Utilitarianism Ch 14, John Stuart Mill Ethics and Contemporary Issues Professor Douglas Olena Four Stories Kai Nielsen: Traditional Morality and Utilitarianism (a defense) The innocent fat man The magistrate and the threatening mob Bernard Williams: Against Utilitarianism (a criticism) George needs a job. Does Jim pull the trigger? Outline Chapter 2: What Utilitarianism Is Greatest Happiness Principle Types of Pleasure The Moral Standard Egoistic and Altruistic Utilitarianism The object of virtue Toward a more perfect ethic What Utilitarianism Is 121, 122* ³Those who know anything about the matter are aware that every writer from Epicurus to Bentham who maintained the theory of utility meant by it, not something to be contra-distinguished from pleasure, but pleasure itself, together with exemption from pain;² ³and instead of opposing the useful to the agreeable or ornamental, have always declared that the useful means these, among other things.² Greatest Happiness Principle 58 ³The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals Œutility¹ or the Œgreatest happiness principle¹ holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.² Greatest Happiness Principle 58 This theory of morality is grounded on the concept that: ³pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends.² ³All desirable things are desirable either for pleasure inherent in themselves or as a means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.² Types of Pleasure 58 Some suggest that this principle leads to hedonism, merely sensual pleasures on principle. 59 That however, implies that humans are only capable of the pleasures that pigs are capable of. ³Human 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.² Types of Pleasure 59 ³There 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 sensations.² Types of Pleasure 60 ³It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.² Types of Pleasure 60 ³Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant.² ³It is easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance.² ³And in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them and the society into which it has thrown them are not favorable to keeping that higher capacity in exercise.² The Moral Standard 61 ³According to the greatest happiness principleŠ the ultimate endŠ whether we are considering our own good or that of other people, is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality.² Egoism and Altruism Egoism in utilitarianism is the choice to do whatever promotes your own individual happiness. Altruism in utilitarianism is the choice to advantage not only one¹s own good but the good of your tribe, or even all people. 125* ³The utilitarian morality does recognize in human beings the power of sacrificing their own greatest good for the good of others. It only refuses to admit that the sacrifice is itself a good.² Egoism and Altruism Mill argues for an altruistic hedonism. 124 ³Šfor that standard is not the agent¹s own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its noblenessŠ There can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely a gainer by it.² Egoism and Altruism 125 ³The happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct is not the agent¹s own happiness but that of all concerned.² 125, 126 ³It is in the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth that we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. ŒTo do as you would be done by,¹ and Œto love your neighbor as yourself,¹ constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.² Egoism and Altruism 126 Rule 1: ³Laws and social arrangements should place the happiness or the interest of every individual as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole.² Rule 2: ³Education and opinion, with so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole.² The Object of Virtue 126 ³It is the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may know them; but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a feeling of duty.² ³The multiplication of happiness is, according to the utilitarian ethics, the object of virtue. The Object of Virtue 127 ³If it be a true belief that God desires, above all things, the happiness of his creatures, and that this was his purpose in creation, utility is not only not a godless doctrine, but more profoundly religious than any other.² ³A utilitarian who believes in the perfect goodness and wisdom of God necessarily believes that whatever God has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals must fulfill the requirements of utility in a supreme degree.² Toward a More Perfect Ethic 128 ³The 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.² Toward a More Perfect Ethic 128 ³The 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.² Toward a More Perfect Ethic 128 ³Whatever we adopt as the fundamental principle of morality, we require subordinate principles to apply it by.² Every system requires contextualization and application. ³It is not the fault of any creed, but of the complicated nature of human affairs that rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to require no exceptions.² Toward a More Perfect Ethic 128 ³There is no ethical creed which does not temper the rigidity of its laws by giving a certain latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to the particularities of circumstances.² Every system in these cases is open to self deception.... Mill claims that every system is bound to discover in itself a conflict of obligation. Toward a More Perfect Ethic 129, 129 ³If utility is the ultimate source of moral obligations, utility may be invoked to decide between them when their demands are incompatible.² Outline Chapter 4: Of What Sort of Proof the Principle of Utility is Susceptible The Proof No proof available by reason Desirability as proof Another standard Happiness and Virtue Will and habit A disinterested love of virtue Happiness the Only Intrinsic Good No Proof Available by Reason 61 ³To be incapable of proof by reasoning is common to all first principles; to the first premises of our knowledge, as well as to those of our conduct.² Desirability as Proof 61 ³Questions about ends are, in other words, questions about what things are desirable.² ³The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it.² ³The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it.² ³In like mannerŠ the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it.² Desirability as Proof 61 ³No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness.² 61, 62 ³ThisŠ being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of but which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each person¹s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.² Another Standard 62 Is happiness the only criteria of morality, the only end of conduct? No, things like virtue and the absence of vice are ends like happiness and the absence of pain. The opponents of utilitarianism therefore deem other things besides happiness worthy of being called a standard. Will and Habit 62 To those who love virtue disinterestedly, it has become by habit, cherished for itself as a means and end of their happiness. Disinterested Love of Virtue 63 ³What was once desired as an instrument for the attainment of happiness, has come to be desired for its own sakeŠ. It isŠ desired as part of happiness.² ³Whereas there is nothing which makes him [a person] so much a blessing to them as the cultivation of the disinterested love of virtue.² Happiness the Only Intrinsic Good 63 ³Whatever is desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itselfŠ is desired as itself a part of happiness, and is not desired as itself until it has become so.² Happiness the Only Intrinsic Good 63 ³If human nature is so constituted as to desire nothing which is not either a part of happiness or a means of happiness, we can have no other proof, and we require no other, that these are the only things desirable.² ³If so, happiness is the sole end of human action, and the promotion of it the test by which to judge of all human conduct;² ³From whence it necessarily follows that it must be the criterion of morality.² The Habituated Will 131, 132 ³Will, the active phenomenon, is a different thing from desireŠ and though originally an offshoot from it may in time take root and detach itself from the parent stock;² ³So much so that in the case of an habitual purpose, instead of willing the thing because we desire it, we often desire it only because we will it.² The Habituated Will 132 ³Many indifferent things, which men originally did from a motive of some sort, they continue to do from habit. Sometimes this is done unconsciously. Other times volition has become habitual. Finally, a will that is conformed to virtue, habituated to virtue, does those things that are concomitant with happiness. The Habituated Will 132 ³The distinction between will and desire thus understood, is an authentic and highly important psychological fact; but that fact consists solely in this‹² ³that willŠ is amenable to habit and that we may will from habit what we no longer desire for itself, or desire only because we will it.² The Habituated Will 132 ³Both in feeling and in conduct, habit is the only thing which imparts certainty.² ³And it is the importance to others of being able to rely absolutely on one¹s feelings and conductŠ that the will to do right ought to be cultivated into this habitual independence.² The Habituated Will 132 ³This state of the will is a means to good, not intrinsically a good; and does not contradict the doctrine that nothing is a good to human beings but in so far as it is either itself pleasurable, or a means of attaining pleasure or averting pain.² ³But if this is true, the principle of utility is proved.²