERS
BEN SAUNDERS*
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, University of Oxfordben.saunders@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

Mill's most famous departure from Bentham is his distinction between higher and lower pleasures. This article argues that quality and quantity are independent and irreducible properties of pleasures that may be traded off against each other – as in the case of quality and quantity of wine. I argue that Mill is not committed to thinking that there are two distinct kinds of pleasure, or that ‘higher pleasures’ lexically dominate lower ones, and that the distinction is compatible with hedonism. I show how this interpretation not only makes sense of Mill but allows him to respond to famous problems, such as Crisp's Haydn and the oyster and Nozick's experience machine.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 52 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Tensions between ‘Benthamite’ and ‘Aristotelian’ influences are noted by Levine, Andrew, Engaging Political Philosophy: From Hobbes to Rawls (Malden, Mass., 2002), pp. 142–3Google Scholar; Darwall, Stephen, Philosophical Ethics (Oxford, 1998), p. 118Google Scholar.

2 Ayer, A. J., ‘The Principle of Utility’, Philosophical Essays (London, 1954), pp. 264–7Google Scholar.

3 Mill, J. S., Utilitarianism, ed. Crisp, Roger (Oxford, 1998), II.2.4–5Google Scholar. References to Utilitarianism are by chapter, paragraph and line numbers.

4 Bentham, Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation [IPML], ed. Burns, J. H. and Hart, H. L. A. (Oxford, 1996), V.1, p. 42Google Scholar.

5 Bentham, IPML, VI.1, p. 51.

6 Bentham, IPML, III.2, p. 34.

7 Bentham, IPML, IV.6, p. 39.

8 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.

9 Crisp, Roger, Mill on Utilitarianism (London, 1997), p. 21Google Scholar.

10 Plato, Republic, trans. G. M. A. Grube, rev. C. D. C. Reeve (Indianapolis, 1992), 327b.

11 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T. Irwin (Indianapolis, 1985), 1153a9-11.

12 This is noted by Crisp, Mill on Utilitarianism, p. 26.

13 See Williams, Geraint, ‘The Greek Origins of J. S. Mill's Happiness’, Utilitas 8 (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Riley, Jonathan, ‘Millian Qualitative Superiorities and Utilitarianism, Part I’, Utilitas 20 (2008), pp. 271–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Mill, Utilitarianism, e.g. II.4, 8 and 12, and IV.5 and 10–11.

15 Crisp, Mill on Utilitarianism, p. 27.

16 E.g. Brink, David, ‘Mill's Deliberative Utilitarianism’, Philosophy & Public Affairs 21 (1992), pp. 72–8Google Scholar (though he restricts hedonism to mental state accounts of pleasure); Rawls, John, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass., 2007), p. 259Google Scholar; Levine, Engaging Political Philosophy, pp. 141–2.

17 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.2.6–7.

18 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.2.12–14.

19 Mill, Utilitarianism, IV.5.19–25.

20 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.

21 Mill, Utilitarianism, IV.8.6.

22 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.

23 Rawls, Lectures, p. 261. Cf. Mill, ‘Bentham’, Collected Works, X.113.

24 J. S. Mill, Autobiography, V, Collected Works, I.149–57.

25 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.3.5.

26 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.1; compare IV.5–8. ‘Fine’ or ‘noble’ often translate the Greek kalon, which combined both moral and aesthetic ideals.

27 This interpretation is also offered by Crisp, Mill on Utilitarianism, p. 30, but contradicts that of Rawls, Lectures, pp. 259–63. 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.

28 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.8.2–6.

29 David Hume, ‘Of the Standard of Taste’, Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, ed. E. F. Miller (Indianapolis, 1985), pp. 230–1.

30 Hume, ‘Standard of Taste’, p. 229.

31 Hume, ‘Standard of Taste’, p. 235.

32 Hume, ‘Standard of Taste’, p. 234.

33 Hume, ‘Standard of Taste’, p. 233.

34 Hume, ‘Standard of Taste’, p. 241.

35 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.6.1–2.

36 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.5.5–6.

37 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.5.5.

38 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.7.4.

39 This is also the interpretation of Brink, ‘Deliberative Utilitarianism’, p. 80.

40 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, rev. edn. (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), pp. 74–5Google Scholar.

41 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.6.1–4.

42 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.

43 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.6.26.

44 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.8.6. Since they are, by hypothesis, competent judges, we can assume Condorcet's Jury Theorem applies.

45 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.8.1–2.

46 Brink, ‘Deliberative Utilitarianism’, p. 71.

47 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.

48 Carritt, E. F., The Theory of Morals (London, 1928), p. 21Google Scholar.

49 Carritt, Theory, p. 43.

50 E.g. Broad, C. D., Five Types of Ethical Theory (London, 1930), p. 232Google Scholar; Riley, ‘Is Qualitative Hedonism Inconsistent?’, p. 354. Cf. Fletcher, Guy, ‘The Consistency of Qualitative Hedonism and the Value of (at Least Some) Malicious Pleasures’, Utilitas 20 (2008), pp. 465–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.4.28–30.

52 Bentham, IMPL, VI.11, p. 55 and XIV.22, p. 171.

53 Crisp, Mill on Utilitarianism, p. 24.

54 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.4.26–8.

55 Ayer, ‘The Principle of Utility’, p. 252; 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’.

56 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; ‘Is Qualitative Hedonism Inconsistent?’, pp. 347–51; ‘Qualitative Superiorities, I’, pp. 269–71. This also has obvious implications for the trade-off between higher and lower pleasures.

57 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.4.20–25.

58 I thank Chris Brooke for prompting me to stress this point.

59 Scarre, Geoffrey, ‘Donner and Riley on Qualitative Hedonism’, Utilitas 9 (1997), pp. 354–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Scanlon, After T. M., What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), pp. 95–100Google Scholar.

61 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.8.7–11.

62 E.g. Nagel, Thomas, ‘Aristotle on Eudaimonia’, Phronesis 17 (1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ackrill, J. L., ‘Aristotle on Eudaimonia’, Proceedings of the British Academy 60 (1974)Google Scholar.

63 This phrase comes from Rawls, Theory, pp. 37–8, and is used by Crisp, Mill on Utilitarianism, p. 40.

64 E.g. Brink, ‘Deliberative Utilitarianism’, pp. 72 and 92; Riley, ‘On Qualities and Quantities’, pp. 295–6 and ‘Qualitative Superiorities, I’, p. 269; Rawls, Lectures, pp. 261–3.

65 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.6.40–42.

66 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.6.33–34.

67 J. S. Mill, On Liberty, III.1, Collected Works, XVIII.261.

68 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.5.6–13. Emphasis added.

69 Ryberg, Jesper, ‘Higher and Lower Pleasures – Doubts on Justification’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 5 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rabinowicz, Wlodek, ‘Ryberg's Doubts About Higher and Lower Pleasures – Put to Rest?’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Arrhenius, Gustaf and Rabinowicz, Wlodek, ‘Millian Superiorities’, Utilitas 17 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 E.g. Riley, ‘On Qualities and Quantities’; Scarre, ‘Donner and Riley’, pp. 355–9; Riley ‘Is Qualitative Hedonism Inconsistent?’; Ryberg, ‘Doubts on Justification’.

71 Mill, Utilitarianism, II.5.10. Emphasis added. Ryberg, ‘Doubts on Justification’, pp. 422–3, notes that it is unrealistic to assume away diminishing marginal utility, but does so anyway.

72 I thank Roger Crisp for pressing me on this point.

73 Ryberg, ‘Doubts on Justification’, p. 419.

74 E.g. Riley, ‘On Qualities and Quantities’, pp. 291–6.

75 Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford, 1974), pp. 42–5Google Scholar.

76 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.

77 For an illuminating account of how Mill's understanding of happiness fits his wider political theory, see Brink, ‘Deliberative Utilitarianism’ (though I do not agree with it in all aspects).

78 Mill, On Liberty, II.3–20, Collected Works, XVIII.229–43.

79 Hume, ‘Standard of Taste’, p. 233.

80 Mill, On Liberty, II.8, Collected Works, XVIII.232.

81 I thank Chris Brooke, Krister Bykvist, Roger Crisp, Helen McCabe, Dominic Wilkinson, as well as two audiences in Oxford (convened by Chris Brooke and Julian Savulescu) and one in Sheffield (convened by Robert Stern) and two anonymous referees, for their helpful comments.