Mill’s proof of utilitarianism

The principle of utility

• actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. happiness is the only ultimate end.

  • Not fully utilitarianism (binary) - implication is that morality comes in degrees.

  • An action can be both right and wrong.

Mill’s proof

1. Each person’s happiness is desirable as an end.

2. The happiness of all persons is desirable as an end.

3. Nothing other than happiness is desirable as an end.

4. If happiness is the only thing desirable as an end, the promotion of happiness is the only criterion of morality.

5. Therefore, the promotion of happiness is the only criterion of morality.

Type of proof

• Morality is a first principle (claim about ultimate ends) - cannot be proven in ordinary sense, other proofs depend on it.

• Empiricist - only way to prove a fundamental principle is by observing the evidence.

  • Considerations put forward to “convince the intellect of its truth”.

  • Defeasible evidence.

  • Rationally persuade readers of his conclusion by encouraging them to look.

    • Noticing that we desire only happiness is evidence - desire is perception of value to Mill.

Each person’s happiness is desirable

• “Each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness.”

• Happiness = pleasure and the absence of pain. Aim is to prove that the pleasure of each person is a good to that person.

• ANALOGY: “the only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible, is that people hear it.”

  • Epistemic point - desire is the only kind of evidence we have for ends.

• Universally, people desire happiness, therefore happiness is desirable.

Moore’s objection to “each person’s happiness is desirable”

Naturalistic fallacy with regards to the term ‘good’

• “the failure to distinguish the unique and indefinable quality that is meant by good”

Mill equivocates on the term “desirable”

• An argument equivocates when the argument is valid only if a certain term has the same meaning across different uses in different premises, but also that the truth of those premises depends on that term having different meaning across those uses.

Shifts from a meaning of the word in the sense of what is desired, a psychological fact, to a sense of the word meaning ought to desire, a moral obligation.

• Can state “people desire happiness” (have the capability to desire happiness), but conclusion that happiness is good (desirable - worthy of desire) lacks weight.

Conflates means with ends.

Crisp’s disagreement with Moore

• Moore’s objection misses the mark - Mill wasn’t defining words. He wanted to show that happiness is good, desirable as an end.

• Crisp says Mill follows this sort of argument: “desire offers the only evidence for something’s being good” (Crisp).

  • Mill is aware of the distinction between “is” and “ought”, shown in A System of Logic.

    • Aim was not a formal deductive argument. It was an empirical appeal to the only available evidence: desire.

    • The fact that everyone desires happiness does not logically entail that they should, yet it still might be (not conclusive) evidence for Mill’s argument.

• Mill isn’t giving a deductively valid argument - provisional evidence for goodness in the form of desire.

The happiness of all persons is desirable

• Aggregate principle of happiness: “no reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person… desires his own happiness.”

• Transition from egoistic to universalistic hedonism? Fallacy of composition.

  • Assume a collection of people must have a certain property due to members of that collection all having that property. E.g. assume that because each brick that a house is made of is light in weight, the house itself is light in weight.

    • Mill assumes that because each individual’s happiness is a good to themselves (desirable), the general happiness is (desirable).

  • HOWEVER: Mill is not claiming a new property of the ‘aggregate’; he is instead considering additivity - if each person’s happiness is a good, then more total happiness is better, other things equal.

Assumptions 1

• Additivity - Happiness is a good that can be aggregated.

  • Total happiness is therefore a good.

    • How happiness can be summed? How to measure happiness?

Assumptions 2

• Impartiality - Each person has reason to impartially promote total happiness over preferring their own.

  • When summing happiness, the distinction between persons must be irrelevant.

    • Surely self-interest should be allowed some rational weight.

Assumptions 2

• Impartiality - Each person has reason to impartially promote total happiness over preferring their own.

  • When summing happiness, the distinction between persons must be irrelevant.

    • Surely self-interest should be allowed some rational weight.

Happiness is the only thing desirable as an end

• Individuals desire things which are “distinguished from happiness,” for their own sakes, such as virtue. ONLY desired “as a part of” or as a means.

• “The ingredients” of happiness are many

Associationism move for “happiness is the only thing desirable as an end”

• Associationism: Initially, virtue was only desired as a means to the satisfaction of happiness, but as an association between virtue and pleasure forms, we begin to desire virtue as an end. - money, power, fame, etc.

• Habitual reinforcement - virtue becomes incorporated into our compound notion of pleasure.

  • When we desire virtue as a part of happiness, we desire the enjoyable experiences of being virtuous - in desiring virtue, what we really desire is in fact happiness/pleasure.

  • My happiness = enjoyable experiences that constitute it.

• Hence, “the strength of any desire for any end is proportional to how pleasant the idea of it is to the desirer.”

Moore’s money criticism

• Suggests Mill was saying: money could be desired as part of PLEASURE (a psychological emotion).

  • Individuals find coins a physical part of a pleasant emotion.

• Mill confused “cause of desire” (money, virtue, etc) with “object of desire” (actual coins).

Objections to “happiness is the only thing desirable as an end”

• One might value virtue even when it is burdensome and not experienced as pleasant. Virtue can be an ultimate end independently of pleasure.

  • People may act for certain purposes even after the pleasures of pursuing them are diminished or outweighed by pains due to lack of thought on it.

• Can you desire the happiness of others then?

Willing vs desiring

• “will is the child of desire”, which eventually “passes into the dominion of” habit. Individuals can carry out virtuous acts having previously willed it and continue to do so through habit.

• Things perceived to be ‘desired’ as ends = once willed as part of happiness, until it became habit. Perhaps one can will others’ happiness, with the awareness that it contributes to one’s own happiness, explaining altruism.

MY OPINION

• Not the crude fallacy-ridden version

• Not sound either.

• Defeasible evidence about tendency of desire

• Rests on too many assumptions. Impartiality not well-established. Associationist move doesn’t convincingly show that happiness is the only ultimate end.

• AT BEST suggestive defence