Philosophy 361 Ethics Darwall Fall 1996 MILL II I Recall Mill's project: to determine the criterion of right. Utilitarianism refers to Mill's proposal for what this criterion is. His initial statement: "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." (Ch II, par. 2) This is a utilitarian theory of right (and wrong). II Utilitarianism as a particular version of consequentialism. (See Mill I: IV) III Mill's criterion of the right is thus based on his theory of the good. A. Nonmoral rather than moral good. B. Good for persons (i.e., what makes a person's life go well or be good for her). What is for her good or benefit. C. Intrinsic rather than extrinsic good. IV. Mill's theory is a version of hedonism: "pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends." (II,par. 2) and "happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end." (IV,par. 2) 1. "desirable as an end" means "worth desiring for its own sake and irrespective of any further thing it causes."] 2. What is happiness? Mill says: "By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure." (II,par. 2) But now we need to ask: What does he mean by pleasure and pain? V This was a matter about which Mill's predecessor, Jeremy Bentham, was fairly clear. For Bentham, all pleasures are feelings or sensations which differ intrinsically only in their intensity and duration. Pleasures differ of course in their causes, but this is not an intrinsic difference. Example: pushpin and poetry. The activities or experiences involved in these are intrinsically different, but insofar as each is pleasurable, it is because each causes an experience, pleasure, which is identical, except, perhaps, in respect of intensity and duration. Thus, for Bentham, pleasures differ intrinsically only along these two quantitative dimensions. We may call Bentham's view that how good a person's life is (for her) is entirely a function of the amount of pleasure in it and that that is entirely a function of the intensity and duration of pleasurable experiences: quantitative hedonism. VI One way of seeing whether Mill agrees with this is to examine his "proof" of the principle of utility in Ch. IV. How does this proof go? Analyze first: IV, para. 3. Note: (i) Mill takes psychological experience, specifically what we desire, as evidence, indeed, conclusive evidence, about the good. [Question: Mill is clearly assuming an epistemology of value here. Do you think he is also assuming a (metaphysical, and hence metaethical) theory about what value itself is? What would it be?] (ii) Note how Mill first concludes (a) that each person's happiness is "a good to that person", and then, on that basis, that (b) the general happiness is "a good to the aggregate of all persons", and, from that, (c) the general happiness is "one of the ends of conduct and, consequently, one of the criteria of morality." (iii) Since Mill wants to argue that only pleasure (happiness) is desirable as an end, he needs a stronger premise. He needs something like: persons only desire their own pleasure (happiness) in itself. (iv) But here is where things get complicated, because Mill also wants to hold that we desire many things for their own sake (e.g. virtue, music, and health--and even money!) and not just "as a means to happiness" (IV,para 5) Nonetheless, Mill says, even in such cases, these things are desired as "part of happiness" or as an "ingredient of happiness". "Happiness is not," Mill writes, "an abstract idea but a concrete whole; and these [health, music, virtue] are some of its parts." (IV,para 6). VII What does this view come to, and how does it compare with Bentham's? At the least, it entails that pleasures can differ intrinsically in qualitative as well as quantitative features. Suppose a person finds poetry intrinsically enjoyable, desires it for its own sake [n.b. "desiring a thing and finding it pleasant, aversion to it and thinking of it as painful, are phenomena entirely inseparable or rather, two parts of the same phenomenon--in strictness of language, two different modes of naming the same psychological fact." (IV,para 10)] Poetry will then be part of this person's pleasure--his pleasure will include this intrinsically, and not just as cause. Thus the pleasures of pushpin and poetry will differ intrinsically in their qualitiative, and not just quantitative, features. VIII Is this view really hedonism? Mill wants to call everything we intrinsically desire part of or an ingredient in the person's pleasure or happiness because desiring something and finding it pleasant are the same psychological phenomenon. But we can distinguish between: (a) finding something pleasant (taking pleasure in it or enjoying it (or the thought of it)), and (b) the thing which one finds pleasant (takes pleasure in or enjoys). Which of these is Mill saying is intrinsically valuable? If it is (b), then is it really pleasure that is being said to be intrinsically valuable, or that in which the person takes pleasure? ********************************************************* *************** Text Analysis Project Assignment for 9/19: U, ch.2, para. 19-29 (pp. 17-21): "The objectors to utilitarianism . . . need be anxious to repel." ********************************************************* ***************