some facts of mill’s life

Some Facts of Mill’s Life

• Mill’s early biography mirrors Bentham’s in several ways. – Both were very precocious. – Both pushed to study Greek and Latin.

• Mill’s dad was a Benthamite who home-schooled Mill.

• At 20, Mill had a nervous breakdown.• It caused Mill to re-examine Bentham’s

utilitarianism.

Rawls’ Comparison of Christians’ Response to Hobbes and Utilitarians’

• In section on Sidgwick, pp. 394-395

• “For the most part, what bothered them (the utilitarians) about Hobbes was not his atheism, if atheist he was, or his materialism, determinism and individualism.”

Cudworth

Cudworth

Theism

Cudworth

Theism& Non-autonomy of Ethics

Cudworth


Dualism (mind and body)

Cudworth



Free will (libertarianism)

Cudworth




Moral sensibility and benevolence

Cudworth





Eternal and immutable morality

Cudworth Hobbes






Cudworth Hobbes(Perceived or Real)








Atheism







Atheism or Secularism (Autonomy)








Dualism (mind and body) Materialism







Dualism (mind and body) Materialismand Unorthodox Christianity








Free will (libertarianism) Determinism







Free will (libertarianism) Determinism andMetaphysical Compatibilism









Psychological Egoism








Psychological Egoism (Compatibility with Ethics)










Ethical Relativism


Utilitarianism(Hume, Bentham, the Mills, Sidgwick)








Ethical Relativism

Mill and Bentham on Religion

• Bentham was an atheist

• Mill in “Utility and Religion,” argued that there were no good arguments for supernaturalist accounts of the world, except perhaps the Argument from Design– But due to Darwinism, the jury is out– Still, he argued (as with Hume) for a “problem of evil” -- that the

existence of evil was evidence against an omnipotent God– Mill endorsed a “Religion of Humanity,” in which history is seen as “an

unremitting conflict between good and evil powers, of which every act done by any of us, insignificant as we are, forms one of the incidents” (“Inaugural Address to St. Andrews 1867”)

• Utilitarianism is seen as an alternative to the morality of religion but not a threat to religion and in some cases, by Mill, as consistent with religious morality





Secularism, whether with or without Atheism

Dualism (mind and body) Materialism and Unorthodox Christianity

Free will (libertarianism) Determinism and Metaphysical Compatibilism




Ethical Relativism

Mill on Materialism

• Mill is a scientific humanist & thus a materialist– On reports of miracles: “The facts … even if faithfully

reported, are never incompatible with the supposition that they were either mere coincidences, or were produced by natural means”

– On belief in souls: “Nothing could be more natural than such a fancy; it is, in appearance, completely realized in dreams”

– On deism: Due to Darwinism, the jury is out on the Argument from Design

• Along with Hume, argues that Nature does not dictate ethics – thus, no ought from is







Materialism& Independence of Materialism from Ethics





Ethical Relativism

Utilitarianism & Determinism

• The utilitarians made the debate over free will and determinism irrelevant to ethics

• Determinism was no threat to ethics, they would have argued – all that’s important in determining right or wrong are the consequences

• Bentham’s theory of punishment paid attention to motive, but only because it was groundless, inefficacious, unprofitable or needless when there was no moral responsibility

• What was important was the motive and the moral responsibility, not the metaphysics









Determinism Irrelevant to Ethics




Ethical Relativism

Psychological Egoism

• Here there was a difference between Bentham and Mill

• Bentham followed Hobbes in being a psychological egoist

• Whether or not this was connected to Bentham’s atheism is not clear

• Mill rejected psychological egoism and regarded it as irrelevant to ethics

• Mill admires the altruistic pronouncements of Jesus












Bentham: Hobbes’s egoismMill: Egoism irrelevant


Ethical Relativism

Utlitarianism & Relativism

• What all utilitarians had in common was a rejection of ethical relativism

• Objectivity in ethics: the principle of utility and its mathematical implications

• There is variation of a sort – something might be ethical for you but not for me – but it depends on different circumstances

• Mill got rid of the variation by adopting rule utilitarianism (against Bentham’s act utilitarianism) & the standpoint of the permanent interests of humankind












Bentham: Hobbes’s egoismMill: Egoism irrelevant


Ethical Relativism Ethical objectivity (the Principle of Utility, etc)

Mill’s “Remarks on Bentham’s Philosophy”

In “Remarks on Bentham’s Philosophy”

Mill criticizes Bentham’s positions we looked

at last week:

• The Principle of Utility• Bentham’s psychological egoism and

hedonism• Bentham’s attempt to argue for the Principle

of Utility.

Mill’s Summary of Bentham’s Main Principles

• “The first principles of Mr. Bentham’s philosophy are these;—that happiness, meaning by that term pleasure and exemption from pain, is the only thing desirable in itself; that all other things are desirable solely as means to that end: that the production, therefore, of the greatest possible happiness, is the only fit purpose of all human thought and action, and consequently of all morality and government; and moreover, that pleasure and pain are the sole agencies by which the conduct of mankind is in fact governed, whatever circumstances the individual may be placed in, and whether he is aware of it or not” (Mill’s summary in par. 2 of RBP).

Bentham’s Principle of Utility

“By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness” (Principles, I: II).

Three Interpretations of Bentham’s Principle of Utility

• Interpretation 1: A type of act a is morally right to degree n if and only if a tends to produce happiness to degree n.

• Interpretation 2: A token-action a is morally right if and only if a produces more pleasure than pain.

• Interpretation 3: A token-action a is morally right if and only if a produces at least as great a balance of pleasure over pain as any alternative (where an alternative to an action a =df. another act that the person who would do a if it were to be done – the “agent” – could do instead at that time) – i.e., a, we might say, “maximizes” pleasure.

Mill’s Criticism of Bentham’s “Principle of Specific Consequences”

• “[9] Now, the great fault I have to find with Mr. Bentham as a moral philosopher … is this: that he has practically, to a very great extent, confounded the principle of Utility with the principle of specific consequences, and has habitually made up his estimate of the approbation or blame due to a particular kind of action, from a calculation solely of the consequences to which that very action, if practised generally, would itself lead. He has largely exemplified, and contributed very widely to diffuse, a tone of thinking, according to which any kind of action or any habit, which in its own specific consequences cannot be proved to be necessarily or probably productive of unhappiness to the agent himself or to others, is supposed to be fully justified; and any disapprobation or aversion entertained towards the individual by reason of it, is set down from that time forward as prejudice and superstition. It is not considered (at least, not habitually considered,) whether the act or habit in question, though not in itself necessarily pernicious, may not form part of a character essentially pernicious, or at least essentially deficient in some quality eminently conducive to the “greatest happiness.” To apply such a standard as this, would indeed often require a much deeper insight into the formation of character, and knowledge of the internal workings of human nature, than Bentham possessed.” (¶9 of “Remarks on Bentham’s Philosophy”)

Mill’s Inference

• Mill accuses Bentham of – focusing entirely on consequences – not caring about human psychology or character

• So the principle of utility is said to be confused with “the principle of specific consequences.”

• In light of that criticism, Mill comes up with 4 kinds of responses in chapter 2 of Utilitarianism.

Mill’s Response to Bentham in Chapter II of Utilitarianism

• The Distinction Between Higher and Lower Pleasures

• Happiness as “a Manner of Existence” the Ultimate End, and Not as Mere Pleasure

• The Principle of “Socrates Dissatisfied”; the Sense of Dignity

• The Revision of the Greatest Happiness Principle

The Doctrine of Swine Objection to Bentham’s Utilitarianism

• “[S]uch a theory of life [as Bentham’s simple hedonism] excites in many minds, … inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than pleasure—no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit—they designate as utterly mean and grovelling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine….” (Utilitarianism, Chapter II, ¶3)

Using Nozick’s Experience Machine to Illustrate the Objection

• Nozick’s Example from Anarchy, State and Utopia: Imagine an “experience machine” that can feed people pleasurable experiences, and suppose that there is an intensity button and a duration button.

• If everyone were ordered to be hooked up to the machine and everyone’s dials were turned up all the way to maximum so that everyone was at the greatest intensity and the greatest duration (which produces the greatest pleasure), then a dictator would be doing what the principle of utility says to do.

• Such a thing is absurd because the life on the machine seems no better than the life of a pig. Given that the experience machine life isn’t a life worth living, there must be something wrong with the principle of utility.

Mill’s Revision: Distinguishing Higher from Lower Pleasures

• T]here 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 sensation. It must be admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, &c., of the former—that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And on all these points utilitarians have fully proved their case; but they might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone. (Utilitarianism, Chapter II, ¶4)

The Decided Preference Criterion (as Rawls Calls It)

• “If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account.” (Utilitarianism, Chapter II, ¶5)

The Problem

• Mill suggests that we should not simply take into account the quantity of pleasure but also the quality of pleasure. Then the question arises: How are we supposed to take the quality into account? With quantity we can calculate mathematically with the hedonic calculus, but if we introduce the variable of quality, it’s not obvious at all how the calculations are going to go through.

• Returning to the hot fudge sundae example: Which should I do -- read a book or eat a sundae? On the face of it, if all that you have to go on is intensity and duration and both are equally intense and both have equal duration than it seems straightforward. The higher pleasure gets preferred over the lower. But, what if the higher has shorter duration and lower intensity than the lower pleasure of eating the sundae? How they compare is not obvious.

Summary of Decided Preference Criterion

(Due to Rawls, p. 260)

• Acquaintance: Persons making the comparison must be competently acquainted with both

• Self-consciousness: These persons must have “settled habits of self-consciousness and self-observation”

• Autonomy: The decided preference arrived at not influenced by a sense of moral obligation

• Intrinsic pleasure: The decided preference must be formed not on the basis of circumstantial advantages or consequences but in view of intrinsic pleasure

Happiness as a “manner of existence” is the ultimate end, not mere pleasure

• “Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast’s pleasures….” (Utilitarianism II:¶6).

• The idea: Higher connected with enduring activities in a way that lower isn’t.

• Thus, Mill takes the preference to attach to a “manner of existence” which employs higher faculties – a second-order desire to have desires

The Sense of Dignity and the Principle of “Socrates Dissatisfied”

• “We may give what explanation we please of this unwillingness [to sink into a lower grade of existence as] … a sense of dignity, which all human beings possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact, proportion to their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them. Whoever supposes that this preference takes place as a sacrifice of happiness—that the superior being, in anything like equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior—confounds the two very different ideas, of happiness, and content. It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly-endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” (Utilitarianism, II: ¶6)

Analysis of Text

• Notice this sense of dignity is connected to the development of higher faculties. There is a kind of behaviorist conception of the development of the faculties here, for it seems that your faculties are not innately developed according to this picture but, rather, are developed on the basis of culture, education, and social circumstances.

• The person with these more developed higher faculties will have farther to fall, so to speak.

• To be a pig satisfied is to be degraded. To be a fool satisfied would be degraded to being treated as a fool and to treat oneself as a fool would be to degrade oneself.

• Rawls doesn’t simply satisfy himself with the last sentence of the quote, but ties it to the sense of dignity, which is crucial in understanding Mill.

… And of What Rawls Calls the “Principle of Dignity”

• “We may give what explanation we please of this unwillingness [to sink into a lower grade of existence as] … a sense of dignity, which all human beings possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact, proportion to their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them.” (Utilitarianism II:6)

• Utilitarianism …could only attain its end by the general cultivation of nobleness of character, even if each … were only benefited by the nobleness of others, and his own, so far as happiness is concerned, were a sheer deduction from the benefit. (Utilitarianism II:9)

Two Things Going on in Mill’s Utilitarianism Beyond What Bentham Holds

• Mill makes reference to the higher faculties and the idea that some people have more developed higher faculties than other people. In those people with more developed higher faculties, the higher pleasures are going to play more of a role in decision-making than those with less cultivated higher faculties.

• That means that there are things that are going to play a role in their lives (those with cultivated higher faculties) and, further, in their society’s goals. The standpoint from which choices are made are not personal standpoints anymore. We’re not interested in what actual people actually desire. We’re interested in the long-term interests of society and in changing society so that people are going to want better things (so that they are capable of more good—producing the highest amount of utility).

Differences Between Mill and Bentham

• Mill has a much wider conception of what’s desirable, in our interest, and thus of what is to be maximized in choices: pleasure generally vs. higher pleasures, where possible.

• The cultivation in Mill of the “nobleness of character”• Cultivation of nobleness as part of what Mill calls “the

ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people), … an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments.”

Mill’s Addition of Happiness as “a Manner of Existence” as the Ultimate End ….

Mill: “According to the Greatest Happiness Principle, as above explained, the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable (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; the test of quality, and the rule for measuring it against quantity, being the preference felt by those who, in their opportunities of experience, to which must be added their habits of self-consciousness and self-observation, are best furnished with the means of comparison. This, being, according to the utilitarian opinion, the end of human action, is necessarily also the standard of morality; which may accordingly be defined, the rules and precepts for human conduct, by the observance of which an existence such as has been described might be, to the greatest extent possible, secured to all mankind; and not to them only, but, so far as the nature of things admits, to the whole sentient creation.” Utilitarianism, II: ¶10.

Mill’s Response to Bentham in Chapters III & V of Utilitarianism

• Against Bentham’s psychological egoism

• Against Bentham’s narrow account of human motivation

• Against Bentham’s act utilitarianism

Bentham’s Psychological Egoism

Bentham thinks that everything we do we do out of a desire for the good and that for human beings the good – the object of desire – is pleasure and avoidance of pain:

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure,” he writes at the outset of Ch. I of Principles. “It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the

while.”

Mill’s Response in “Remarks”

• Recall Mill’s response in “Remarks”• Mill: “That the actions of sentient beings are wholly determined by

pleasure and pain, is the fundamental principle from which he starts; and thereupon Mr. Bentham creates a motive, and an interest, corresponding to each pleasure or pain…. Now if this only means … that our actions are determined by pleasure and pain, that simple and unambiguous mode of stating the proposition is preferable. But under cover of the obscurer phrase a meaning creeps in, both to the author’s mind and the reader’s, which goes much farther, and is entirely false: that all our acts are determined by pains and pleasures in prospect, pains and pleasures to which we look forward as the consequences of our acts. This, as a universal truth, can in no way be maintained.” (“Remarks on Bentham’s Philosophy,” ¶24)

Mill’s Response (cont.)

• “The pain or pleasure which determines our conduct is as frequently one which precedes the moment of action as one which follows it. A man may, it is true, be deterred, in circumstances of temptation, from perpetrating a crime, by his dread of the punishment, or of the remorse, which he fears he may have to endure after the guilty act; and in that case we may say with some kind of propriety, that his conduct is swayed by the balance of motives; or, if you will, of interests. But the case may be, and is to the full as likely to be, that he recoils from the very thought of committing the act; the idea of placing himself in such a situation is so painful, that he cannot dwell upon it long enough to have even the physical power of perpetrating the crime.”

Mill’s Response (cont.)

• “I am persuaded, from experience, that [the] habit of speaking of all the feelings which govern mankind under the name of interests, is almost always in point of fact connected with a tendency to consider interest in the vulgar sense, that is, purely self-regarding interest, as exercising, by the very constitution of human nature, a far more exclusive and paramount control over human actions than it really does exercise. Such, certainly, was the tendency of Mr. Bentham’s own opinions. Habitually, and throughout his works, the moment he has shown that a man’s selfish interest would prompt him to a particular course of action, he lays it down without further parley that the man’s interest lies that way; and, by sliding insensibly from the vulgar sense of the word into the philosophical, and from the philosophical back into the vulgar, the conclusion which is always brought out is, that the man will act as the selfish interest prompts.” (Utilitarianism, Chapter II, ¶28)

A Broader Response in Utilitarianism

In Utilitarianism, Mill goes much farther in his rejection of Bentham’s psychology, setting out a variety of psychological principles that make clear that he is not an associationist like Hume, and nor a psychological egoist or psychological hedonist like Bentham. What follows are some of the principles that Rawls mentions (what Rawls interprets Mill to have in mind in ¶3 of Chapter V by the phrase “the general laws of our emotional constitution”).

Psychological Principles Rawls Finds in Utilitarianism

• (a) The Decided Preference Criterion (II:4)• (b) The Aristotelian principle, which Rawls mentions on both p. 269 and on p. 300 of

LHPP but which he says nothing else. In A Theory of Justice, however, the principle plays a special role in describing the good of justice. There Rawls writes (in sec. 65): “It will be recalled that the Aristotelian principle runs as follows: other things equal, human beings enjoy the exercise of their realised capacities (their innate or trained abilities), and this enjoyment increases the more the capacity is realised, or the greater its complexity.” Rawls finds this principle implicitly appealed to – it is never stated explicitly – in Mill’s defense of the Decided Preference Criterion in par. 8 of Chap. II of Utilitarianism.

• ( c ) The “principle of dignity,” as Rawls calls it – or better, the sense of dignity. Recall what Mill writes in Chap. III of Utilitarianism.a(see what I quote under ( c ) The principle of “Socrates dissatisfied” above). Rawls argues that Mill uses language of ideals and perfection in setting this out which goes beyond the value of what’s enjoyable or pleasing (LHPP, 265)

• (d) The desire to be in unity with others. This Rawls finds in pars. 8-11 of Utilitarianism, chap. III.

• (e) The principle of individuality. This, too, I will discuss after the break, in connection with On Liberty.

The Motivation Problem

• Bentham seems almost entirely to have ignored the motivation problem:

• Why would we be motivated to act according to the principle of utility?

• Problem more difficult due to his egoism

• He does recognize a role for punishment – “external sanction,” as Mill calls it – and much of Principles is taken up with it

The Motivation Problem Remains

• What Bentham says won’t do

• So Mill has the problem of showing that acting on the basis of the Greatest Happiness Principle can be consistent with the way humans are motivated

• It obviously won’t do to hold that humans should be so motivated to act according to the principle whether in fact they ever do

Chapter Three of Utilitarianism

• Mill’s rejection of Bentham’s “principle of specific consequences” is motivated by his responding to this problem

• So is the account of the psychology and sociology of a utilitarian society in chapter three of Utilitarianism

Two Kinds of Motivation Discussed in Chapter Three

• “External sanctions”• Rewards• Bentham’s punishments

• “Internal sanctions”• conscience, • conscientiousness, • consciousness of duty

The Role of “The Social Feelings of Mankind” in Chapter Three

The importance to both sorts of motivation of “the social feelings of mankind”

(a) Equality

(b) Cooperation

(c) Sympathy

Equality

“… Society between equals can only exist on the understanding that the interests of all are to be regarded equally.” (10th par. of Chap. 3)

Ambiguous between:

READING ONE• Equality requires that all interests be treated equally –

requires that we do not distinguish between this interest and that interest.

• READING TWO• Equality requires that all individuals be treated equally as

sources of interests – requires that we do not distinguish between this person as a source of interests and that person as a source of interests.

Another Difference: Cooperation, Sympathy, Civilization

• “.. They are also familiar with the fact of co-operating with others and proposing to themselves a collective, not an individual interest as the aim (at least for the time being) of their actions. So long as they are co-operating, their ends are identified with those of others; there is at least a temporary feeling that the interests of others are their own interests. Not only does all strengthening of social ties, and all healthy growth of society, give to each individual a stronger personal interest in practically consulting the welfare of others; it also leads him to identify his feelings more and more with their good, or at least with an even greater degree of practical consideration for it. He comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of course pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing naturally and necessarily to be attended to, like any of the physical conditions of our existence. Now, whatever amount of this feeling a person has, he is urged by the strongest motives both of interest and of sympathy to demonstrate it, and to the utmost of his power encourage it in others; and even if he has none of it himself, he is as greatly interested as any one else that others should have it. Consequently the smallest germs of the feeling are laid hold of and nourished by the contagion of sympathy and the influences of education; and a complete web of corroborative association is woven round it, by the powerful agency of the external sanctions.

• “This mode of conceiving ourselves and human life, as civilisation goes on, is felt to be more and more natural.” (10th par. of Utilitarianism, Chap. Three)

Analysis

• There’s overlapping interest in the members of society and increasingly so. As the society develops, overall utility increases and it increases for all its members.

• Mill is very much interested in the idea that this kind of socialism maximizes utility and it makes everyone happier.

– “This mode of conceiving ourselves and human life, as civilisation goes on, is felt to be more and more natural.” (Utilitarianism III: ¶10)

• Notice that that kind of conception is contradicted by some modern social theorists who claim that there is increasing individualism (“bowling alone”), which is at odds with what Mill is taking for granted here.

A Concern That a Utilitarian Should Address

While cooperation does require common interests, there can be no cooperation without individual interests and thus the distinction between the interests of oneself and the interests of others. Cooperation is possible where interests overlap. But cooperation is different from servility, where one has an interest in others’ interests only because others have those interests. Mill must somehow make the distinction.

some facts of mill’s life

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