MoPhil - Mill's Proof

What is Mill’s proof of utilitarianism? 

• It is impossible to prove ultimate ends through deduction -> empiricist proof through observation and experiences

• Substantive notion of good: good/bad (simpliciter) vs relational notion of good: good/bad for me – Mill relies on both, mostly substantial but also on impartiality assumption

• Proof: S1) Every individual desires their own happiness, S2) The general happiness is desirable, S3) Only happiness is desirable, C) The general happiness is all that is desirable. 

Stage 1: Every individual desires their own happiness

• (i) The only evidence that something is desirable is that people actually desire it and (ii) If something is desirable, it is good -> (S1) Every individual desires their own happiness. 

• Appeals to faculties for proof (Crisp)

• Naturalistic fallacy: Able to be desired != out to be desired – Conflation of descriptive and normative statements (Moore)

  • But this does not apply since Mill is not trying to derive an evaluative conclusion from non-evaluative premises (Crisp)

• (i) The only evidence that something is desirable is that people actually desire it

  • Mill’s contention can be read in two ways. B) treats the fact that something is desired as a necessary, not sufficient, condition for desirability. 

    • A) If something is desired, it is good (desirable). 

    • B) If something is good (desirable), it is desired. 

      • (a) Is the fact that people desire something empirical evidence that it is good?

      • (b) Is the fact that people desire something the sole empirical evidence it is possible to produce that it is good? 

  • (a) is vulnerable to conflicting desires and bad desires, but these are not issues due to higher/lower pleasure distinction and that people can have misguided desires

  • (b) Something being desired is the sole empirical evidence it is possible to produce – Desire is a necessary condition for goodness

• (ii) If something is desirable, it is good

  • Relational: Desirable for A, then it is good for A. This works if we adopt the evidential view, as then ‘desirable’ should be read as ‘worthy of being desired’.

  • Substantive:  Desirable, then it is good. On the evidential view, this pre-supposes a notion of universal value. Arguably this is what Mill supports (e.g. when there are competing interests, we can weigh the two values and find the one that is ‘good’). 

  • Potential solution: Move from a substantive to a relational notion. The issue is that then other parts of the proof do not work. 

• (iii) Every individual desires their own happiness. 

  • It is unlikely that individuals do not desire their own happiness

  • Self sacrifice/self loathing is still in virtue of own happiness

Stage 2: The general happiness is desirable

• Mill’s second step is a step of generalisation from the happiness of each individual to the happiness of all. 

• (i) Every individual desires their own happiness. (S1 of Proof)

• (ii) Each person’s happiness is a good for that person. 

• (iii) The general happiness is a good to the aggregate of persons. 

  • (iiib) We should pursue the general happiness. 

• Problem: general happiness is a good for each individual seems naïve. There are clear examples where this is not the case: think of a public good, like streetlights, where each individual acts efficiently yet the optimal outcome is not reached. 

  • Mill – rebuts this idea in a letter to Henry Jones. He says that ‘in a good society’ this would be the case. Instead, his view is that since A’s happiness is a good, and B’s is a good, and C’s, then the aggregate must be as well.

  • NOTE: This commits Mill to a substantive notion of value. 

• Problem: the fallacy of composition: Mill simply makes an assumption: the additive assumption

• Problem: the additive nature of goodness is not enough to make the general happiness the end of each subject. 

  • The egoist could support the second premise and additive assumption, but deny the step to (iiib) that this is a reason to pursue the general happiness.

  • Mll assumes impartiality and morality. Assume altruistic tendencies.

• Main problem: Assumptions. If we assume a purely impartial, substantial and aggregative notion of the good, and also pre-suppose that we are moral agents convinced that moral rules are justified with respect to the ends they promote, then we might accept Mill’s proof

Stage 3: Nothing other than happiness is desirable.

• P5) Nothing other than happiness is desirable.

• P6) The general happiness is the only desirable end.

• Mill – argues for P5) through associationism. We originally desire other things (e.g. virtue, money) as a means to happiness, but because they have become so closely psychologically associated with happiness, we come to take pleasure from those things in themselves.

Nuances:

• Accepting Mill’s assumptions and accepting a substantial notion of goodness, his proof works. 

• What brings Mill down is the assumptions he makes, and the effects that reading him charitably in one part has on other parts. Reading him with a substantial notion of goodness makes the step from desirability to goodness harder and more prone to questioning. 

• Ultimately, the issue with Mill’s proof is conflating substantial and relational notions of goodness. He just cannot escape this. 

• Out of his three steps, the second is the most damning.

• Out of all the assumptions he makes, the impartiality assumption and the teleological assumptions are the most problematic. 

Moore

• Desirable != able to be desired. It means “ought/deserved” to be desired

  • Analogy with the visible and audible is flawed 

• Naturalistic fallacy: good != desirable

Seth

• Composition fallacy: when transitioning from egoistic to universal hedonism

  • Mill says good for A + good for B = good for (A + B)

• Figure of speech fallacy: Desirable can mean what can be desired or what ought to be desired 

  • What mill means is that what we ought to desire is what we are able to desire so both definitions work

Hall

• Response to Moore’s naturalistic fallacy claim 

• Naturalistic fallacy means that Mill confused two properties which is part of a definist fallacy

• Mill would only say that good is desirable. But desirable is not identical with desired. So we do not need to test that good is identical with desired.

• “A desirable desire is not a desired desire” 

  • Moore’s argument breaks down.

Raphael

• Fallicies Mill makes:

  • Sanction & motive

  • Desire & pleasant

  • Volition with habit

  • “Everyone has an equal right to happiness” & “equal amounts of happiness are equally desirable, whether felt by the same or by different persons”

• Fallacies that Mill does not make:

  • Fallacy of figure of speech: desirable vs desired 

    • Assumes that Mill is trying to give a strict proof 

  • Fallacy of composition/division

    • Happiness of all is a good since “everyone desires his own happiness”

  • Qualitative distinction 

    • Fool and pig are satisfied because capacities of enjoyment are satisfied

• Mill only makes fallacies when replying to objections